So It Was

Rose Labelle felt a strange chill down her spine that morning.

It wasn't like any other feeling she had before. Something just seemed… off. About the world. It couldn't be mistaken for a hangover, for she had only one beer the night before, and she was a lot more tolerant than that. She couldn't be drowsy; her medication wouldn't cause that. It'd probably clear by the time she got to work anyway. Life went on as normal then, except for the sensation running through her body. Despite all efforts to continue as usual to distract herself from the feeling she had, she couldn't help it. It felt as if her body was breaking itself apart, bit by tiny bit.

The ride over didn't help either. Rose's car radio was busted (when she had just bought the car not a month ago), traffic was minimal, if existent at all and left minimal background noise, and the roads seemed to be more jagged than usual. Thirty minutes later, when she arrived at the parking lot in the back of the facility, it was evident that no one had arrived for work either. She might have been early, so she checked her watch. It read 8:45 AM. The car said 6:15.

But Site-19 was quiet too. Not a single researcher wandering the halls, hurrying to their post. Something was clearly amiss. Maybe a stray memetic effect from working with an SCP the week before? In that case, her boss would have to know. The corridors and hallways were fairly complex to navigate. It was part of the design, after all. In the case of a containment breach, minimizing a chance for a skip to break out was the main goal. Given the amount Rose walked these hallways by now though, locating her office (and her boss's area a couple hundred meters away) wasn't tough. Still, on her way there, the site was calm and serene, with only the buzzing of the lights above giving any indication that time hadn't completely stood still. If there was one thing that worried Rose, it was calm and serenity in the site. As she walked to the office, she glanced up at various wall clocks she passed by. One read 9:00. Another. 12:50.

She sat outside the office door, waiting for the secretary to come by and let her in. But after approximately two hours of waiting, no one came. The only thing left to do was formally go in and introduce herself and stated what happened, then. To her lack of surprise, the desk was empty and the chair uninhabited. It would have seemed like nothing was touched for years now. But what if her boss was there, and she couldn't perceive him due to an effect?

"Hello sir. Er, I came here to report something I fear may have happened while working with my usual skip last week." Silence. Rose waited a few beats, nervously looking around before making eye contact with where she presumed her boss to be.

"I felt some kind of weird sensation in my spine when I woke up, and my body feels strange. I'm probably feeling a lack of, uh… attachment to my body. Like I'm breaking apart. I think." No reply, except for the throat clearing that came from her.

"And I appear to be unable to perceive any human individual except for a car or two I passed by this morning on my way to work. All the clocks I've been looking at list contradictory times, and, well, I don't think I heard any activity from anyone in the site. No researchers, no skips, nothing." At this point, she could feel her heart pounding. Nervousness, she chalked it up to.

"So, at this point, I'll head over to the nursing facility and be treated. Hopefully. If I'm not already being dragged over there. Thank you." And with a final look around the office, she headed out over to the nursing facility.

Except that she stepped out into a completely different corridor now. It was white, like the rest of the facility, but it was nothing like anything in the building she saw before. The ceiling was painted an odd color, one she couldn't give a name to. Fear built up in her stomach, as she rushed to the north, which she presumed to be the correct direction. This just lead to more corridors, cells misplaced, pictures disjointed and blurry or even outright gone, and windows showing nothing but wall on the other side.

Maybe it's the late stages of the effect. Please let it be an effect.

Rose continued running through the halls, frantically looking for a way out. She even tried backtracking, although that soon resulted in more paths and mazes. If she were to ever recover from this, this would help the Foundation understand what the skip she was assigned to was truly capable of. At the very least, it'd halt testing with that abomination. This would be a good reason to stop working with it, right? Maybe then, she'd be better-rested.

Minutes had passed since she started wandering, with the site breaking down before her very eyes. Hours had gone by, and whenever she'd turn down a corridor and backtrack to observe something after the fact, it'd be replaced by a whole new one. If she stood in place and concentrated on a picture long enough, it'd eventually break down or disappear entirely. After days of navigating the labyrinth of what was formerly Site-19, the sensation got to Rose's feet. Not simply because she had kept walking with little to no pause. It just spread. She could feel her whole body shake, wanting to give up on itself.

Eventually, a door appeared. It was at the end of a hall. Surely this was the exit. No way in Hell would she turn back now, unless she was willing to wander for weeks looking for a way out. It didn't matter that the door was completely out-of-place for what Site-19 had, or that its geometric shape was impossible to enter and exit. It had to lead to somewhere, and somewhere was better than here. She went through the door, onto the other side.

It was the parking lot. Everything was almost the same, save for the sky. It was pitch-black, with the odd and sudden flourish of color appearing in one spot. Rose stared for a while, taking the sight in. She had never seen anything on this level before, and she couldn't begin to fathom what was happening. Something was happening to the world. To the Foundation. To her. All of her life, her choices, regrets, actions, built up to working for the Foundation… and it's threatening to disappear into nothing.

When she spun around, the door was gone, as was the facility. Just concrete and pavement. The blackness was falling down from the sky, and steadily creeping towards her. Whatever this was, whatever was happening, there was nothing else left to do. The sensation in her body continued to build up, to feel stranger and stranger, more painful by the second, but it didn't matter. If her surroundings were any indication, she'd be gone too. Whatever was happening, it was final.

So Rose sat on the ground, and stared out into the unending black, smiling and accepting her fate.

Thanks for the ride, everyone!

Why Shut Down Now?

During the past half-year, user and financial support has steadily declined. Although we have been trying our best to fix these bugs, we have lacked the resources to do so. Sadly, there is nothing else left to do. However, we would like to thank the userbase still with us for supporting our endeavors regardless! At the bottom of the post, we have provided links for other places where you can create your own wiki page for free, with relative ease, and for whatever idea you want. Furthermore, as we approach the end of the next two weeks, feel free to look at the following affiliates of Wikidot for more info on...