Foreword: What follows is a series of journal entries written by Dr. O’Neil. His personal account while examining SCP-3038 remains one of the few primary sources obtained from Warehouse 52 that can be verified as authentic.

Excerpt 001

I’m worried about Dr. Patel. He’s been getting worse for a while now, but the last few weeks has really put things into focus. I’m still quite shocked by the depths of his fall. Dr Patel is, or at least was a world leader in trans-dimensional mechanics. When I first arrived, I admit I was a bit star struck to learn I was working under such a scientific giant. I don’t think anything back then indicated what would happen. While always formal, he was analytical, cautious, and very understanding. He seemed to take a liking to me when we were first introduced. I thought perhaps he recognised my name from my thesis. We got to work within the first few weeks, mostly recording electromagnetic interference and such other measurements, but really we were waiting until our first arrival of D-class so we could finally see what was behind that door. But for whatever reason, they never arrived. It all came to ahead following the wire experiment. The idea was to get some plumber’s wire and feed it through the keyhole to get a better idea of what lay behind it, except we couldn’t find any wire at all. Dr. Bard was certain she had ordered in a whole spool of the stuff, and the store log confirmed the order, but it simply wasn’t there. Thinking back, I don’t think any of us recall whether the delivery had even arrived. Dr. Patel was struggling to maintain his composure but managed long enough to walk away at least. Which brings me to yesterday. Before I left for the night, I saw Dr. Patel standing in antechamber, I called out to him but he didn’t seem to hear me and instead walked slowly towards the door. I caught him moments before he reached the handle and pulled him back. He was screaming and fighting, attracting the attention of Dr. Lu and Dr. Bard. It took all three of us to subdue the man who lay on the ground in utter hysterics, flailing his arms around wildly, giving Dr. Bard a bloody nose in the process. After he calmed down, he spoke to me candidly. He was due for psychoanalysis in a few days, and was certain he wouldn’t be cleared to return. He spoke about how he was first researcher assigned to SCP-3038 ██ years ago, and initially he was working alone with very little support from the Foundation. Since then, nothing has progressed, and Foundation support has only been decreasing. He punched the table and screamed profanities about the Foundation, the likes of which I don’t feel comfortable committing to paper. After that, he broke down into tears, calling himself a failure; that today was his last chance to finally know… something, he became difficult to understand, but the whole thing was horrifying to watch. I never thought I’d see a man as great as he in such a state of utter anguish, he was like a completely different person. I sincerely hope he gets some time away from this dreary place.

Excerpt 002

Today I found myself standing in the antechamber with no clue as to why I was there. Entering the antechamber is always a surreal experience. The first time, I felt a strange sense of foreboding as I got close to the door. That’s the antechamber door rather than the door door, the SCP door. Getting near the door door was something else entirely. I could feel pressure in the back of my neck, and as I got closer I felt all the teeth in my mouth vibrate. Dr. Bard assured me that this sort of thing is pretty normal and isn’t dangerous, though I’m not so sure. These days I’d often hear a low pitched rumble or murmur, but I assumed that was normal too so I didn’t question it. This recent event was new, however. I could remember opening the antechamber door, and stepping in, but I was out of breath and could feel a sense of panic in my lungs, and as I stared at the door ahead of me… I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing here. The only thing in my hands was the card key. Dr. Bard put it down to overworking. She told me she’s had many experiences like this, and that I should not think too hard on it. But it didn’t sit right with me. I thought the cameras might have captured something, so I spoke with Andy. The software for managing the video and audio stuff is a nightmare to work with, utterly inadequate, incredibly prone to slowdown and freezing, heck, there isn’t even a live feed option. Andy just knows how to work it. I’m not sure what I’d do without him; but even with his help, it’s still a monotonous slog of a task. After a few hours, he found something. Moments before I entered the antechamber, there was a figure standing right there in the middle of the room, they slowly walked right up to the door, paused, and looked directly at the camera, at us. Playback stuttered for several seconds, and when it was restored, the figure was gone. Excited, we showed the others. Dr. Bard was convinced this was proof of entities on the other side of the door. We immediately sent out a request for D-class to attempt communication with them. Perhaps now we have some proof the Foundation will be a bit more willing to grant our request.

Excerpt 003

The psych session did not go well. They were not happy when I said that all of us had begun sleeping in the warehouse. I tried to explain it was the only way to make sure we didn’t miss anything. But it was like arguing with a rock. Psychologists aren’t real scientists, they wouldn’t understand how essential it is to be there, to catch this sort of thing in its essence. While waiting for the Foundation to get back to us, I’ve been helping Dr. Lu sort through the archived files. Well, they’re not so much files as a couple shelves worth of disorganised mess piled on top of itself, but it still needs to be gone through all the same. She’s been mainly focusing on sorting the real documents, that is, the ones we know were written by real people, from the synthetic ones. Dr. Lu has a system where she divides synthetic documents into two categories. The first are the “Pure synthetic”, authored by completely synthetic sources. The second are the “Templated synthetic” which copy the style and substance of real documents. To illustrate, she showed me two journals, the first her own, the second a templated synthetic. The handwriting was identical between them, but the synthetic one kept making references to a “Dr. Sun” who, by this account, was heavily involved in Dr. Lu’s work prior to my arrival. There wasn’t anything about a Dr. Sun in the brief I was given, and Dr. Lu was certain no one named Dr. Sun had any involvement with SCP-3038 at any point. She pulled a number of Pure synthetics from table and sure enough, this Dr. Sun character was a frequent presence in all of them. I asked her where she found this templated synthetic journal. Eventually she pointed somewhere on the shelf, saying that there were a lot of synthetics in the pile. I’ve yet to find any journals with my handwriting, but that might be because I never put this journal down. It’s always either in my pocket or in my hand.

Excerpt 004

I woke with a start last night to a loud slamming sound. I went over to investigate and found the antechamber door wide open. I raised the alarm and security came in to search the area while the three of us waited for the all clear. This took a lot longer than it should have however. They said they wanted to know where the “others” were. Apparently their register had a total of 7 names signed in. We examined the list and noticed several problems with it. For one, Dr. Sun’s name was listed close to the top, for another, my own name, Dr. O’Neil, was listed twice with different initials. Dr. Bard took one look at the rest of it and scoffed, she had not heard of any of these people, and she’s been here the longest out of all of us. The register was clearly a fake, perhaps even an example of incomplete template synthesis. When pressed, not even the security guards could really say they knew who these other names were or even recalled them ever signing in. We asked for details on where they kept the list, but they refused to tell us. In the end, security was unable to find anything. Despite this Dr. Bard was convinced we had a containment breach, as was I. Dr. Lu may be less certain, citing something she read in the archive, but how else do you explain an open cell? While Dr. Bard wrote out an incident report, I took a look at the footage, but stopped when I saw what was on the screen. Two figures, one standing stock still in the middle of the room with a turban on their head. Walking to their side was someone that looked like…me? It was me, or at least, it looked like me. I, or it, was holding what appeared to be a long metal wire, but I don’t remember this moment, no, this couldn’t have been me, this never happened. Was this another kind of synthetic?

Excerpt 005

I found Dr. Lu making a very elaborate diagram. She said she had discovered something in the archives, that it made something click in her mind and that we all had to read it. Dr. Bard brushed it off but I humoured her. After what happened, I welcomed the distraction. It was another synthetic journal, most likely Pure. The tell-tale Dr. Sun made an appearance, but there was something about the entries that made it more…difficult to dismiss? The events they wrote were startlingly similar to our own, from requests to D-class being ignored to the strange ‘Breach-like’ events. At a personal level, there was something about the writing that felt oddly familiar. I also noticed they had signed every entry with “-Mike”. As I re-read it, I noticed that Dr. Sun was mentioned frequently in the early entries, but after a certain point, all reference to them had stopped. I managed to pinpoint the exact entry they were last mentioned. ██████ ██/██/████. I knew there was something significant about this date, so I searched through our video records, and found something. Two humanoid figures were standing in the antechamber. One of them was the same figure in the turban I had seen before, the second one, however, looked strangely like me, but different. They were bald and had stubble, but their face looked so much like mine, almost like an inexact copy. They were joined by a third figure who I didn’t recognise at all. This tall figure looked like they were directing the actions of the other two, but then something happened, there was a dispute? It looked like a struggle was about to take place, but the camera froze before I could see what happened. I can’t express enough how frustrating this software is. I couldn’t even find the audio which accompanied the footage, making it really difficult to even guess as to what was going on. You’d think the Foundation would have the budget for less terrible equipment, or at the very least assign a technician to go through it for us, but no. I guess that shows how much contempt they really hold for us.

Excerpt 006

There was another incident today. I’m not sure if I could call it a breach, but Dr. Bard certainly does. The area was in utter chaos. The archive was strewn across the floor, some of the books lay half open with piles of reports all over the place. Even stranger was the crazed writing on the wall. It almost looked like a conspiracy theorist’s whiteboard, but on glass. Most unnerving was the only sentence written backwards on the inside of the glass, as though it was specifically for us. It read “Remember The Lost”. Dr. Bard looked just as on edge as I felt. She began hurriedly writing a number of requests for extra security personnel for the inside of the building. The cameras were useless, all either misaligned or out of focus, probably tampered with by whatever did all this. Perhaps it was still here with us, watching us from the shadows… I don’t care what security says, just because they couldn’t find anything doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find. The worst part is that the antechamber door was left untouched, and something wrote on both sides of the glass. I thought about the thing that looked like me from the video… Did that have something to do with this?

Excerpt 007

I’m worried about Dr. Bard. She has taken to walking around the facility with a knife. I tried to bring up what I saw in the video with her, thinking it could give her something different to focus on, but now I think that was a mistake. She started looking at me strangely and demanded to know why I only just now informed her. As she got closer, the knife in her hand flashed my eyes and I started to back away. She must have seen how terrified I was because she calmed down and apologised. I decided not to write an incident report for the behaviour. She was at breaking point after all. We both were. It must have been the letter from the Foundation that pushed her over, I know it pissed me off when I read it. They said they were denying our requests for enhanced security, that we had exceeded our request allowance for D-class personnel, and then generally complained about our lack of progress overall. I still can’t believe it. They never sent us any D-class and have barely supported us as it is! What the hell do they expect from us? Do those bastards even read the reports we send them?

Excerpt 008

Dr. Connor O’Neil’s log, Date: ██/██/████ Major events: I found myself in the antechamber opposite SCP-3038, a trail of blood leading from the centre of the room towards the object. A knife discarded by the entrance with blood clearly dripping from the blade. However, I myself only sustained mild non-life threatening injuries. Comments: I have trouble recalling what happened moments before this event. I have slight memories of screaming, a woman’s voice, a struggle, but nothing more. The noise from SCP-3038 has changed, amongst the murmur there was also a high pitched cry. The longer I listened the louder these noises become until it all resembled white noise. Security personnel brought me out of the antechamber and towards an on-site medical bay, where I write this now.

End log.

Excerpt 009

I have been advised by the psychologist to write out everything that that’s going through my head. The first thing they asked me was “How do you feel?” Probably the single most useless question you could ask anyone. Isn’t it your job to already know how I feel? How would you feel if you just spent eight months cooped up in a warehouse working on a research project with no support, and no one but a few guards around for company!? Here’s how I feel. I feel like you’re a complete idiot! And what the hell was the point of this log book anyway if it’s not an official report? Is it just for you psych people to peek into our lives? I’ve, just read through this log book and… it’s not actually a log book at all. It’s a journal? This doesn’t make any sense… there weren’t any other researchers in that warehouse, only me. But it did have very accurate details, I remember the reports, the refused requests, the breaches and the videos. All of that happened, but I was alone. I mean who the heck is Dr. Patel!? This book reads like one of those synthetic journals from the archives. Perhaps I picked it up by mistake? But the writing, it’s undeniably mine. When I trace the letters with a pen I can even remember writing them, but the content feels so synthetic. I know I wrote these entries. But they’re not real? What about this, the words I’m writing now? They are real, they must be. This is Real, This is REAL. But the moment I stop writing, will it still be real? Will it become synthetic? Another template? Was there another me out there who remembers these events? Are my memories synthetic? No, as I write I prove I am real. I know that. My name is Connor O’Neil Neil O’Connor, Connor O’Neil. Which one was it? When did my name feel so distant? Are neither real? But I know that I am real, I am not synthetic. I know that. I know… I just know.

End of excerpts

Comments: In light of these accounts, the special containment procedure of SCP-3038 is currently under review. All personnel assigned to SCP-3038 must be alert for any and all pending updates.