[Now the time we bought has run out. No one has breached the seal in Site-41-B30-000—a bad sign. There are no more bodies to feed SCP-3125, no more ground to retreat. This ends here, ready or not.]
[I will enter Site-41-B30-000 and activate the machine. I believe I can carry the information past the airlock. I believe I can reach the vault alive.]
[That is the plan. Variables make it hard to reiterate, but I know—because I know myself. What else could it be?]
Marvel Universe | S.H.I.E.L.D.
Natasha's eyes widened. "No more bodies to feed SCP-3125? What the hell does that mean?"
The chat group recoiled.
Anti-Memetics had been sacrificing lives just to buy time.
Banner's gaze locked onto the next line. "Wait—activate the machine? Did they actually build the Fictional Amplifier?"
[Standard protocol requires I explain contingency plans. This is the Asynchronous Research Agreement.]
[But I never anticipated who—or what—might read this and survive. No device. Hughes missing. Me dead. The site destroyed. How did you get here? Are you Foundation? Are you even conscious? Can you understand these words?]
[You live in a world submerged by SCP-3125. This is the失控情景 (Out-of-Control Scenario).]
[I cannot help those who do not exist.]
[—Dr. Marion Wheeler, Head of Anti-Memetics, 30/11/2015]
The chat group erupted.
"So they FAILED? The machine didn't work? Wheeler died?!"
"This is fucking terrifying."
"What the hell happened?!"
Then—the scene shifted.
[27/10/2015]
A flashback.
[Wheeler placed someone under witness protection—erasing all memories between them. Hers of him. His of her.]
[Adam Wheeler. Her husband.]
[She forgot her own husband.]
The audience stilled.
Sherlock Holmes Universe
Watson frowned. "Why would she do that?"
Holmes' voice was grim. "The cleanup effect. SCP-3125."
"She's... protecting him?" Watson realized, horror dawning.
On-screen, a tall, elegant man in a tailored black suit stood before Wheeler, pleading.
Adam Wheeler.
"You can't do this!"
"It's trying to protect you," Wheeler said flatly.
"How—how does erasing your memory protect me?" Adam's voice broke.
"I can't explain. I can't even explain why I can't explain. I don't fully understand myself. There's a—"
"A what?"
"You can't be in my life. You'll die."
Adam's hands trembled. "I'm not leaving you. We married for this—to stand before everyone we respected and swear to protect each other. Forever."
Wheeler's reply was glacial. "I must have sworn the same."
Suddenly, Adam doubled over, clawing at his eyes.
"Help—I can't see—"
Blinding white light seared his vision. He groped for Wheeler's hand—she let him pull her close, but the light didn't fade.
Then he realized: This was intentional.
SCP-4987 was under her control.
"Is this really Foundation orders?" Adam gasped. "Is this your idea of protection? You won't even remember me!"
"I think I will," Wheeler said.
Tears streaked Adam's face. "You'll feel it every day. A cold, nauseous void where your life used to be. You'll wonder why."
"I will win the war," Wheeler said.
Her voice was steel.
"I will defeat the universe. Then I'll figure out why."
Adam clung to her. He knew she could do it—rebuild the truth from chaos, piece the shattered world back together.
But one fear choked him:
"What if you lose?"
She kissed him—a stranger's kiss.
Then she left.
The door sealed with a final metallic groan.
Outside, staff waited—including Feng Bujue, the only one not horrified.
"Write him into cover history," Wheeler ordered, her tone clinical. "He was never married. Relocate him where I'll never find him. Burn all evidence. Report for amnestics afterward. I'll take mine last."
A staff member hesitated.
Wheeler's glare silenced them.
"My husband is dead."
The multiverse held its breath.
Wheeler had done what was necessary.
Sacrificed her past.
Her love.
Her self.
All to fight SCP-3125.
She was no different from D-14134—another soul marching to oblivion.
[08/11/2015]
The scene shifted again.
Closer to SCP-3125's arrival.
A skull-chamber—Site-167-00-1006, the hollowed cranium of a dead cosmic beast.
Within this Vegas Room, memories did not leave.
A bespectacled man—Dr. Bart Hughes—walked a canyon flanked by 100-meter-tall bones and steel vats holding the beast's stomach.
Ahead loomed the skull itself, its empty sockets watching.
Hughes had no memory of previous meetings.
A technician placed a disk-like cap on Feng Bujue's head, inserted a transmitter into his mouth, and fired two radio pulses into his brain.
"Any psychological impulses?"
"Mmph," Hughes grunted around the device.
After tests, they injected him with anti-rejection drugs and produced—
A germ.
An octopus-like entity that latched onto Hughes' face, tendrils weaving into his spine.
Darkness—then a false eye opened, four pupils granting UV vision.
The germ would burn with all memories of this meeting.
Inside the chamber:
O5-8.
Wheeler.
Two other high-ranking figures.
Hughes was given a scientific paper—his own work, co-authored by colleagues who should've been present.
The title?
"Observations on a New, Highly Dangerous (Anti-)Meme Complex: Proposal for Apollyon Classification (SCP-3125)."
The audience understood.
This was the final stand.
Hughes finished reading.
"We could exterminate all intelligent human life," he said casually. "No hosts, no SCP-3125."
Silence.
"Yes," Wheeler said dryly. "You've suggested that before. We're still unsure if you're serious."
"Deadly serious," Hughes replied. "Our motto is 'Secure, Contain, Protect.' We should add 'Ensure as many humans survive as possible.'"
The chat group lost it.
"IS THIS GUY FOUNDATION OR THANOS?!"
"Bro really said 'kill everyone' with his whole chest—"
"Protecting humanity is self-evident," a council member snapped.
"Secure anomalies. Contain anomalies. Protect anomalies. How else would you interpret it?" Hughes smirked.
"We're getting off-topic," Wheeler cut in. "We're not exterminating humanity."
"Alternatively," Hughes continued, "we could halt all memetics research globally."
"Hughes!" Wheeler's voice was sharp. "Hiding won't work. It could emerge naturally or be introduced externally—"
"We're past that," O5-8 interjected. "Look at the precursor anomalies. We're in the 'harbinger' phase. SCP-3125 is here."
Hughes understood.
And wished he didn't.
SCP-3125 wasn't just a threat—it was an ontological crisis.
To contain it, he needed to:
Design a box while already inside it.
Seal the entire universe away.