Rules for my nightshift part 4
by galileo2333.
She's really excited tonight. Be extra careful to follow the rules.
That was the text message from my supervisor at 4pm Monday, just as I rolled out of bed, showered, got my clothes on and ate. Then i did my usual stuff, in the loud whir of the portable air conditioner that vented through the window. I watched YouTube videos and the like until it was time to go to my night shift job.
I boarded Apple-Jack, the electric scooter I own that I named after the My Little Pony character. It was summer, so at 6pm when I arrived at work the sun hadn't set.
Everything was normal. Setting up test cards and hot and cold chamber evaluation of outputs. Preparing screened product for shipment the next day.
Through the dusty windows, the late summer evening sun created visible horizontal beams across the lab. As I examined a particular socket that a component didn't seem to fit quite straight, I noticed some glittery lights. Looking up, in the rays of the sunset, was the little girl in the dark blue dress and orange hijab. She was about 30 feet away from me, standing still and silent, one hand on her hip and the other straight down, draping her hijab over both arms. The sequins on her garments were very brilliant in the sun. The light illuminated her face in a side profile, and I noticed detail in the texture of the irises of her huge brown eyes. She had a beautiful smile still showing some deciduous teeth, given that she's still a child.
She walked to the electron microscope room. I figured this is good news, this causes her to pay less attention to me and especially due to the increased apparent risk, this was a benefit.
Hours passed, and there wasn't much perception of her presence in the building. No cooking odors ever emanated from the break room. No stairs to a basement ever appeared. It soon was dark out. My middle of the night lunch was some donuts. I also brought my own bottle of Sprite, and two 5-hour energy vials.
Not long after my middle of the night lunch, I was performing my tasks and noticing I was feeling sleepy and cold, odd especially because I had just administered myself the 5 hour energy. The cold feeling was unusual, it's a hot summer night and the air conditioning in the building isn't very effective.
I just happened to look towards the electron microscope room and adjacent XRF spectrometer room, to notice the light in the XRF room was on and I could hear the girl in there making soft and very tender vocalizations that sounded happy. I discovered I was very heavy and unsteady as I approached the XRF room. My body became heavier and colder with every step. It felt like my last bit of endurance was needed to get me in there and shout at the girl DON'T PLAY WITH THAT! Except that what felt like shouting was me able to barely gasp and whisper.
She turned off the XRF machine and almost immediately my strength returned and I was alert and my temperature felt normal. She walked past me out of the XRF lab and began skipping around in circles gleefully.
I still was presumably safe to continue my tasks. There's no need, per the rules, to evacuate in the event little hijab girl has to be banished from the XRF. I compiled a test card and entered the parameters into the computer that operates the test chamber. I kept a close eye on the little girl, who frolicked and giggled close to my work station.
She paused, and looked at me with an aura that I could feel her blushing. Seconds later, she explosively sprinted away from me. It was before I'd even realized that as she ran away from me she was pulling her dress all the way up, but she ran so fast everything blurred, the room was dim, so I didn't get any meaningful views. She raced into a bathroom at the other end of the lab, slamming and locking the door. Immediately after, I heard a loud bang, probably the toilet seat being thrown down.
I instantly reacted according to the rules. In what seemed like no time I was away from my workstation, I had my helmet on, my scooter powered up and I was flying out of the parking lot into the night towards home.
The streets were empty and the lights were green. Several blocks ahead a light turned yellow, then red, so I slowed and prepared to stop. The traffic lights are probably activated by vehicles at this time of night so there was most likely a vehicle about to cross. A faint blur of a dark bicycle zipped through the intersection at high speed, and I couldn't recognize it but there was a vibe in the air that it's the headless E-bike rider. The light turned from red to green before I had a chance to stop.
As I continued through the intersection, still at a high rate of speed, a digital screen information kiosk displayed an ad that caught my eye. It was an ad for some defense attorney that emphasized the phrase "YOU MADE THE RIGHT CALL". Some instinct of mine told me that was deliberately shown to me, just that one phrase.
I entered my apartment, somewhat sleeping until about 6 am when I sent a message to my supervisor telling them I had to stop my work night early per procedure in the night job rules. Not long after that, my phone blew up with messages. My supervisor told me that situations have arisen that will require me to return to daytime, but that I'd continue to receive the higher pay rate of the night job. They emphasized that I'm not in trouble for any company code of conduct policies and this has nothing to do with HR or anything. They stated that it has become too dangerous for anyone to work nights until further notice. I was to return to daytime Wednesday.
Later I recieved some more detailed documents by Email. The company explained to me that due to increased anomalous behavior of the entity, that is, the little girl in the orange hijab and blue dress, management has decided to get the SCP Foundation involved. If you don't know, the SCP Foundation (Secure, Contain, Protect) is an agency of a secretive global government tasked with protecting humanity from paranormal entities of every form worldwide.
Once this Company reached out to the SCP Foundation, the SCP immediately replied and told us that the entity you experience on your lone night job might be an SCP entity that escaped containment. To be precise, SCP-2017. Here's a description of SCP-2017:
Item #: SCP-2017
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-2017 is to be kept in a standard humanoid containment cell furnished with a bed, a set of drawers, and a bookshelf with age-appropriate books. A pediatrician and a child psychologist specializing in early-onset psychosis and anxiety disorders are to be assigned to SCP-2017 at all times. Except when isolated in containment or during a testing scenario, SCP-2017's skin is to be completely covered at all times, and all personnel handling SCP-2017 are advised to wear full-body protective suits.
Description: SCP-2017 is an African-American human female, about 7 years old, formerly named █████ ████████redacted. It is underweight compared to non-anomalous children, displays symptoms of anemia such as gray pallor and cold extremities, and is unusually shy and withdrawn. Its anomalous effect manifests when a human subject makes unprotected skin contact with SCP-2017. The subject experiences a condition tentatively called Sudden Onset Dissociation Disorder, or SCP-2017-Triggered Derealization Disorder. The affected subject recognizes itself as an entity but perceives the external world as foreign and nonsensical. SCP-2017-Triggered Dissociation Disorder will cause subjects to have difficulty understanding or internalizing even the most basic facets of human behavior. Subjects in the late stages of STDD will eventually perceive the entire physical world as lacking order or sense. In addition, affected subjects uniformly speak of a place or plane of existence they claim possesses the consistency the physical world lacks. Subjects eventually descend into complete self-neglect before experiencing heart failure and a longer than normal period of post-mortem brain activity. Brain death will often be attended with other anomalous phenomena.
Worth noting is the fact that other than SCP-2017's taciturn nature, it is psychologically healthy and does not suffer from any type of dissociative disorder, anomalous or otherwise.
Document 2017-A
D-3500 was exposed to SCP-2017 on 01/03/████redacted year. Subject displayed literary talent above the general D-class population. Researchers predicted that subject would shed light on the more subtle, abstract effects of SCP-2017-induced dissociation through his personal writings
Day 1: My field of vision is so oddly limited. It reminds me of a panoramic movie screen, the ones they show you nature documentaries on. These appendages in my view-screen… can I believe they are mine? They put the words I think onto those paper. I order them, but the hands are not me. My face feels hollow. It feels like a thin coat of paint that touches the world, and behind it…nothing. Is my face me? I can't see it. It doesn't exist. I have no face.
Day 2: Nothing here makes any sense. These people in coats run performing rituals with all the effortless non-thought of lemmings jumping off a cliff. I have far-off visions of an avuncular-sounding male voice narrating the courting dance of small, scurrying things. I wonder what the animals think of their strangely structured habits.
Day 3: It's worse than what I thought. They've got this huge, invisible edifice of rickety, anarchic, patchwork rules and mores and unwritten thou-shalt-nots. What architect built this? I think they did. Do? They're part of it, and build it, but the groundwork was laid forever ago. Why? Who the sam hill is in charge around here, anyway?
Day 4: This isn't how it's supposed to be. There isn't a single part of this monolith that makes any freakin sense. Are all of them in on it? Can they be said to be in on it? Is a bee "in on" building a hive?
Day 5: I have no body. The viewscreen works with scaffolding to move me, I, myself in this strange plane. It takes in, it excretes, but none of it is me. It's an avatar into the land of chaos. I'm not from here. There has been some sort of huge mistake.
Day 6: Somewhere Else. I have seen it in my dreams, can touch it with the me that is me and not the projection they call my body. It vibrates with the sort of fractal perfection I yearn for. It is crystalline, cold, clean. Perfect. The order of things is woven tight into its fabric, is not the fraying net that binds things together here. That. Somewhere Else is my home.
By Day 7, subject refuses to move or eat. Subject requests recorder to continue his notes.
Day 7 Transcript: I am haunted by visions of hands that touched other hands, faces, bodies, that were beings like myself. The visions have an odd… tint to them, but not like a tint. They operate with dream logic where bizarre and confusing things happen and are accepted as perfectly normal. The faces in the visions were people, not faces. Now I do not see people, but bodies. And they aren't right.
On Day 7, D-3500's heart and respiratory activity completely ceased. His brain continued to remain active for an inexplicable three hours and twenty minutes. After this time, subject underwent brain death and vanished. Subject's cot suddenly transmuted into a large, perfectly rectangular prism with a reflective index of zero. Mass of the object was determined to be the exact mass of the cot plus the mass of the subject's corpse, and testing indicates that the mass is indivisible and not composed of any atoms. Item classified as SCP-████redacted.
SCP-2017 has proven uncooperative with Foundation researchers and has not adjusted to containment. Most questions posed to SCP-2017 are met with blank silence, quiet crying, or requests to be reunited with its parents. SCP-2017's mother and father, Derek and Abigail ████████ of ████████redacted locale in public document, California, are the only two people known to the Foundation to have made physical contact with SCP-2017 and not suffer its anomalous effects. Medical records of the couple show that Abigail ████████ was diagnosed with depersonalization disorder in her early college years, was successfully treated, and has not had a relapse in over ten years. Derek ████████ displayed many commonly recognized risk factors of dissociative disorders1 and received psychiatric treatment similar to that recommended for dissociative disorders2 while never actually having a dissociative episode. SCP-2017's mother and father were aware of SCP-2017's properties and attempted to conceal them from notice from a group such as the Foundation.
Interviewed: SCP-2017
Interviewer: Dr. Alexis Baxter
Foreword: Dr. Baxter is one of the few Foundation personnel SCP-2017 will respond to. It is suspected this is the case because Dr. Baxter bears a striking resemblance to SCP-2017's mother.
<Begin Log>
Dr. Baxter: Hello, SCP-2017. I'm glad I get to talk to you today.
SCP-2017: Hi, Doctor. I really wish you'd call me redacted █████
Dr. Baxter: I'm sorry, SCP-2017. But we've been over this before and we can't do that.
SCP-2017: Why?
Dr. Baxter: Well…lots of people here are named redacted █████! Why, there's a doctor in this very division named █████redacted! We don't want to get mixed up, do we? You deserve to have your very own name that nobody else has.
SCP-2017: Like a nickname?
Dr. Baxter: Exactly. Now. I'd like you to tell me about what life was like before you came here.
SCP-2017: Mommy and Daddy told everyone I was sick and if they touched me I'd die. But that wasn't true. If people touched me they acted funny.
Dr. Baxter: Do you know what happened to them after they acted funny for a while?
SCP-2017: Mommy said not to worry about it.
Dr. Baxter: It must have been hard with just your mommy and daddy all the time.
SCP-2017: shakes head
Dr. Baxter: Really?
SCP-2017: Mommy and Daddy would take me to the zoo and beach and stuff. They covered me up so people wouldn't touch me.
Dr. Baxter Do you remember how you came to be here?
SCP-2017: I was playing in the cul-de-sac with Jenny and Richie when the Alton boy hit me with his car. Mommy rode in the ambulance with me. She was glad they were there but she worried someone would touch me. I think that's what happened at the hospital. Then I was here. Pauses. Can I ask you a question?
Dr. Baxter: Anything. And I will answer if I can.
SCP-2017: Pinky swear you'll be honest?
Dr. Baxter: Reaches across table and grasps SCP-2017's gloved pinky in her gloved pinky Absolutely.
SCP-2017: Am I here 'cause I was bad?
Dr. Baxter: Absolutely not. You're here so we can protect others from getting sick and protect you from others that might want to hurt you. We're doctors, and we study these sorts of things so we understand what's happening and can help you.
SCP-2017 Then why can't I see my mommy and daddy?
Dr. Baxter: Because it's still very dangerous. There are bad people out there that might hurt you or use you to do bad things because you're different. Worse, they might do that through your parents. When we can understand what's going on a bit more clearly, maybe that can change.
SCP-2017: I guess.
Dr. Baxter: Now, I'd like to talk to you about something you said the other day.
SCP-2017: About the Other Place?
Dr. Baxter: Yes.
SCP-2017: I see it when I dream, and sometimes when I'm awake. It's different there. Everything is all lines and stuff, and things are simpler than they are here. No rules about when to go to bed or what to eat or what to say to grownups. I don't think there are any rules there at all.
Dr. Baxter: Do you think this place is real?
SCP-2017 Daddy said it was just a dream and dreams aren't real. But if it's not real, what about all the people there?
Dr. Baxter: Well, sometimes people see things that aren't…Wait, what people?
SCP-2017 They aren't really people. Or maybe they are, but they're not like us. They're really different. It's scary. I don't like them. I feel cold every time they pass through me.
Dr. Baxter: They interact with you?
SCP-2017: They what?
Dr. Baxter: You can touch them?
SCP-2017: Only when I see the Other Place and I'm not dreaming.
Dr. Baxter: That's…very interesting. This is the first time you've told us this. When is that?
SCP-2017: When someone touches me.
<End Log>
Closing Statement: Interview was terminated when Dr. Baxter expressed signs of surprise and alarm. As this was Dr. Baxter's first un-mentored interview with an anomaly, she was given a verbal reprimand before being allowed to contact SCP-2017 again.
---End of public SCP document on SCP-2017---
So, you might be wondering how this pertains to your situation and your experiences on the job here.
This Company, upon correspondence with the SCP Foundation, was breifed with additional information about SCP-2017 that's not published in widely available documents on the SCP websites, and this includes information about events elsewhere in the world at times corresponding to instances where you experienced anomalies during your night shift.
SCP-2017 escaped containment at about the time you began your night shift position. SCP-2017's parents are a Black American couple living in South Los Angeles, CA. Examining SCP-2017's family lineage from Africa, from before her ancestors arrived in early USA during the Atlantic slave trade, reveals some genetic origins in East Africa and present day Somalia. Although her family for many generations has been Christian, her Somali ancestors were probably devout Muslims.
The SCP Foundation, upon SCP-2017's escape, arranged with the California Highway Patrol and other law enforcement agencies throughout the Golden State to issue an Ebony Alert for SCP-2017. Anyone who reported seeing her would be immediately handed over from the local police department to be interviewed by SCP Foundation agents, then given an amnesiac. About 12 individuals reported sightings of SCP-2017 but no leads were generated.
On the night you almost broke the rule about making the song "tiptoe through the tulips" between midnight and 1 am, by humming a few notes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was making a large raid on Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, the place of Herbert Khaury aka Tiny Tim's November 30, 1996 death at the Woman's Club of Minneapolis. ICE vehicles, radios, and other equipment began to malfunction as the convoy of ICE vehicles traveled in the vicinity of the Woman's Club of Minneapolis. The Woman's Club building was closed for renovations that night and more than one worker reported hearing a ukulele playing. ICE was forced to call off some of their planned raids due to their mysterious communication and vehicular malfunctions.
The next time you bent or broke a rule, the time the little girl in the orange hijab cuddled in your lap and you delayed following the instruction to perform the act in the break room with the bottle of Sprite, SCP-2017's mother Abigail had experienced an apparent sudden heart attack while cooking dinner that evening. In the hospital she went into cardiac arrest, and that night, she was clinically dead for nine minutes. After that, she regained consciousness and almost immediately recovered and showed no symptoms of heart disease.
Also that was a day of major ICE operations to deport Somali people from Minnesota. Protest groups planning to resist ICE raids assembled at the Woman's Club of Minneapolis. Significant numbers of the protesters reported feeling a presence of Tiny Tim's ghost. The demonstrations that day were able to substantially impair ICE missions. Some of the signage and graphics displayed by the anti-ICE rally depicted young Somali girl children in colorful hijabs hiding in a field of tulips, where they blended in with the colors, to escape immigration enforcement.
On the night you discovered the little hijab girl in the lab with the bag of Capri Sun, and when she had to use the bathroom you didn't immediately escape the building like the rules say you're supposed to, was the night after a notable event. That event was a 47 year old White man getting arrested and charged with voyeurism of a child and producing CSEM, after he, while volunteering at (redacted) elementary school in (redacted) [city], (redacted) [state], placed a camera in a girl's restroom stall and captured a high-definition, both video and audio, of a third-grade girl urinating in the toilet. He only captured imagery of one girl before the school's AI-powered surveillance equipment in the bathroom detected an unauthorized recording device. The girl child he recorded using the toilet is a Somali Muslim immigrant, visually resembling the apparition of the little girl that appears while you're on your night work at our Company. The video he captured of her peeing is exactly 67 seconds in length. She's about the same age, and on that day she was wearing an orange hijab and blue dress, loose and draping, very similar to the apparition you experience working alone here at night. On the day of the abovementioned incident, (redacted) elementary school's lunch menu had included a large bag of Capri Sun with the meal served to all students.
When you begin working here during the day, you're strictly not to discuss or mention anything about the little hijab girl, any paranormal phenomena that occurs here in the building at night, with any of the your coworkers in the testing lab. Only your supervisor, and a few managers who you've spoken with when necessary to report when you've had to cut your work nights short as necessary per the rules regarding conditions, have any awareness whatsoever of the existence of the little hijab girl or the rules for the nightshift. Only these approved managers are aware that this Company has been in correspondence with the SCP Foundation and you're never to let anyone become aware of that circumstance.
In all likelihood, you'll be able to return to the nightshift, sooner rather than later, depending on the SCP Foundation's ability to regain control of the situation. The SCP Foundation has, just to be clear, indicated they might not be able to bring SCP-2017 back into containment and you'll be encountering her for the foreseeable future when you're here at night. Conditions might vary as she gets older, and the rules might need to change or one day she might even move away. Company management and the SCP Foundation are in this together for your safety as you are a valued and trusted member of our team.
As you might suspect by her behavior, SCP-2017, who's manifestation upon her escape from containment at SCP, has morphed into a Muslim Somali girl at the age just starting to blossom from a little girl into a young woman, has apparently developed an intense physical attraction to you. This was unexpected to occur to the extent it has. We regret not informing you more clearly when we handed you the rules for your nightshift, of her propensity to actively try to encourage you to break those rules.
The SCP Foundation has told us that, although unlikely (and they'll do everything in their power to prevent), the little girl in the orange hijab and blue dress might appear in your apartment, possibly not the hijab or dress, or anything. This is an extremely dangerous situation if it occurs. If she appears in your home, the only thing that might save you is to immediately leave your apartment for at least 24 hours. Stay at a motel, get an AirBnB, crash on a friend's couch or drop in at your folks, even if you're homeless for that time, anything to escape your apartment for 24 hours. If you're in the bath or other state of undress at the time, your survival is unlikely. Sleep with most of your clothes on and your shoes, wallet, keys, and phone next to your bed. Minimize bath and clothes changing time. Wear all your clothes and shoes wallet, keys and phone in your pockets when you're awake at home.
In addition, the SCP Foundation has issued some protocols to prevent any appearance of the SCP-2017 girl in your home. They are as follows:
1. Always park your scooter in your apartment with the front pointed towards Mecca.
2. Keep the winged MLP Apple Jack plushie that appeared in your apartment facing your bed so it will watch you sleep, that will keep you safe. The scooter of that namesake, your bed, and the MLP Apple Jack plushie should be located so all three of those are always visible from the locations of each other, excluding you walking or standing between.
3. An SCP Foundation agent will visit your home today. Be sure to buzz them in. They will deliver to you a Skibidi Toilet sculpture. You should place this on your bathroom counter, facing the direction perpendicular to the direction of Mecca, and within line of sight of your toilet. Keep your bathroom door open when you're not in the bathroom. When entering or leaving the bathroom, always pause at the threshold of the bathroom door for exactly three seconds, count one one thousand two one thousand three one thousand.
4. If you arrive home and find the bathroom door closed, especially if there's any sounds from the bathroom indicating liquid, leave immediately, JUST LIKE IF THERE WAS A FIRE! for at least 24 hours and call the number we will provide you, it's a direct hotline available round the clock for the SCP Foundation case manager assigned to this situation. If liquid sounds were audible when you arrived home to find the bathroom door closed, you might need to vacate your apartment for as long as a week, and the SCP Foundation will arrange accommodation and protection for you.
5. Although we're not aware whether you like or have ever even tried Capri Sun, you absolutely must not consume Capri Sun or have it in your possession in any flavor or form, until/unless the SCP Foundation explicitly advises it's safe for you to do so.
I recieved the Skibidi Toilet sculpture and placed it as directed. I positioned my scooter and the MLP plushie correctly. I remembered to follow the three second delay when entering or exiting my home bathroom, and kept the door open. I returned to the day shift at work Wednesday, as scheduled.
All the coworkers of mine and our management kept business as usual. Nobody asked about what it was like for me at night.
In the break room, the toaster oven I was forbidden to touch at night was removed, and so was the fridge that contained the jug of Sprite and the tamper evident seal on the door. The remainder of that week was uneventful, and I settled into my routines of keeping everything safe at home.
Soon after, stuff would become more exciting and you'll see in future episodes. But for now, this concludes part 4 of galileo2333 creepypasta.