The SCP Experience - The Parasitic Reality Malfunction | SCP-5235

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

SCP Foundation NEUTRALIZED class object, SCP-5235: The Parasitic Reality Malfunction This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5235, and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Author: Matt Doggett Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewDoggettAuthor/ Website/Newsletter sign up: matthewdoggettauthor.com New Book Releases: https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-G-Doggett/e/B08FD5378Z DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #thescpexperience #scp #scpfoundation #scpencounters #securecontainprotect #scpstories #scpexplained #whatisscp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Looking out the helicopter's window, I see a city skyline off in the distance. The sun glints off the buildings. All the activity is invisible from this distance. Everything looks so peaceful, so serene. This is what helps me mentally prepare for a new mission. I think about the world and all the people in it, living their lives. Most of them unaware of the threats the foundation combats every day. It allows me to gain some perspective.

perspective, to remember why I do what I do. What do you think it'll be this time? Yol, says from behind me. I turn to face him as he continues talking over the muted rush of the rotors overhead. A shape-shifting monster? Maybe a guy who can explode and a nuclear blast over and over again? On the bench seat across from us, sit Garrison and Tucker. We're all clad in full gear, holding our weapons propped against our knees or between our legs.

Maybe it'll be a group of homicidal clowns, Tucker says, grinning. His small, deep-set eyes glimmering. What the fuck is it with you and clowns? Garrison says. Every time you want it to be clowns. Because I hate him. Tucker says reasonably. What better way to work through childhood trauma than blow some monster clowns away.

He's got a point, I say, looking at Garrison. Well, in that case, Ewell says, I'd like it to be a monster. who looks like my third grade math teacher, Mr. McDowell, he was always yelling at me. I chuckle and look back out the window as the helicopter descends quickly. I catch a glimpse of the far-off cityscape, just before the copter goes down behind some tall trees. Several of the buildings have changed, instead of metal and glass. They look like they're covered in dark fur, like giant, rectangular animals.

What the fuck? say, turning to the guys. Did you see that? They look at me, confused. They didn't see it. What? Garrison asks. Would you see LT?

I shake my head. I don't know. Maybe nothing. Eyes playing tricks. The landing gear touches down, and a man in a suit comes running up. I opened the door and jump out, followed by the others. Follow me! The man yells.

The helicopter's downwash, buffeting his clothes. He turns and jogs back to the nearest building, a low, sprawling structure made of concrete. As we follow along, I look to my right, seeing a massive human leg standing where a tree once was moments ago. It's a woman's leg, toned and shaven, ending abruptly at the top of the thigh as though amputated, but there's no blood, and the top of the limb is too high for me to see whether it's topped with exposed flesh and bone or not. I stopped jogging, looking at the thing. Everyone else seeing that big ass leg there? Tucker asks, we all murmur in the affirmative. Come on! The guy yells, moving back toward us. There's no time. I pointed the leg. I know, I know,

he says. That's why you're here. After exchanging a glance with the others, we all jog into the building, following the guy in the suit. The facility is filled with a flurry of activity. Researchers are visible in every office, working on computers, or talking on the phone or studying printouts. We're led to a small room with ten chairs set up, facing a white projector screen behind a podium. There's a man with wild and graying curly hair at the back of the room, sifting through papers in his hands. He looks up as we come in. Good, he says, looking grim. Take a seat. We all sit down as he moves to the front of the room. The guy in the suit, closes the door and stands beside it, crossing his arms.

I'm Dr. Thaddeus Zyank, the wild-haired guy says. He has a lab coat on and a day's worth of stubble on his face. But his green eyes are bright and lively with intelligence. And I presume you've already seen something to indicate why you're here. We saw a huge sexy leg outside, Tucker says, ever the helpful student. Yes, right, Zayank says. Well, I'm afraid the reality disturbance. will not all be so pleasant or innocuous.

And I can't explain everything to you, gentlemen, before I send you in. My apologies. Just give us the cliff notes and the objective, I say. Well, in short, your objective is to kill me, Zayank says. Easy. Tucker says. Where do you want it? That's enough, Tucker.

I snap. Shut it. Sorry, LT. Tucker says. Go on, Doctor. The thing you saw outside. The leg is a symptom of our reality's hume levels fluctuating wildly, because a reality is being siphoned off by a different parasitic reality.

So in this other reality, I say, this other version of you is doing the siphoning? That's right, the doctor says. And he needs to be stopped. Whatever instrument he's using needs to be brought back here so I can study it, if possible. If not, I need to be. need you to destroy it, and then gather all relevant data so I can analyze it when you return. What happens if these hume levels keep getting siphoned off? I ask. Then reality as we know it will be gone. Millions will die. Perhaps billions. It may end this

reality as we know it. And why would this other reality need our hume levels? Yule says. It's not important to your mission, the doctor says. What is important is stopping it. But won't that still leave us with less reality than we're used to? Lower hume levels? I ask. You let me worry about that, the doctor says. I have this whole facility working on that as we speak. The faster you can do your job, the faster we can restore baseline reality here. Now go. Abbott here will show you the way. We jump up and follow the guy in the suit. Abbot, deeper into the facility. As we turn a corner, we all stop, frozen in place. The walls are made of bloody flesh. Human heads stick out of the walls, screaming in pain as their eyes and noses bleed. The image flickers

like a broken television set, changing back and forth between our reality and whatever hellish one is intruding on ours. The lights in the ceiling dim and then brighten, and the flickering stops, leaving behind concrete walls. Jesus, Abbott says. The Scranton reality anchors are struggling to keep up. Things are getting bad. We must. His words are cut off by a ragged scream coming from an office up ahead,

where the reality was flickering in and out. A man stumbles out of the open office and into the hallway, dragging a pair of scissors up his forearm. Blood spews out of the ragged wound. What the hell is his deal? Tucker asked. His mind is broken. Abbott says, ushering us past the man.

who now mumbles as he bleeds out. I've seen it happen. When you suddenly experience a reality so vastly different from your own, it could be too much for the mind to grasp when baseline reality is restored. You're not going to do anything for him? I ask as we hustle down the hallway and into a lab. There's no time.

We need to get you through now, Abbott says. There are several scientists sitting at control panels and computers in the lab. The office area overlooks a much more. bigger room through three large windows. There's a door sitting in the middle of the larger room. Just a doorway and a frame, no walls surrounding it. But there are glowing light bulb-like things attached to it. Wires run from them, snaking along the ground to a large and complex panel at which a scientist

sits. We follow Abbott down a metal staircase and into the room. He goes to a wall and grabs what looks like phone-sized batteries from charging docks there. He gives us each one of these large batteries. They all have three lights on the top, green, yellow, and red. The green ones are lit on all four of them. Portable Scranton reality anchors, he says. Keep them on you.

Hopefully they'll work to keep the area immediately around you somewhat grounded in the reality you know. Hopefully, I say. Abbot shrugs. It's new technology. If it works, be sure to let me know. We haven't had time to do much testing. What we do know is they're only good for about two hours.

After that, you're on your own. So if these things die, we can end up like that guy in the hall back there? Garrison asks. Abbott nods. Just check the lights. When the green goes yellow, it's time to hustle. When he goes red, just don't let it go red. The other scientist walks over with a small device, which he hands to Abbott.

Who hands it to me? What's this one do? I ask. Looking down at the device that looks like an expensive stud finder. It will lead you to the device Dr. Zyak was talking about. Now, please, he says, gesturing at the door in the middle of the room. Go. All of you at once. As I lead the way over to the door, I stick both devices into a cargo pocket. Then I look at my team.

Ready? I ask. Let's do it, Tucker says. Yule and Garrison nod. I turn, open the door, and step through. There's something else here now. Something new. From, exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell.

Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. from Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. I step into a laboratory, much like the one I've just come out of, but there are differences,

the biggest of which is the humanoid shape that's running toward me. But instead of it being a thing of flesh and blood, like me, it seems that the being racing toward me is an absence of a being. It's more of a cutout, like a two-dimensional representation of a human, filled with black space interspersed with twinkling stars. like a human-shaped glimpse into deep space. I raise my gun as the thing approaches,

but before I can fire, it moves through me. I have a fleeting feeling of utter terror as my mind briefly comprehends the true size of the universe, but it doesn't last, probably because of the portable reality anchor in my pocket. Garrison is the last one through the door, and I turn to see him shut it. Then he sees the void being and jumps out of the way.

The being disappears through the door without ever opening it. We look around, seeing no other immediate threats. Let's move, I say, heading up the stairs. As I step into the office, I pull out the instrument Abbott gave me last, checking the screen. It's simple enough, pointing me toward the door with a flashing arrow. But as I move that way, I see something flickering in a chair at one of the desks, identical to the ones in our reality. It's a man, flickering between two forms.

A human puddle melted on the seat, and a regular man, staring at us in shock. If this reality is pulling ours, why is it like this? Yule asks. Seems pretty unstable to me. Maybe this is normal, I say, staring at the man. Who knows? Or maybe these reality anchors were carrying around or fucking with reality. Or maybe they're just messing with how we see their reality.

Garrison says. You're making my head hurt, Tucker says. Can we just get this shit done? Time's a wasting. I turn and walk out of the room, keeping my weapon up. I see no one in the hall, but there is a tree growing sideways out of the wall, blocking my view. I crouch, looking under the tree and seeing no one. But the hall beyond is a mess.

Uh, guys, Yule says. I turn and look. He's holding up. his reality anchor. The yellow light is on. The rest of us pull hours out. Mine's still green, but all the other ones are yellow. What the hell? Tucker says. It's barely been five minutes. I shake my head. Stupid. What? Time, I say. Time is relative. Even in our reality, that's the case. One person experiences five minutes as an hour while it passes like a minute for someone else. Here, who knows what time is like.

So why is yours still green? I don't know. Because time moves slower for me? Yeah, but time doesn't actually move slower, Garrison says. It's only the perception. An impartial third-party observer with a stopwatch will still be able to measure it. True, I say.

But while it's happening, to that person who's experiencing it, that doesn't matter. Perception is reality while it's happening. Can we just go? Tucker asks. No, I say. I'm going on alone. You guys go back.

No fucking way, L.T. Not a chance. You're a funny guy. Tucker says, I shrug. Don't blame me when you go insane. I duck under the tree, following the arrows on the instrument. We pass a hole in the floor that looks out on a brilliant blue sky. We move past a window, the glass of which causes a delay in reflection.

only showing us passing several seconds after we actually do. There are human limbs sticking out of the walls and ceilings, along with various tools and items. One of the offices we pass is filled with colored balls, like you'd find at a jungle gem for kids. In another one, everyone is working upside down, their desks and chairs on the ceiling. They seem unaware of our presence.

We turn down a corridor and are faced with two large, vault-like doors. I expected guards, but I see none. And as we approach, I discover why. One of the vault doors is open a foot or so because a man's leg is caught in it. As I pull open the door, I see that the man is dead. It looks like he killed himself with his own gun. There are several other guards lying on the floor in the small room, all dead from close gunshot wounds to the head.

Their heads morph and flicker as we move past. One second, there's a panting dog's head there. Another, there's a watermelon. The next, a set of kitchen knives. We move into a large, domed room with a strange mechanical device sitting in the middle of it, about the size of a sedan. Components were creating a bright blue light in their center. What are you doing?

A familiar voice says from to my right, I turn and see Dr. Zayank, rushing tortoise from a wall of screen showing complex fluctuating graphs. I point my rifle up at him. Don't move! I shout. He stops, putting his hands up. What are you doing back so soon? He says. Can't you see that our reality is falling apart? I shake my head. We're not who you think we are, I say. Zayank's eyes go wide as realization dawns. Oh, I see. Uh, L.T. Garrison says from behind me. I look and see that he's holding up his reality anchor.

The yellow and red lights are flickering. I'm sorry, Doc, I say, turning back. But whatever version of us you sent out of this reality aren't coming back to save you. I hate to do this, but I have to save our reality. We can't allow a parasite to destroy our universe. We're not the parasit. Hold the trigger, blasting a hole in the doctor's head.

His body collapses to the ground. Let's destroy this and get out of here, I say. What about collecting all the information? Tucker asks. Your lives are what matters, I say, pulling a grenade off my tactical vest and pulling the pen. Fire in the hole! I shout, tossing the grenade at the device. We all turn and run for the door.

We get out into the hallway just as the blast erupts behind us. We run, turning the corner into the hallway we took to get to the device. And as we turn the corner, all the strange stuff flickers and disappears, leaving only a concrete hallway. I find this strange, but we continue running. Unsure if what we just did will keep us from going mad in this reality when our anchors die. We get down into the lab with the door we came through, and I'm relieved to find that the lights are still glowing. I open the door and usher the guys through, then step through myself. Abbott greets us as we come through, but his hands are raised for some reason.

He looks frightened. Drop your weapons. A too familiar voice says from behind the door. My men and I whip around, bringing our weapons up and pointing them at ourselves. You drop yours, I say. Other Me shakes his head. I look at his men. They look just like mine, except for some small differences, a scar here, a different model weapon there.

We're just trying to give back to our reality, other Me says. We don't want to hurt anyone else. else else what did you do i ask same thing you did i'm sure he says just let them leave abit says let them go my team and i back slowly away from the door keeping our weapons trained on the men until they all leave once they're gone abbott moves to the control panel and shuts the power to the door off he breathes deeply i'm glad that's over with you knew that was going to happen i asked Dr. Zyank hypothesized it, yes, he says. It was the most likely occurrence given the trillions of possible outcomes.

So what now? Kerosen asks. Is our reality good? Is what we just did going to help us? I think so, Abbott says. It created equilibrium, at least for now. Wait, I say. So why couldn't we just destroy our own device and kill our own Zyank? Why did we have to go there, and they come here? Because that's the purpose of this reality, Abbott says.

At least, in interaction with that one. It's not just the outcome. It's the actions that matter in these situations. So whose reality was the parasitic one? Ewell asks. Ours or theirs. Both, Abbot says. We feed off each other, along with a complex string of other realities.

But when things get out of hand, when one or more realities start taking more than they give, We have to do something like this. I thought about that for a long moment before saying, So how often do these missions happen? Oh, every other day or so, Abbott says. We don't usually let things get so out of hand. But this one took us by surprise.

We'll be studying the fluctuations of this anomaly for years to come. Huh, Tucker says. You know, reality really is a funny thing. SCP 5235 is the designation for a group of theoretical parasitic timelines. These timelines have an innate reality deficiency. Therefore, they cannot organically sustain themselves. This means they must forcefully attach themselves to others. Event 5235-1 designates the attachment of a parasitic timeline.

From the evidence gathered on potential parasites, it seems the original timeline sometimes receives reality back from the parasite, potentially as overflow. This reality overflow can manifest as buildings or objects from the parasite merging with existing geography or structures. This is theorized to have caused the most damage in affected timelines. However, research from the Temporal Anomalies Department has given inconclusive results about the existence of these timelines, as it is currently assumed that most parasitic timelines have become extinct due to lack of sufficient Hume levels. Research is currently in its infancy, and the true nature of our reality in relation to others is still poorly understood. Lasagne sur-gilled, puissance-molyne, for 15 minutes.

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