Hi, you may have noticed I changed the title of the fic to "Retrograde Motion". I finally came up with something other than "Anomalous". On tumblr, the fic will probably occasionally still be referred to as "Anomalous" though.

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|| It's only a matter of time before the world starts falling apart all over again. ||

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You weren't actually sure how long you spent collapsed in 999's room. Not that it mattered when the passage of time was always wonky for you anyways.

999 was very cute, as expected, and made you feel a lot better about your life. There actually wasn't much to be said about how the whole thing went, you were just glad to not be tossed into a dangerous SCP's room for once. There was a bit of irony in how you got here. You and one of the most dangerous doctors walked into the room of one of the least dangerous SCP.

It sounded like a joke.

999 gurgled in your lap. You chuckled softly, patting its head. At some point, Bright had stopped hovering around the door and just sat on the ground beside you. Things felt weirdly peaceful but you didn't expect it to last. Nothing ever did. It wasn't about if everything would fall to ruin, it was a matter of when.

Bright poked your shoulder. "Thinking about cryptic sh*t?"

"Of course." You rolled your eyes.

What would you do if you weren't?

X.x.X

Carefully, you filled one of the butterfly feeders with sugar water. The 408s swarmed around the feeder the moment you were done. You absolutely remembered how you got roped into this unpaid labour but that didn't mean you liked it. A few metres away from you, Kondraki was doing the same thing as you. You really should have just told the doctors no when they asked you to refill the feeders.

"You're going down there to see 408 anyways," they said. "408 already likes you a lot. It'll be easy. You might as well do it while you're there. "

Admittedly, it was very easy to fill the feeders (at least, the ones that weren't suspended metres above you) and the company of the 408s was very nice. Being swarmed by a whole bunch of green butterflies was the pinnacle of existence here apparently. It wasn't too bad sometimes The problem was that Kondraki was there half the time which meant you had to at least kind of talk to him.

You hated standing around in the same room as him because neither of you liked talking and yet still had to awkwardly exchange dialogue with each other. Both of your problems could be solved by just, not talking but for some reason, neither of you would. The two of you would figure it out at some point, you comforted yourself.

"Clef was looking for you yesterday again," Kondraki said as he filled the last feeder on the wall. "What the f*ck did you do to set him off?"

"Ugh." Your face soured. "Don't remind me."

Yeah, you probably shouldn't have stolen Clef's keycard and taunted him but it wasn't like you were going to stay dead any time soon. Sure he may have killed you 3 times between your first meeting and now but you'd take it over him liking your company any day. You shivered at the thought. Ugh. Hate was easier to deal with than affection in any case.

On the bright side, you were doing an excellent job at avoiding him nowadays. Practice makes perfect and all that.

"He's actually going to try to get me killed. Permanently." You sighed. "If anyone could do it, it'd be him."

Or put you out of commission forever. You didn't necessarily have to be dead to not be a problem. If you were to sleep eternally, unaware of the world around you... well, it'd be something. You wouldn't say it was the worst thing that could happen to you. All it would take was one misstep, someone to simply kill you off in your eternal slumber, and you would wake again.

You may not be able to react to things around you while you were asleep but time could certainly turn far enough for you to be able to. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. Even if it did... well, what could you do about it? Alternatively, you'd simply wake up, an unknown amount of time passing. If you fell asleep forever, would anyone wish for you to wake up?

"You sound like you want it to happen."

"You'd understand it too if you were immortal," you idly commented. Wings brushed past your cheek. A faint smile tugged your lips. This was nice, you supposed.

You wished things could stay this way.

X.x.X

'Oh, they're going to kill me,' you thought blankly upon seeing SCP 187. She was easy to identify. Tall, still malnourished but appeared to be getting better. There was a blindfold over her eyes and padded mittens over her hands. A doctor stood beside her. Two guards moved into place as the door shut behind you.

Oh yeah, they were definitely going to kill you at least once here.

You weren't quite sure when you began thinking of death as more of a minor inconvenience but it probably said something about your mental health. 187's leg was bouncing anxiously as you slid the chair out across from her out and sat down. The doctor beside her cleared their throat and began to speak.

"187," they addressed, "this is SCP-[----]. We want you to tell us what you see when you see it."

She nodded and the doctor removed her blindfold. The cloth was tucked away into their coat as 187 hesitantly opened her eyes to look at you. She really was staring at you quite intensely, directly in the eyes too. You tapped your leg against the ground as you waited for her to say something.

She blinked and anxiously shifted her gaze from you to the doctor beside her.

"Well?"

"They-" she stumbled over her words, "I-, it's-"

Her gaze shifted back to you. Then, her eyes widened in horror and she screamed. The guards shot you without hesitation. You were dead before you even hit the ground. This ending was expected, obviously, but dying via gun was starting to really grate on your nerves. There could be worse ways to die but that didn't mean you liked any of this. The only thing this method had going for it was the fact that it was fast.

And so, you were dead. Another abrupt ending to your life, another bump in the road, another event hardly worth commenting on.

You were drifting again in death.

Slowly, steadily, drifting away in the river of time, bringing you along to where you belonged. It was calm. You wanted to sink into nothingness again. These days, you always felt like that, waiting for the embrace that would never stay. There was nothing you could do about it, nothing at all. Wasn't this how it was meant to be? Powerless in the face of fate?

If you're not careful, it'll engulf you whole one day.

You breathed and opened your eyes once again. Everything would play its part. 187 stammered something and turned to look at you again. She screamed. The guards readied their guns. You dropped to your left and off the chair, as a bullet whizzed past you, landing right where you were sitting. Rude.

The area where the bullet landed sizzled a little. You waited to see if they would shoot you again. You flipped off the guard and got back up. 187 was sitting as far back as she could and staring at you with wide eyes. At some point, she stopped screaming. Hm, did you really want to sit back down again? You decided to stay standing.

"You're... alive," she said, disbelief in her voice.

"I am," you agreed.

"How? You were-" she gestured towards your head. "-there was blood and the bullet was right in your skull. And now, you're back to normal."

"No more blood for now, then?" No one could blame you for being curious about what she saw, now could they?

187 pursed her lips like there was something she wanted to say.

"If you don't want to say, that's fine," you added on. You brought a finger to your lips as though you were asking her to keep a secret and smiled. "Don't worry about me. No matter what happens, it'll work out."

She looked like she didn't believe you. That didn't matter. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Hopefully.

X.x.X

'Please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't see me-' you silently chanted as Clef passed through the hall.

Cain gave you an odd expression as you gave a sigh of relief when Clef finally passed through the door. Your shoulders dropped from the tense position they were in and you stepped out from behind Cain. Initially, you were just chatting with him but you spotted Clef and well... You had some self-preservation at least.

"Thanks," you said gratefully.

"Is there an issue regarding that doctor?" There was something like concern that seeped into his normally passive voice.

"Ah..." You fake coughed. "I think it's more of a misunderstanding?"

You were quite sure he thought you were out to get him. You weren't but like, you still didn't want to talk to him about it when he would probably try to kill you on sight. Would it make your life easier if you cleared this up? Yes, probably. Did you want to go out of your way to explain things to Clef? No, you didn't. Your logic was absolutely infallible.

"It's complicated," you settled on telling Cain.

"Complicated," he repeated. "Do forgive me but this appears to be more than just complicated."

"I guess it seems that way from other people's perspectives. I'll be okay so no need to look so worried, alright?" You wondered if it was possible for him to get wrinkles given the way his brows were drawn together. "Besides, the worse that can happen is I'll die."

For some reason, it didn't look like he believed you. That was fine. You wouldn't believe yourself either.

X.x.X

You wouldn't have called you and Bright close per se but... you weren't really sure how things ended up this way.

"I can't believe you only have caprisun in here," you said, unimpressed.

"It's caprisun, there's nothing wrong with it," Bright retorted as he spun around in one of those spinny office chairs.

"You don't even keep any snacks, it's all just caprisun."

"So?"

This was the third time you've been in Bright's office this week to do nothing but... hang out? You would have been more than glad to never speak with him ever again after your first meeting but it seemed that just wasn't the case. For whatever reason, Bright kept finding you so you sort of... accepted his company for what it was. There were worse things that could happen.

Maybe your mutual feelings regarding immorality were what made him seek you out so often. Not that it was a bad thing but hanging around him always made you feel like you were waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Whatever," you conceded, deciding to instead just pick out one of the caprisun pouches to drink.

Childishly, Bright stuck his tongue out at you.

And because you were equally as childish, you stuck out your tongue too. "Don't you have paperwork to finish?"

"It's bo-ring," he huffed. "I can do them later anyways."

"Woah," you said mildly. "Ignoring your responsibilities? So mature of you Dr. Bright."

"What are they going to do? Fire me?"

You took a sip of your caprisun to stifle the giggles rising within. Bright nodded like he proved his point perfectly.

"Let's do something fun." The gleam in his eyes showed that "something fun" would probably end in property damage, fire, or someone getting traumatized.

So, obviously, you replied, "Sure. What'cha thinking of doing?"

X.x.X

"You've been on edge," Smith mentioned once, in passing. "Is something the matter?"

You had been waiting by a door for 073 to show up that day. Half-heartedly you had answered, "It's been too calm recently."

"That's a good thing, isn't it? The calmer it is the better."

"But things never stay calm for too long," you had told them. "The rule with these sorts of stories is that there always needs to be something interesting happening... It's only a matter of time before the world starts falling apart all over again."

X.x.X

Far away, in a cube made of stone, a man awakened.

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New SCPs in this chapter:

SCP 187

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Published: June 29, 2022

Word count: 2,067

Death Counter: 19

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And this brings us to the end of arc 3. I'll be going on hiatus until October 31, 2022, so you know, I can plan stuff. As always, my tumblr is still open for chatting and stuff. Thanks for reading!