Egrene took a massive ream of all of his paperwork, held it upright between his hands, tapped it against his desk to slide them into a neat little stack, and then placed it on the edge of his desk nearby.

He leaned back in his chair, stretched and yawned loudly. All was well with Site-17, well to do and quiet. He checked his watch. Only four hours had passed since he started.

Rather quick for a Saturday, he'd say!

"Indeed, that is what I would say," Egrene chuckled to himself. He took his paperwork and put it in his desk drawer. He slid the desk drawer closed, only to find it was got stuck on something.

"Hm," Egrene pushed against it with a little force. No give. No budge. "Odd." He opened it a tad and then tried closing it again. Nothing; it remained stuck. "Whatever. I'll fix that later."

He opened the drawer from the upper part of his desk and saw John and Cassy kissing.

"Oops!" He covered his eyes and looked away and waited a few seconds. He then slowly parted his fingers to see if they were upset with him for breaking privacy.

"Egrene!" Cassy was hiding behind John with her hands on his shoulders. "Try knocking next time!"

"Uh," John said, the text gently floating out of his mouth and swirling from one side of the page to another. "I don't think that would help...we can't make noise."

"I'll figure out a way to do this better next time," Egrene said sheepishly. "I promise."

"Okay. We forgive you," John grinned.

Egrene fully uncovered his face and grinned back.

"I'm stepping out for a bit, okay? You two behave."

"Nah. We're gonna leave and make you feel like shit," John chuckled.

Egrene chuckled back. "Stay cute, you two." He gently slid the drawer shut.

Egrene got up from his desk and left his office. He put his hands in his pockets and whistled lightly to himself as he casually strode down Site-17. He wondered what he should have for lunch today.

Then he felt something he had never felt before in his life; a wave of dizziness washed over him and he stumbled. He directed himself into the wall in order to catch his balance, but it was no use; he fell to the ground anyways.

Everything come down upon him in tsunami splashes of strangeness; his vision was bombarded with images of...large spikes that implanted themselves into the ground and created a bizarre field of distortion when activated.

"Reality Anchors?" Egrene grunted and found it painful to speak. "What are—?"

And then all at once, it stopped and he was fine again. He slowly got up from the ground and cautiously examined his nearby surroundings. It looked normal, but something felt off. His personnel instincts had fully kicked in.

He pulled his side arm from his holster and soundlessly and steadily stalked down the hall. Site-17 was usually quiet, but at least with some murmurs of voices here and there.

Now?

Silence.

Utter silence.

His heart grew heavy as he walked down the hall; he couldn't identify this feeling, but it made his eyes do something funny. Very funny. He couldn't figure out at first.

Then it came to him when a tear slid out of his eye and his unwittingly and unwillingly uttered a low whimper.

He wanted to weep.

He sniffled loudly and wiped his eye and then mentally told himself to get it together.

He backed himself up against a wall and listened for any noises.

Still nothing.

He peeked around the corner and couldn't stop himself from gasping loudly. Three Scranton Reality Anchors stood before him at the end of the hall, all of them generating a massive field of distortion the blurred the sight of whatever lay beyond them.

Actually, no...one of them was turned off. It seemed to be malfunction.

Egrene grabbed his radio and spoke into it.

"Something strange down in the south wing of Site-17. Three Reality Anchors just showed out of nowhere, two of them active, one inactive. Over." Egrene waited for a response.

None.

"What the hell…?" Egrene snapped his radio back onto his belt, held his gun up and walked towards the anchors.

He supposed he would just investigate this himself. And so, he did.

He walked towards the Anchors and mentally prepared himself to walk towards the distortion. In his heart, he knew he shouldn't be doing this; this wasn't proper Foundation protocol nor procedure to just walk headfirst into a new anomaly.

But he needed to.

He briefly wondered if this was a compulsion that was pulling him towards it. As soon as he had this thought, he was through.

And emerged into an empty square containment chamber. Simple concrete and nothing else. Well, except for the door in front. There were three more Reality Anchors out here as well...wait. There was also a malfunctioning Anchor out here. There was a massive bubble of distortion that hung in the air. The hallways of Site-17 were visible, albeit warping lightly as he watched it.

Egrene whipped around as the door behind him jerked in place. Then it opened.

There was nowhere to hide.

Egrene got on his knees and aimed his side arm at whoever was entering.

And then was immediately a little more at ease when he saw that it was one if the O5 Council who stepped in.

"O5-4!" Egrene holstered his gun and strode up to him. "I didn't think someone was already on the case about this new anomaly!"

O5-4 gave Egrene a look of wide-eyed surprised before he quickly—blink-and-you'd-miss-it-quickly—whipped out a Reality Anchor dart gun and aimed it at him.

Egrene backed up, hands held up defensively. He immediately recognized it for what it was and felt his heart grow heavier still.

Why the fuck is he aiming one of those at me?!

"Wait! I'm Agent Egrene, Foundation Personnel! Field Agent, Senior Researcher, Direc—"

O5-8 stepped in and gently pushed the Anchor dart gun down.

"O5-4. Don't. Maybe he'll cooperate better if he realizes what he actually is."

"What?" Egrene cried loudly now, tears openly streaming down his face, his voice reduced to pathetic whimpers.

"Knock him off his high horse a little," O5-8 chuckled. He looked to Egrene and jerked his head towards the door. "Come."

"O5-8!" Egrene yelled. "What hell i—"

O5-8 moved more quickly than Egrene could register and snapped a collar around his neck.

"A Reality Anchor collar?!" Egrene pulled at it and felt himself grow immensely weaker than before. "Why?!"

"Come with us, SCP-AoM." O5-8 grabbed Egrene's wrist roughly and pulled him along.

"SCP?! I'm not an SCP!" Egrene shouted and tried to pull back.

O5-8 turned around, grabbed him roughly by the arm and looked him dead in the eyes. There was murder present within them, and for the first time in a very long time, Egrene felt fear, real fear spill into his heart and pump throughout the rest of his body.

"You have no right to yell at us, SCP-AoM." O5-8's face was stoic and calm, but Egrene could feel the coldness from his gaze burrowing deeply into his own eyes. "Come.

#

O5-8 pushed Egrene roughly into their small office and shoved him in. O5-4 stepped in and locked the door behind them.

"Sit." O5-8 pulled out a chair and gestured to it.

Egrene obeyed and sat down.

"SCP-AoM. Agent of Mercy, right? Is that what you call yourself?" O5-8 laughed and grinned a humorless grin. "You honestly think standard Foundation personnel could have that much influence on the O5?"

"I'm an SCP! I worked hard to get to where I am, O5-8!" Egrene retorted.

O5-8's attitude then immediately melted away and he pulled a chair over and sat down in front of Egrene.

"Okay. I'll make it short. It was funny at first, but now it's just saddening. Tell me about yourself, SCP-AoM—"

"Egrene," he spat with venom.

"Sure, if that's what you'd prefer," O5-8 nodded. "Who are you?"

"I'm Agent Egrene, Foundation Personnel and Director Overseer of Site-17." Egrene stated factually.

"There's no such thing as Director Overseer, Egrene. We have personnel specialized towards their tasks and areas of expertise." O5-8 corrected him.

"Well, I put in the extra effort to do so!" Egrene yelled.

"Sure you did. What's even your full name?" Asked O5-8.

"Agent Egrene!" Egrene replied.

"Name. Not personnel status."

"It's…" Egrene shook his head. "Egrene's my last name…"

"So is your first name Agent?" O5-8 laughed again.

Egrene glared daggers into his eyes.

"This is unlike you, O5-8. I was on my way to becoming one of you and now you're treating me like this?" Egrene spat at his interrogator.

O5-8 merely stared back, not laughing or reacting.

This was where O5-4 stepped in.

"Okay, since you're so intent on playing games with him rather than actually being productive…" O5-4 pulled up a chair and took a seat next to the both of them. "Egrene. You're not Foundation personnel. You're an anomalous humanoid and you show up in places where you don't belong. At first, you—"

"The hell do you mean where I don't belong?!" Egrene yelled.

"Don't interrupt any O5," O5-4 warned him. "We could have just fixed that Anchor and shoved you back in without a word, and I was going to before he stopped me." He gestured to O5-8.

"B-but!" Egrene muttered.

"Shut up and listen." O5-4 continued. "Most Foundation personnel don't even know we exist. The only reason you had any authority with those versions of us there was because that's YOUR world. YOUR pocket dimension. Those Anchors keep you in place to make sure your influence doesn't leak into our world out here. You're an anomaly, Egrene. You know it. You just don't want to accept it."

"No!" Egrene shouted. "I am personnel!"

"Yes, you are. In your own world. You know you're everywhere, right? Nobody else is 'everywhere' except for the O5 and a few other anomalous personnel. We watched you. We heard you. We saw you saving that alternate universe SCP-85 and having her be happy with SCP-507. That's noble and we respect you for that. That's why we're even bothering to tell you this in the first place."

Egrene just looked at him, mouth open slightly, brow furrowed deeply, face twisted in a frown.

"You're an SCP, Egrene. Think about it. Do you even remember your own childhood? For god's sake, man, you don't even know your first name."

"Y-yes I do…" Egrene stuttered. "I do…"

"What is it then?"

"It's…" Egrene struggled. His surname was Egrene, wasn't it? So his first name would be… "…Agent?" Egrene laughed a humorless laugh.

"What do you remember about your childhood?" O5-8 asked him. "How did you join us?"

"I…" Egrene closed him eyes and wept loudly. "I joined when…" He reached for a memory that wasn't here. "I don't know. I can't remember. Did you amnesticize me?"

"No, Egrene. You're an anomaly. You only have influence in your pocket dimension." O5-4 told him.

"But...but…" Egrene knew it. He had known it all along. "What will happen to John and Cassy? I love them."

"We know you do," said O5-8. "That's why we're personally taking them and gifting them to ███████████."

"Who?" Egrene stared at O5-8.

"Ah. Right. You're not privy to that information." O5-8 shook his head.

"I'm gonna go fix that Anchor now. Wasted too much time." O5-4 got up and left the room.

Egrene watched his jailer leave the room and disappear around a corner.

"Please don't take my friends away," Egrene begged O5-8.

"Worry not, Egrene," O5-8 replied. "SCP-507 and SCP-85 are being gifted to someone who will love them and care for them as you did. He wrote your story. He used you as a tool to save the two of them. In the end, you saved them, yes, but at the same time, it wasn't you who actually saved them. It was ███████████."

Egrene stared at him in shock. "Excuse me?"

"The only thing you actually did do was love them. We commend that. Genuinely. However, you don't belong with us. You don't belong with anyone. You exist as a perfect imperfection and your only purpose has been served. Now go home and don't leave."

#

Egrene sat at his desk and stared at the blank wall before him. He got up from his chair—knocking it over in the process—and ran to the door and looked out. Personnel walked around left and right, engaged in busy conversation. None of them noticed Egrene's wide-eyed gaze.

He closed the door and went to his desk drawer. He pulled it open, his heart threatening to burst.

John and Cassy weren't there anymore.

Instead, there was sealed envelope there with To my untold and unfortunate friend written on the front. He tore it open and read the letter.

Thank you very much for taking such good care of John and Cassy. When I realized the horrible fate that befell both of them, I couldn't sit back and do nothing. I created you as a tool to get them both back. And I have succeeded. Thank you for your assistance. I'm sorry I condemned you to this fate, Egrene. Existence is all about give and take. I will make sure that I love and care for John and Cassy the way you did. In case you're wondering how they grew old, they boarded my ████ and I showed them the █████ all throughout the ██████████. There have been a few discrepancies, yes, but you fulfilled a great role in assuring their happiness. Regardless of what the Council might have told you and how cold they undoubtedly were to you, you're a good man. You're too good, however. Which is why I can't help you. Simply put, you're too powerful. That was entirely my fault, but I couldn't think of a better way to save them. Thank you for your service. As best as you can, take care.

Egrene's tears fell upon the handwritten letter. He crumpled it up in a ball and threw it at the wall. He punched a hole in the wall, felt his knuckle hit something metal and hard and heard his bone crack.

He immediately withdrew his hand from it and saw blood oozing from the new wound. Within seconds, the wound sealed shut and his hand felt brand new again.

He looked to the hole in the wall and saw that it, too, repaired itself in seconds.

Egrene stared at the wall for a few moments longer before he decided to sit down at his desk.

And file some paperwork.