cfact one they'd recovered from a version of Site-62 that existed thirty two years in the future. It had been carved into a rib bone. Human. Unregistered.
No one outside her clearance should've known it.
Test Log 004-13-A
Time: 13:13 hours, July 2, 20██
Subject: D-9982
Key Used: SCP-004-13
The chamber was quiet as D-9982 stepped up to the barn door.
The key turned with a whisper.
A sound like wind but inside the bones passed through the room.
The door creaked open.
And beyond it was not the inside of the building.
Instead: an expanse of dark sky, swirling with slow golden lights. A corridor paved with mirror-stone and lined by arching trees made of black glass, their leaves suspended like static in time.
D-9982 turned, looked at the camera.
"I think I've seen this before."
He stepped inside.
The door slammed shut.
Power failed across Sub-Level Theta-7. Monitors blinked to black. Myra's HUD goggles flickered.
Then, a sharp crack.
The barn door was open again.
And D-9982 stood in front of it changed.
His beard had grown. Skin roughened by sun. A deep scar ran down his left cheek. His Foundation jumpsuit was torn, stained with dark blood not all his own.
Myra stared. "...Ethan?"
He stepped forward, calmly. "Seventy four years. I lived them all. I saw what waits behind each of those doors. Only the Thirteenth brings you to the axis point. The memory of creation."
Cho whispered, "Temporal compression. He's been gone for less than three minutes."
D-9982/Ethan met Myra's eyes. "The others were doors to dying timelines. Dead gods, broken loops, static eternities. But the Thirteenth...
It doesn't open a door.
It opens the first door."
DEBRIEFING TRANSCRIPT - 004-13-A
Ethan was detained immediately. Myra, against protocol, demanded direct psychological evaluation rather than sedation.
"Where did you go?"
His voice was hoarse, filled with tired reverence. "To a cathedral woven from origin. A place where reality was still being written. Where every possibility hadn't yet been divided."
He leaned forward. "I saw it. A creature... no, a presence. Green and endless. Every test subject before me? The ones who vanished? I found some. Not dead. Not alive. Used. They're becoming part of it. Memory anchors."
Lina swallowed. "What's it building?"
Ethan didn't blink.
"A way back."
Post-Event Report:
SCP-004-13 has been reclassified as Keter level component.
Door will remain sealed. No further testing authorized.
Ethan (formerly D-9982) has been reassigned to Temporal Observation Wing.
Multiple anomalous radio bursts detected across Eurasia during the moment of activation, all matching patterns embedded in SCP-004-13's microscopic engravings.
Final note from Dr. Elison's terminal:
We opened the Thirteenth Key thinking it was the last.
But what if it was the first one ever forged?
Not to open but to seal.