"I've endured longer nights. Six months. I can do more. I can make it."
The sky inside SCP-9092.
Item #: SCP-9092
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-9092 is currently contained in a standard Safe-class item containment room, with two cameras installed diametrically on the ceiling to monitor any activity within SCP-9092. When SCP-9092 is to be moved or transferred, it should be secured on a pedestal and handled with extreme care to avoid damaging its case.
No human is allowed to explore inside SCP-9092. Tests on SCP-9092 are indefinitely suspended, barring data or personnel extraction efforts, which are non-urgent. Attempts to rescue personnel inside SCP-9092 are deemed mostly futile but are to be continued with the Temporal Division's technical assistance.
Xyank-Anastasakos time sinks should be applied along with a wormhole generator in order to create a strip of space that directly passes through SCP-9092's case. The strip should be oriented toward the object to be retrieved inside SCP-9092. As long as the volume of space inside the strip dilutes and finally becomes synchronous with the outside world, the target should then be rendered safe to extract.
Efforts to find out SCP-9092's external location inside or outside the universe are ongoing.
- Archived Containment Procedures
Assets that are to be sent inside SCP-9092 should enter through a small-scale wormhole generator that can create portals on SCP-9092's surface. Probes are pre-programmed to automatically detect, approach, and fetch certain items inside SCP-9092. Personnel who go on exploration should be equipped with an extravehicular astronaut suit and a standard survival kit.
Description: SCP-9092 is an ornamental snow globe that measures 2.8m in diameter. Its pedestal and casing are made of ordinary marble and glass.
SCP-9092 contains a live-size scenery of a night sky and a white beach beside a pond. A telescope, a pile of books, and a street lamp are visible on the beach. There is a set of cogwheels below the pond rotating at a constant speed without any apparent power source.
The sky and the stars inside SCP-9092 can only be seen from the opposite side of the globe and do not appear to normally "fill" inside the casing. Due to this, researchers once supposed that SCP-9092 contains non-Euclidean geometry, but no warp of spacetime could be detected around it through any means. Later, it was ascertained that SCP-9092 is a portal connecting to an unknown dimension, probably a location in outer space.
The patterns of stars on SCP-9092's welkin do not correspond with any known constellations, even assumed ones. The dimension inside SCP-9092 extends beyond the border of the globe's glass casing. Preliminary explorations confirmed that it is an asteroid with a breathable atmosphere and a gravity of roughly 0.8 G. No suns or significant celestial objects were observed anywhere near the asteroid; as a result, most of the surface of the planet is perpetually dark, with the only exception(s) being the small patch of land lit by the lamp visible outside of SCP-9092, and twenty-four other similar locations equidistantly scattered around the asteroid's surface. Other locations contain only the lamp and the telescope, without the book pile.
Although lacking an external heat source, the atmosphere remains at a temperature suitable for human living. Different types of terrains, including miniature hills and oceans, and some unknown flora, were found on the asteroid.
The time inside SCP-9092 is subject to nonlinear dilution. At the time of discovery, the relative speed of time passing inside compared to outside (baseline reality) was approximately one hundred times faster than outside; the effect has exponentially increased over the duration of several months after its containment, assuming from the speed of motion of components inside SCP-9092, and is currently estimated to be around 10^12 times or higher. All assets deployed into SCP-9092 have been safely extracted before that.
The pile of books in SCP-9092 was reported to be mostly blank per previous explorations. However, later extraction of a book revealed lengthy handwritten content, mostly in the format of a personal diary, as a record of observation in that dimension. The writer of those records is unknown, and if it is a visible entity, never encountered by previous probes on the asteroid.
Addendum: Excerpts of Recovered Records
Page 1
As part of the experiment, I agreed to enter despite without assurance that I could return safely. The wormhole that led to here is an unstable one, a model that is typically used to connect two places with drastically different Hume levels; better than the C-types that may break me to pieces, but no more guarantee.
But I volunteered anyway. I want to see what such a place will be like. I want to prove if it's possible.
Page 2
This place is far more beautiful than I thought. Bushes with broad leaves fluttering in the wind. Flowers that bloom with no sunlight. I took a trip around the entire globe, only costing several hours, running my fingers through the tips of the soft grass. If there's daylight, that would be better. I'm not tuned to eternal night though I've worked for a long time at the Antarctic Base. But it's an acceptable tradeoff for an extradimensional asylum, I guess. Away from everything.
I would sit under a tree, watching the stars drifting by. They are little silver ghosts that shine like distant whispers. As I don't need to sleep or eat anymore, this place feels like a lucid dream. Something I wanted, and that's why I applied for this project.
Page 4
The lack of a day-night cycle has somewhat made my time perception illusory. The clock I carried only shows Earth time, that is, 24 hours a day; not very relevant here.
Page 5
Waiting for the environ clock to calibrate. I suppose it might be one month since my entry, as I kept the record as exactly one day per page.
Page 6
The clock doesn't seem to respond. Through the telescope, I could find Earth now. Hard to believe it took me nearly one week to set up the telescope, but it means my mission is done. The blue orb looks perfectly normal, just spinning six times faster than usual, barely enough for me to see the cloud clusters change their shapes.
The planet is mostly dark, save for starlight that is unusually bright. Those little hills are covered in a snow-like substance that would thaw in my palm, but I never saw any clouds, let alone snowfall. The stars, however, do visibly move in the sky, and, if you view them from a right angle, they look like endless shining snowflakes falling upward. So ethereal.
It will be an experience I will remember forever.
Page 7
I tried to contact Control, but it was futile; I've already been informed that once I enter, there would be no meaningful way to reach me. But I started to panic. Today is the one-week checkpoint, and they are supposed to reach me and change shifts. Without the ability to doze off makes the panic just worse.
Page 8
I guess there's something wrong.
Page 9
…No. I returned to the 30°N primary observation point today (?) and tried to fix the clock piece; it worked, but it started to spin wildly. I rushed back to the telescope and guess what? The auto-mount is misaligned. Earth is moving faster in the sky than the telescope turns. It proved my worst anticipation. I quickly fixed the tracking problem and looked at Earth. It is spinning into a blur.
My hands were shaking, and I tried to find other familiar double star systems, hoping they would prove that I was wrong. But no, no way. The time has diluted. The time is moving fast forward at least one hundred times.
I looked up at the sky. The stars blinked at me, circling a virtual point in the welkin at their normal speed; if the time has diluted, the stars won't rotate faster in the sky, because the time deviation only affects the space out of here, not the spin of this planet. But if they do, it will be something worse.
Maybe I can never return.
Page 10
Today is the last day of my duty that they've promised. If nothing has gone wrong, they will fetch me exactly sixty days after my entry, that is the final dispatch.
Page 11
The speed must have exponentially increased to an extent that I cannot see the Solar System clearly, let alone the Earth. All blurred to a glowing blob. Because the auto-tracking system won't work at such a speed, I switched the telescope to the tachyon mode, and snapped some images of Earth; I can't be sure if humanity still exists on it. The most significant clue is that no light streaks are visible on its night side.
Page 12
It's three million times.
I've seen it gone. Civilization. Just within one day, nothing is there anymore. I've seen glaciers melt and reform, and I guess there was a meteor? Couldn't know when it fell to Earth.
The constellations in the sky began to wander.
Page 13
One billion times. If it stops here, I can see the Sun die within my lifetime.
I saw that the shape of the continents has changed on Earth. I don't dare to calculate how long it might have been.
I could see how stars roam in their mother galaxies, I can see how the Milky Way is a concert of glitters and golds.
It must be a dream.
Page 15
2.74 million years per day.
Time? What is time after all?
I saw the night sky become redder. Purple.
May I take your hand and dance, Mizar and Alcor?
Page 16
Nothing of note happened.
Page 17
I guess it stabilized. Now it's close to 3 million years per day, as far as I can tell, and shows no more signs of growing exponentially.
Page 18
Sometimes I found myself funny. How ridiculous I am to even care about anything if everything I cared about has already pulverized to dust eons ago?
I do consider myself a recluse, and that's why I wanted to come. But I'm not the type who can handle everything with a grain of salt. Many people devote themselves to science to get a sense of ultimate belonging or to escape from their mortality, to find where they are in a bigger existence that they can't touch but can "have" inside their intellect. In a sense, they think once they can think of it, they own it.
Like, astronomers often take a joke that they can never really meet what they study. You know that what you see is a star's ghost five million years ago, and it might die as a supernova after another billion years. You'll never have the chance to see your theory get proven, but you are content with it. You've found your life a meaning even if nothing has changed. You'll think it's a pity but nothing more. Even if humans are still immured in contingent, fragile shells whose existence is ephemeral. Even if everything is bound to die.
But I'm not that kind of person. That is why I'm painful. I came from a facility where science is not taken as merely brain teasers. We used our most advanced cosmological and temporal technology to build this dimension so that we can survive cosmological disasters and jump ahead in time to wait for a new start. This place is meant for the whole civilization, not only me. I've wished so many times that someone could come and tell me, yes, you are not forgotten, and a K-class scenario happened, and we all jumped aboard a light-speed spaceship and came here to find you. Or that the whole project is a hoax, and the time warp scene is just an illusion to test my grit in such a circumstance.
Page 19
If the warp speed is this, I will sit my entire life toward a black void into the Heat Death.
Page 40
Every day is night, and I'm in eternal darkness. Wake up. I want to wake up. If this is a dream, then it will be the worst nightmare ever. Please let me wake up. Even if when I go out, I instantly die.
Page 41
Why don't they even have some sort of library here? Why should I stare into those shitty blank books and have to write silly stuff inside them? Why don't they at least give one something to do?
I volunteered. It's my choice.
Page 42
Night. Night. Dark grounds, dark hills, dark sand, dark trees and grasses. I'm drowning. I want to see light. I want to see real sunlight. Not this faltering lamp. I don't want to look into that damn telescope anymore.
Page 43
I hypothesized that this place powers on some sort of ectoentropic resource, but I can't know. You do know that eternal nights can't be this warm. But I can lie warm, even if I strip down and lie there bare-bodied in the grass, I don't feel a tingle. I think this place is fake. It must be fake. Why could I be so stupid that I came here without much knowledge of this thing at all?! Why could I be so confident in my theories and creations?! Maybe I deserve this… It's indeed a good fate for someone like me. Haha.
Page 44
I've endured longer nights. Six months. I can do more. I can make it.
Page 45
I feel that the stars are looking on me. Poor thing. Poor thing that doesn't even hallucinate somebody to talk to after one and a half months in isolation. Yeah, the universe is my company! But not in this way, I guess.
Page 74
Stars are like spaceships, so some wreck and explode in the atmosphere. It exploded so bright that the bluish light could cast my shadow against the pale, quiet beach.
Page 81
I tested things out. I drowned. I think I drowned myself. But I didn't die. The water there was so warm. Like… maybe the amniotic fluid. Or some primeval "soup of substances". So warm that I felt like I could breathe in it.
Page 100
Since we came here, will there be a way to build a spaceship from thousands of sheets of paper, a broken time machine, and a whole asteroid that might be several kilometers wide?
I want to leave here.
Page 180
Will the portal just reopen if I sit here at the entry point long enough? I don't care what is on the other side now. I don't care if the Earth is a frozen hell now or if it's no longer there at all. I want to see the Sun. I don't want to see a ghost of it. Sear me or freeze me to death. I don't care.
In the old days, we never worked through an entire polar night. We change shifts. We celebrate every sunrise. We go outside in September and cheer for the blazing dawn. And back then, we had a purpose. We could see and enjoy the world as a new one together every day.
Page 180 to page 480 all contain records of events happening on various celestial objects, such as the formation of white dwarves and supernovae. The dates of such records hereafter stop aligning with page numbers (i.e., no longer a daily diary); most records cover large time spans over months.
It is worth noting that only a small portion of those celestial objects mentioned within these pages, per their names only, are known to humans. It is unknown whether the author invented those extra names, or they belong to a different terminology, or that they do not exist in the current universe.
Page 238
It's close that I'll see the Sun's death. I've prepared for this moment for so long. The Earth has been scorched to a hell long before. Reduced to a piece of charcoal oozing lava, oceans evaporated long before under the red giant's blaze.
The Sun is swollen, dimmer, visibly pebbling with gas lumps, its crimson prominences obscuring it into an ominous halo; I'm too accustomed to seeing a star dying that I don't even feel the awe and heaviness of it.
Date markings on the corner of each page suggest that the last record was made forty-one years after the first one, the collapse of Alpha Virginis into a supernova on Page 74. Note that the time of this event, including a few other events, occurred later than current predictions.
The later records start to become elegies, where the writer addresses each celestial object with its name, and adds comments like "wish you peace", etc. Those records come with a more and more obvious artistic style over the years, but the exquisiteness dropped significantly over the last few pages of records, with malformed handwriting and numerous spelling mistakes.
Page 492
There is good news. I can't believe it.
Today should be a New Year's Eve, if Earth still exists - the clock, though, has long gone out of calibration, so it makes little sense. But I take a picture of the night sky this time in every "year".
I'm sure that it's becoming brighter every day, if the camera isn't out of order. Over the decades, I've seen a lot of galaxies slowly stop redshifting and instead turn into blueshift. This means that, very likely, I don't need to sit my death into a Heat Death anymore. It's the Big Crunch coming instead.
The Crunch! Perhaps I still have ten years or something to see that happen. To see that happen! I will see how the universe dies in my lifetime! Collapsing back to a singularity! I can finally die! And I'll die a beautiful death.
Why am I so happy, though…
Shouldn't I be happy?
Page 493
The sky is tinted reddish, and it shifts toward purple. More and more supernovae explode each moment, like fireworks, white-blue against the dark maroon background. This would be a totally nonsensical layperson's imagination of how stars will be dying in batches near the end of the universe, if there were no time dilution effect. But it's my reality now.
Hell, this place finally got some change. This place has no end. Mercy o' thou.
Page 494
The stars are visibly moving closer to each other, probably accelerating. This shit is blinding me when I look in the telescope. My eyes water and perhaps bleed and I rub them and nothing happens.
Here it becomes so hot. I can't really stand it. I tried to take my clothes off, but that just worsened it.
Page 495
So hot and hot and the world is burning. Burning. The warmest furnace isn't red and yellow, it's blue, and a blue mood is the happiest mood for me.
Now I try to plan this book so that I can use up all the remaining pages by then.
The sky is so bright that I can't really distinguish individual stars from the background now. Not purple anymore. The glow is shining on the atmosphere, and it gets scattered by it and turns it blue, I guess. The bizarre azure shade swallowed everything.
I see the daylight again.
Page 496
I think I got radiation sickness. Red blotches on my skin, dizziness. No nausea, though. I looked upward and saw something dissolved in the sky. Perhaps it's a nearby planet? I never saw anything in that direction.
I should have died in this dose of radiation. The environment is completely a hot gas surrounding me; I can't breathe now without enduring a sharp pain in my lungs. Feels like hot steam scalding from inside.
I could see shapes in the sky, not clouds. Plasmas from molten stars, liquefied planets, fusing like real liquids. The edge of them is yellow, the center is white, constantly morphing. The rest is oscillating between blue and red. I can't really describe it. It's like you are on an acid trip while sitting on top of an erupting volcano.
Page 497
My skin is bursting apart. Some are charred, but I can't feel the pain. Numbed? It must be above the burning point of paper. Why is this damned book still intact?
I'm blind now, I guess. Everything is white. Like liquid iron was poured into my eyes. I'm barely a shape now. I'm an agglomeration of kaput bones with non-existent blood, walking around.
Page 498
Some of the sand melted beneath my feet. Air is thinning, perhaps it's diffusing away into the space at such a temperature. Perhaps there is already no air long before. I can't feel my body anymore, so I'm not sure.
Natural forces! Ripping my nerves in half and into further halves. Sewing my bubbling flesh together. Perhaps just days left!! Haha. I'm coming! Sweet, sweet unbenighted end!
Page 499
The asteroid is torn apart, perhaps by spacetime curvature.
The rock and sky shredded and liquefied, [illegible handwriting]
I'm falling. Falling with this last bit of sap that I kept for nothing.
I'm so blissful to see this.
Page 500
Five minutes.
Four minutes.
Three minutes.
Two minutes.
One minute.
Everything is moving and colliding together and I feel alive again I feel alive it is moving burning away hugging me in the center of everything hug me so tight I must be so close to home now.
Nothing is ahead.
Adios, brave new world.
Below is the only excerpt found in the second book in the pile.
Page 1
Why am I still here?