Sitting in the library was a favorite pastime of Alden’s. Most of the day was running around, meeting up with people, getting to class, whatever else the day called for, but the library was peaceful. It allows a place to avoid the noise of the world and simply exists without the stress of time. Lucky for him, his daily activities had come to an end and he didn’t have to leave any time soon. He had a spot in the library that was far back within the stacks of bookcases, where barely anyone walked, let alone knew was there. He would spend most of his time reading or working on assignments and today he had most of his work done, so he got time to do some reading. Lucky for him, he had looked into a plethora of genres, from horror to romance. Horror seemed to stick out to him the most, but reading was a day to day enjoyment. Some days the action was more interesting, some days the suspense of a good tragedy had him hooked. He didn’t know what he was looking for today and started a normal wandering walk to find something interesting. Going through the library he would find interesting titles, read the back cover’s blurb of text and see if it was interesting. Nothing really grabbed his attention today. After some more perusing of the various book genres he tends to like, he expanded out to see if anything else would grab his attention. It had been about half an hour of looking and he came across something interesting. There was a series of horror shorts and other smaller forms of content that he had been into for a long time called CRC. It was a fictional series that had a strong development online. Making video games, wiki-databases, short stories, and loads more. He didn’t recognize the name of the book, but it looked similar to something he had seen within the CRC series. He titled his head and saw the book title, The Hanged King’s Tragedy. He slid the book out from the shelf and looked at the cover. There was no signature CRC labeling on it, even when he flipped it over to the back. He opened it and analyzed the pages. He didn’t know about everything CRC had to offer, but he knew that The Hanged King’s Tragedy was similar to CRC-601. It’s an anomalous script that helps direct a play for people to perform, but whatever anomalous property the script had, it made the play turn into a real life tragedy, not just a theatrical one. He took a look at the surrounding books and stories to see if there were any others that related to or had similar covers to it. After a brief scan, he didn’t find any. He kept the book and walked down the aisle of books to see the library’s section name. The book was in the sci-fi section. Alden looked down at the book and talked to himself. “I don’t think I would consider this sci-fi,” he said. He took another look at the book then turned to walk to the front desk. He waited in line for a few people and the librarian greeted him. “Oh, Alden, how are you?” She asked. “I’m good, found something interesting for ya,” He replied. “Oh?” She reacted. Alden handed the book to her and she looked it over. “This is one of those CRC books I’ve talked about, I think they must have had the labeling or something wrong because I found it in the sci-fi section,” He explained. She kept spinning the book around, looking for something, but clearly not finding it. “Aren’t your CRC books sci-fi? Capture, Relocate, eh whatever it is. It sounds sci-fi to say the least,” She commented. “Some of them kinda are, but they mainly stay in the horror section of the library, either that or they’ll be in those series bundles if they’re in another section,” Alden stated. “You said you found this book here?” She asked. “Yea, why do you ask?” He responded. “Well, all our books have a barcode to scan, you know the drill, but this one… it has a barcode, but I’ve never seen it placed or arranged like this before,” she said. “Huh,” Alden replied. After a few more seconds of examining, Alden got an idea. “Here, how about I borrow it, and you can test if that barcode works,” He suggested. She nodded her head, Alden set up his account and she scanned the book. The ping sounded and the book got scanned. “It seemed to go through, though looking through the information, I don’t see a day we got the book… Guess you caught a missed book,” She said, shrugging and handing Alden the book. Alden took the book and looked at it for a second. “Huh, interesting,” He said. He thanked the librarian and returned to his spot. He was about to sit down when he realized he probably should get home. “Eh, I’ve spent most of my day exploring. I don’t want to be here too long," he thought. Alden packed his stuff and made his way out of the library.

The library was shutting down for the night and most of the librarians and maintenance staff were closing up. The fire alarm went off. Everyone looked at each other and sighed, knowing that there was probably nothing wrong, and that they were likely going to have to stay later to finish things. The staff began to walk out and some people in high-vis vests walked into the library. “Everyone, there is something going on in the building connected to the library. This is not a drill, but do not worry,” a man explained through a megaphone. Some more people in high-vis walked into the building and started towards the alarms. “Why are there so many people coming in?” One of the staff members asked the man. “We think it might be an issue with the alarm system itself. We have some people to try and fix it, but at the moment, we’re just running through this like a normal evacuation for you all,” the man stated. The rest of the library staff moved out and the man with the megaphone looked back to one of the high-vis men. “Keep 'em out there, normal procedure,” he said. They responded with a nod and shut the doors behind him. “Ok everyone, are the fire alarms set to keep ringing?” The man asked through a radio on his shoulder. A female voice talked through several other voices on a channel and confirmed they were. “Brilliant people, look for usual suspect areas, we’ve done this plenty of times before,” he yelled. The people then swept the library with odd devices in their hands. This went on for some time before the same female voice came from over the radio. “We found it sir,” she stated. They talked through some direction and led to where Alden found The Hanged King’s Tragedy. The spot was still empty from where Alden took it. “Damn it,” He said, his voice fading with a realization. “Sir, the library database, I have who rented it,” a voice over the radio stated.

Alden woke up the next morning and stretched. He had set the book on his nightstand to help remind him to read it. The day was fairly light for him, classes were generally later in the day and he didn’t have to meet up with anyone prior to that. So, he went through with his morning routine and he thought about the book. He looked over to sitting on the nightstand and remembered the weird story this item carried. He finished eating breakfast and grabbed the book. After sitting in his chair he opened the book and started reading it. It was on par for what he knew of the book. It was creepy, had an old play vibe to it, what he expected. After reading through the first act, he noticed himself slipping up on a few words as he continued. He would have those, ‘Wait, that’s not the right word’ moments every few pages or so. This started to become more normal as he read on. After getting partially through the third act, he caught himself going on full paragraph tangents of stuff not even close to the text. After one of these moments, he looked up from the book and shook his head. “This story must be getting to me…” he thought. He set the book back down on the nightstand and went to go do something else. After walking a few feet away from the book, he stopped and turned to look back at it. He must have daydreamed for a moment because his roommate walked into the room he was about to go to and questioned him. “Alden, you good?” they asked. He snapped out of what felt like a trance and turned around. “Yea, I’m fine, I uh… did one of those, forget what you’re doing the moment you walk through a door, moments. I’ll probably remember it in a moment,” He responded with a faint laugh. “Ok,” they replied. “Actually, I just remembered, I’m gonna start working on something and was going to close the door,” Alden explained. “Yea, you do you,” they said. Alden closed the door and looked at the book again. “What is happening…” he thought. He walked up to the book and opened it again. As he opened it, a black knife was placed between the pages he left off at. Alden jumped and dropped the book. “Holy, shi?!” He yelled, cutting himself off. The book landed open, but no indent of the knife was apparent within the pages. “You ok in there?” Alden’s roommate asked. “Yea, I’m fine, just… stubbed my toe and dropped something,” Alden explained. “Ok,” they replied. Alden slowly approached the book and lifted one half of it to close it. He sighed when nothing happened as it closed. “Am I actually in possession of a CRC?” He thought to himself. He looked around the room and then stared at his closet for a moment. “This can’t not go back to the library,” He said to himself. He hesitantly grabbed the book, waiting for it to open on its own or for another weapon to magically appear. He lifted it up and placed it in his closet. After setting it down, he pushed it back and to the side as far as possible. He looked around the floor of the closet and moved a bunch of items over it, blocking his sight of it. He then shut the closet door and sighed again. “What am I doing?! I have a freakin CRC in my closet!!” He yelled under his breath. He stopped for a moment and walked to his computer. He opened a search tab and typed in, CRC-601. Some sites came up, and he began looking through them. They all explained the same basic understanding he already knew. Some went into a bit more details regarding the Tragedy it told, but nothing past most surface level understanding. One site caught his attention and it explained that CRC-601 often changed its name to avoid detection of people who know of it. He continued to look through the collection of sites for a while and an email popped up. He hovered his mouse over it to get more details about it. It was from the department head at the library. He clicked on the pop up and it redirected him to the email. “Hi Alden, we have been able to track down the origins of the book you borrow called, The Hanged King’s Tragedy and would like to know when you could return it to the library so we can properly import its information into the system.” Alden got a concerned look after reading this and looked back at the closet. He looked back at the email and then down to the floor. He had several thoughts running through his head and wondered whether or not he should respond to the email. He looks at the email for a moment longer and then closes out of his email. “I just need to go for a walk or something, this is too much,” he says to himself, reaching for his jacket and keys.

The same man who spoke through the microphone is looking at someone typing on a computer. “Sergeant, this is what information we have on him,” the person at the computer explains. The computer’s screen flashes various bright colors as tabs appear on the screen. “This is where he lives, would you like us to dispatch a unit?” they asked. “No, this is a unique situation with 701, we’ve never had a civilian take it without the intent of recreating the Tragedy. We’ll see if he’ll return it and hopefully, we take it peacefully without conflict,” The Sergeant stated. “Are you sure we should wait? What if he took it for a friend, or is planning on giving it to someone?” they asked. “I said we wouldn’t confront him, I never said we shouldn’t monitor him. If there are cameras at his apartment complex, get them, we already have access to the school’s cameras, look at his schedule and follow him. We’ll have someone watching 24/7 and if he gets within half a mile of that library, notify the Library Department Head we have stationed there. I think we’ll have some researchers interested in this situation, but we need to make sure to act if something is up,” The Sergeant stated.

Alden felt paranoid as the rest of the day went on. He quickly took his stuff for class from his apartment and left, thankfully nothing strange happened. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. It wasn't a surprise, but it felt like he had eyes watching him at all times. Within his brief search of CRC-601, he learned there was an anomaly that came along with the Tragedy, a shadow-like figure that interacted with people who used the book. He could have sworn he saw that shadow-like anomaly out of the corner of his eye a few times. Frequently he found himself spinning his head around to look at something that wasn’t there. For good part of the day, his friends were able to distract him from whatever torture he had admitted himself to. Unfortunately, as the day started coming to an end, he wasn’t distracted any more. At one point he looked at a shadow on the floor and saw it move independent from what was casting it. He stared at it, seeing if it would move again and a friend asked what he was looking at. Alden quickly brushed off the question and returned to the conversation people were having. After all his friends returned home or went to evening classes, Alden started his walk back to his apartment. The paranoia was at its worst walking by himself. The shadows seemed to be bigger than normal, and at times he could feel someone behind him. He’d turn around, and no one was within 40 feet of him. The odd looks of strangers deterred him from looking around too frantically, but it was hard to avoid at some times. He made the rest of the walk home, watching things move in his peripherals. He opened the door to his apartment building and walked to his apartment door. There was a neighbor that walked by as he grabbed his keys and he gave them a quick wave. Looking back at the door, he saw a hand reaching out to him from the door. He screamed, and jumped back, dropping what he was holding. As he reacted to the hand, it disappeared. “Are you Okay?” the neighbor asked, turning to see Alden. He stared at the door for a moment and then picked up what he dropped. “Yea, I’m fine… there was a huge bug, just spooked me, sorry,” Alden explained. “Okay…” the neighbor responded. Alden got into his room and locked the door behind him. He took off his shoes and sat down on his bed. He looked at the closet. It was still closed, but that didn’t stop whatever dreadful feeling was following him. He got up and opened the closet, making sure to stand as far from it as possible. As he opened the door, he could barely see anything. He looked at the lights and back down, but there was not enough lack of light to make that strong of a shadow. He leaned in a bit more and he started to make out the items he threw in front of the book. Their color looked completely drained of saturation and brightness. Trying to look past those items felt like looking at a dimensionless void. He reached his hand down and quickly took one of the items. As he pulled the item out, it regained its color. Curiosity got the better of Alden and he slowly reached his hand down to the items. As his hand got close to the pile of items, the same color effect happened on his skin. He moved his hand around in this shadowed area, observing the changes in shade, then one of the items moved. He retracted his hand, and waited to see if it would move again. It did. Then another one next to it. Alden reached for the door handle to start closing it, but then something began to emerge from the items. Alden felt compelled to look, and he did. It was hard to see what it was, but as the items moved around whatever it was, Alden began to recognize it. The tip of a blade slid out from the items and right in front of him. A long black substance pushed it to him, then disappeared back into the closet. Alden looked at the knife then, as if it was a delayed action, slammed the closet door. He took several deep breaths and his focus returned to the knife. As he stared, he could hear faint noises, none that he could discern. He shook his head and looked around. “Am I really about to do this? This is possession 101, contact with a cursed object,” He whispered. The knife remained motionless and had an odd reflection to it. A thought popped into his head. He ran to his computer and opened his emails. The computer remembered what mail he was last looking at and the department head at the library emailed him again. “Hi Alden, just checking to make sure you received my last email regarding the book you borrowed with the missing information on it. Get back to me when you can.” Alden quickly clicked the reply button and started typing. “Sorry, I did receive your last email but I completely forgot to reply to it.” Alden stopped and looked down at his keys, wondering how he could avoid answering this email but still give a response. “I unfortunately don’t know where the book is. It’s likely somewhere within my apartment and I just forgot where I put it. I understand your rules with overdue books. I've held onto books longer than I should have plenty of times before, but I will get the book back to you as soon as possible. Again, sorry for the delayed response.” He leaned back in his chair after finishing typing and looked at the knife on the floor. It still had not moved. “They can not have this book in the library, I don’t care if this head of department shows up to my house personally,” Alden said to himself. He moved his cursor to the send button and clicked it. A loading sign showed for a moment, then a message displaying ‘sent’ showed. He stood up and paced a few times. He again looked at the knife and sighed. He walked to his front door and took the welcome mat. He threw it over the knife and put a pair of shoes on the mat. Alden walked out of his room and continued with his day.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The Sergeant walks into the room and someone calls him over. He walks over and leans down to look at a screen. The computer displays the chain of emails between Alden and the Library Department Head. “HE LOST IT!?” The Sergeant yells. Everyone else in the room stops what they’re doing and goes silent. “When did he send this email?” The Sergeant asks. “Just a few minutes ago…” the person at the computer responds, near completely sunk in their chair. “We’re dispatching NOW!” The Sergeant screams. The person at the computer scrambles to the keyboard and moves the mouse to click something. The screen lights up yellow and the radio on the Sergeant begins to repeat a warning code. “We Need to Know as Much As We Can! I expect intel before I get there,” The Sergeant states, walking out of the room.

Alden returned to his room and sat at his computer. He checked his email and there was no response to his email. He closes the email application and looks over at the shoes in the middle of his floor. Everything over the knife was still in the same spot. He shakes his head and turns to look back at the computer but realizes something and double takes. The same black substance he previously saw push the knife was now oozing from under the door. He looks at the substance and realizes it’s moving towards the knife. He pauses for a moment, thinking if this is something he should try to stop. The ooze continues towards the knife then lifts off the ground and forms into a hand. Alden shifts back in his chair slightly. The hand grabs his shoes and throws them. They bounce off the wall and hit a few things on a small shelf next to Alden. It then takes hold of the mat and starts to lift it. Alden gets the feeling he needs to do something about this and waits for the hand to move the mat. After it lifts it up enough to see the knife, Alden reaches down and grabs the handle of the knife. As he swipes the knife, he notices it appears to be a normal knife. When he gets the knife, he stands up and backs away from the hand. He quickly looks at the knife and sees a steel blade with a black hand. The black handle feels very odd in his hand, but the disembodied hand might do something and whether it’s comfortable or not isn’t a concern. The hand angles itself straight up and spins to the closet door. Alden points the knife to the hand and the hand jumps to the closet door handle. “Wait!” Alden yells. The closet door flies open and a shadowy figure slowly emerges from where he tried to hide the book. “CRC-601-A…” Alden says under his breath. After partial forming, the figure begins to change. It grows layers of tatter cloth around its body, and pages of the books can be seen within the wrapped cloth. Alden starts to hear lines from the tragedy being spoken in his head. He grabs his head with one hand and continues to hold the knife to CRC-601-A with the other. CRC-601-A speaks, but its jaw doesn’t move in line with the words it says. “Blood, it is the Hanged King’s,” It says, reaching its hand out to Alden. Terrible thoughts begin to spin in Alden’s head. “Antonio’s blo… my blood, no… no, NO!” Alden stutters to say, then yells. Alden uses the hand that he was holding his head with to hit CRC-601-A’s hand to the side. He thrusts the knife at CRC-601-A. As he does, the door gets broken down and a squad of people with tactical gear enter the room. Alden stabs SCP-701-1 in the chest and retracts the knife. The squad members all aim their guns at SCP-701-1, then realize Alden is attacking it. Alden attempts to stab SCP-701-1 again, and it tries to dodge the attack. The knife makes contact, but only cuts some of the cloth as SCP-701-1 moves to the side. Alden sees it move to the side and as he pulls the knife back, he takes a hop-step to space himself. “Stand Down!” The Sergeant yells, moving through the doorway of squad members. SCP-701-1 starts moving forward toward Alden again. SCP-701-1 reaches its hand to grab Alden, and he leans backward to dodge it. He then dips under the arm and thrusts to attack SCP-701-1 again. It pierces SCP-701-1. He notices now, with the second stab, the first wound is bleeding and the cloth around it is starting to get red. For a moment, SCP-701-1 stands motionless and Alden stares at the wounds he’s inflicted. Both Alden and SCP-701-1 speak. “Blood, it is the Hanged King’s,” They say. “It is the Hanged King’s” Alden says again, his focus locked on the stab marks. Alden retracts the knife and hop-steps again. “It is the Hanged King’s… No Not THis Again!” Alden screams, grabbing his head and pulling at his hair. As Alden starts talking, one of the officers yells to the Sergeant. “We can’t fire, he’s in the way!" They yell. “Stand DOWN!” The Sergeant yells again. Alden snaps out of a trance and remembers what’s happening. “It’s Attacking ME!” Alden replies. SCP-701-1 looks at Alden and tries the same thing again. Alden keeps backing up, but the wall of the room is getting very close to him. He tries to run around SCP-701-1, but it blocks him as he tries. “Do Something!” Alden screams. “We Can’t! You’ll get hit!” One of the squad members yells. “WHO CARES, CRC-601 will kill more people than me, Stop It!” Alden responds, bumping into the wall behind him. The Sergeant looks at a squad member who’s holding an odd piece of equipment. “You heard him, Fire!” The Sergeant orders. The piece of equipment starts to hum. Alden backs into the wall as much as he can, but SCP-701-1 is only a few feet away. The humming intensifies rapidly and peaks out at a certain volume. Alden jabs at SCP-701-1 and makes contact, but SCP-701-1 barely reacts and grabs his arms. Alden feels his skin rip as it holds his lower arm and starts screaming. “Blood, it is…” SCP-701-1 starts to say. The humming stops and is immediately followed by a high pitch ring and a bright flash. Alden hears screams from SCP-701-1 and several other people in his head as it overpowers his own. The bright light blocks all of his vision, but only within a few seconds after that, Alden loses all senses and falls unconscious.

The device stops and everyone in the squad looks at the scene left from the chaos. The Sergeant and others remove electronic earbuds and store them in a pocket on their uniform’s upper arm. “Everyone with me?” The Sergeant asks. Everyone in the squad nods their head and the person with the device begins packing it. The Sergeant looks at the remains of SCP-701-1 and Alden lying on the floor. “You know the drill, sweep the place. We already have a team here to get people in the building Amnesticized,” The Sergeant states. Some members of the squad begin scanning the place and others start analyzing the remains of SCP-701-1. They find a trail of cloth that leads to the book which lies just outside of the closet. While everyone begins their work, the Sergeant makes his way over to Alden. “Hey, anyone tell me what was happening here? I’ve never seen this before,” The Sergeant asks. Someone walks over to him and looks at Alden. “He has traces of the memetic, but he had exposure for a few days and had direct contact with 701-1, so it makes sense. It’s not as severe as I thought… Might have taken a day for it to really set in. We’ve had people exposed barely trace or show anything, so not surprising. As for what we just saw, I’ve never seen that before. Most people that get that kind of exposure are completely lost, especially after having a physical altercation. Also, I did notice he was holding a 701-B,” The squad member explains, pointing at various spots on Alden’s body as they talk. “No one has ever held that knife and not been fully affected by the memetic, so this is definitely new territory,” they say, shrugging. “Okay, and how new are we talking?” The Sergeant asks. “Well, we’ll need one of our teams to take both that 701-B from him and the remains of 701-1 with hazard equipment. Once we get a good read on this place regarding its safety, we’ll take Alden here and see if he’ll still be kicking for us to have a chat,” they explain. “Have you ever seen a civ do that before?” The Sergeant asks. “Do what sir?” the squad member replies. “Act like that? I know civilians have access to the front SCP sites, CRC, and fictions we have set up, but even with that, don’t you find it weird how he handled this?” The Sergeant says. “Sir, he has traces of the memetic, it could be that tampering with his mind, so anything is possible,” they state, then turning to work on something else. The Sergeant stands up staring at Alden with a concerned curiosity. He looks at the scene again and joins his squad.

After the squad finishes their work, the Sergeant’s radio goes off. “Haz Team Arrived,” it says. “Alright people, our time is up, let's move it,” The Sergeant orders. People in various colored suits make their way into the room and the squad members begin to leave. The Sergeant waits for all his squad to leave and as the last member leaves, someone on the Hazard team speaks up. The Sergeant leans to look past one of them. They have vital readings on Alden, and more talking starts. The Sergeant walks a bit further into the room and watches. One of them reaches to pick up 701-B and Alden’s arm lifts with the knife. They release their hold on the knife and it falls, remaining connected with Alden. The people mutter some code numbers and one of them realizes the Sergeant is still there. “Sir, please allow us to work,” they say. “Of course, apologies,” The Sergeant replies, turning to walk out of the room. After the Sergeant leaves, the people start more discussion. “How should we transfer him if he has a ‘B’ on him?” A male voice asks. “I say we treat him with a higher danger concern than we normally do and go from there,” A female voice responds. “How will we move and set him up for questioning?” He adds. “We’ll add a hazard barrier for the interviewer when it’s time,” She replies. The Hazard team members look at each other and nod their heads. They begin their work and start moving Alden.