Connection: (Connected to SCP-014)
They say a man is measured by how he spends his time. I've always thought that too cruel a metric. Time is never ours to spend — only to borrow, briefly, from a river that does not pause.
Still, I try to make the best of it.
The mug warms my hand as it always has. Porcelain, simple, spiral on white. It has no right to be comforting, and yet it is. No matter how many times I lift it to my lips, the coffee within is always waiting. Strong. Steady. Familiar.
I sip. My thoughts align.
The students never noticed, not really. They assumed I was merely a creature of habit — an old professor who couldn't part with his cup. They joked about it between classes: "How many pots does he drink a day?" The truth was stranger, but I never corrected them. Better that way.
Because how would I explain that the mug never empties? That each sip restores more than energy? That the bitterness shifts with my mood — sweeter when I find hope, harsher when I remember the burdens?
How would I explain that with every swallow, the world slows, just slightly? Enough that I can watch the gears of decision turn, and choose precisely when to speak, when to act.
It is not power. Power corrupts. It is focus. A chance to balance the weight of hours upon a fragile handle and pretend, for a moment, that choices are easier than they are.
But choices are never easy.
I have seen too much to believe otherwise.
Once, during a night lecture, I raised the cup and held it a heartbeat too long. The room fell still. I could see dust motes hanging in the air like stars. I could see every line of exhaustion on the faces before me. They did not notice. They only blinked, and the moment passed.
I lowered the mug, and the river carried on.
I tell myself it is a tool. That is all. An aid to clarity. But some nights I feel it watching me back — not with eyes, but with patience. The way a clock watches its keeper.
When the men in black coats came, I knew at once who they were. Their movements were too precise, their words too cautious. They did not ask permission. They never do. They simply took.
I let them.
Because this mug was never truly mine. Because time itself is never ours to hold.
And yet… I miss it. The warmth, the calm, the illusion of control. My hands feel emptier without it, and my hours heavier.
Still, I endure. I always endure.
The river does not care for my burdens, nor for the Foundation's. It flows. And so must I.
But I wonder — when they raise the cup to their lips, when they taste the same bitter-sweetness — will they feel what I felt?
Will they understand?
Or will they simply drink, never realizing that for every drop, the river waits, and the hour always approaches?
Recovered journal entry, ██/██/20██. Believed to be authored by SCP-014's original possessor.