SCP-2000 is an unremarkable location. It is an old, rarely used park ranger station
in Yellowstone National Park. It’s in the middle of nowhere and it gets
deliveries of supplies from helicopters and unmarked cars as needed. While a few civilians have attempted to break
in, none have been successful and SCP-2000 remains undisturbed, kept in plain sight without
anything seemingly important about it. But why is this one of the most secure locations
in SCP history? Why is it of the utmost importance that it
continue to exist, no matter what? The answer may rest in a mysterious document
found in the most unlikely of locations. The Marianas Trench is the deepest point on
Earth, and the SCP Foundation has made many trips there to investigate strange phenomena. But what they recovered on one visit exposed
one of the most closely guarded secrets in Foundation history. It was a document that had somehow survived
at the bottom of the ocean - sealed in a pipe and coated in wax to keep it airtight and
waterproof. It appeared that it had been packaged in such
a way that it could survive anything - and that’s exactly what its writer wanted. She wasn’t sure when the world had begun
to end, but she could see it coming for a while. She looked out her window and saw all the
signs. The seas were getting colder and less hospitable
to life. The air was getting warmer every year. Resources were dwindling, and the population
was increasing. Tensions were rising, and while no one knew
just when it would come, almost everyone seemed sure that the world, or at least humanity,
would reach its conclusion soon. It was a sinking ship that first really made
it clear things were going in the wrong direction. The Disney Magic was one of the world’s
most popular cruise ships, a favorite vacation destination for families. It was also one of the most carefully built
ships, as the company prided itself on safety and had learned well from past cruise ship
tragedies. So the world was rightfully shocked when one
day it was announced that the ship had sunk while pulling into port. No one knew what had happened, and there was
something even more mysterious about this tragedy - no one seemed to have any footage
of the sinking. Despite round the clock news coverage, all
the pictures were of the ship still afloat. That is, until the news companies received
a tape. The networks were so eager to play the footage
that none of them reviewed it first and the footage went straight to air. It showed the ship moving along smoothly,
surrounded by smaller boats, when it suddenly stopped. It was as if it had been frozen in place,
and the footage showed people on the deck of the ship falling over from the abrupt stop. Everything went silent, and then an odd foam
emerged from behind the boat. Everyone assumed it was the engine having
issues. But it wasn’t the engine. It was a massive arm, at least a hundred feet
long and belonging to an eldritch being just below the surface. It reached up, grabbed the boat, and ripped
it open like a piece of tissue paper. The thousands of people on board ran for safety,
but there was nowhere they could go. Jets zoomed overhead, ready to attack whatever
the thing in the water was. A massive, spiny figure started rearing up
out of the water - and then the video went black. The letter found in the Marianas Trench continued
to explain what happened next - The President quickly declared a state of
emergency, and implored everyone to stay calm. Television networks were placed under government
control, and were only allowed to broadcast government sanctioned information. It wasn’t long before the internet became
restricted too, with people prohibited from sharing information that wasn’t authorized. The government just kept telling people to
stay calm and go about their lives. The writer of the letter tried to follow this
advice, and went to work and paid her bills as if life was still normal...but all around
her she saw terrified faces. And they were right to be scared. This was only the start of the crisis that
would soon grip the entire world. More and more strange things started happening,
but none of them were tied to the mysterious monster that had been seen emerging from the
sea. Towns were evacuated because of rioting, or
placed under quarantine after an outbreak of a mysterious disease. Destruction was blamed on terrorist attacks
or wildfires. The writer’s brother called her to tell
her that he had been forced out of his home. The reason was supposedly a wildfire, but
he had gotten a chance to look at the fire as he was being evacuated, and there was something
odd about it. He could swear he saw a figure of a man in
the fire, a man made of fire, and he was moving deliberately. But she couldn’t ask any questions about
what he had seen because the call got dropped - and she never got to speak to her brother
again. It was becoming harder and harder to get any
information about what was happening. With most news sources shut down or under
strict government control, there were only vague rumors for her to latch onto. People talked about zombies ravaging the north,
about people who seemed normal one moment losing their minds and going on killing sprees. There were whispers of a doomsday cult rising
up that was trying to stem the apocalypse through human sacrifices. There was even talk about the ground itself
coming to life and eating people. It all sounded like one thing - the end of
the world. The letter’s writer tried to stay sane,
keeping her information intake to a minimum and attempting to go about her life in as
normal a way as she could. But it wouldn’t be long before the horrors
outside came to find her, and they became impossible to ignore. It was early in the morning when she heard
screaming and gunshots outside. She could smell something burning, and found
blood smeared on her window, but she was too scared to find out what was happening. She hid and waited for the noise to die down. Soon the power and heating went out, and her
water supply cut off not long after. She knew she would have to go outside if she
wanted to survive, and she wasn’t prepared for what she would find - or rather, what
she wouldn’t. Her house was in a flat suburban area, without
any major geographical landmarks. So she wasn’t expecting to step outside
and find a massive cliff with the other side nowhere to be seen. Not only did it look like the rest of the
world had fallen away, but she couldn’t see the bottom of the cliff. It was like that half of the world no longer
existed. What was left of her neighborhood had been
torn apart, with blood and destruction everywhere. And she seemed to be the only person left. Had she been saved because she hid? Or had the others taken the opportunity to
evacuate? She didn’t know, but all the houses around
her had been abandoned. She was determined to survive, and so she
took what supplies she needed from the empty homes and retreated back to her own. It soon became clear though that much more
had changed than just the geography of the world. Time itself seemed to be slowing down. The sun stood still in the sky, not moving
from one spot for days. Sometimes a heavy fog would quickly roll in,
and render her essentially blind. But worst of all, she soon found that she
was no longer alone. Whatever had come into her neighborhood now,
it wasn’t human. The first to come were strange, roughly man
sized metal creatures. Then came the smaller creatures, like the
one that looked like a pillbug, but one the size of a cat. This one seemed harmless at first, but then
it looked at her and screamed “STOP” in a human voice. But this was nothing compared to what came
next - giant, blimp-like maggots with hundreds of eyes. They were ferocious predators, landing and
eating anything in sight. She was sure with all of these horrors, that
she must be the only human left, but one day after one of the disgusting blimps passed
by she found someone else. He looked like he belonged to a SWAT team,
and was clearly hurt. Seeing another human was enough to spur her
into action, and she pulled him to safety in her home. He told her that he had been hunting one of
the blimp-maggots. She told him that he was the first person
she had seen since the cliff showed up in her neighborhood and the rest of the world
had disappeared. His response to this was odd though. He told her that the world hadn’t disappeared. It had simply “relocated” but couldn’t
tell her any more than that. She pressed him for more information, and
he said that his orders really meant nothing anymore. He revealed that he worked for a foundation
that tracked down strange and dangerous creatures and captured them for research and to keep
the world safe. But something had gone wrong. All the entities they had been keeping contained
had broken free at the same time. It was too late to reverse the damage, and
the world had been declared a “GH-0 Dead Greenhouse” scenario. The foundation had failed, but there was a
plan. There were still people alive, but carefully
contained around the world in safe zones. The Foundation had a way to reboot the world,
including recreating people with all the memories intact. The Foundation would clear out the dangerous
entities, repair the damage, and use their technology to put everything back as it was. This world would be gone, but it would be
replaced with another one that resembled itself exactly - with no memories of the horrors
that had occurred. She recoiled in horror. This couldn’t be done, right? It was impossible to sweep all of this away. He just smiled and said “Why not? It’s been done before?” She didn’t know when the end would come. She didn’t even know if she would realize
it was happening. But she didn’t want to be forgotten. So she wrote her thoughts down and sealed
them in a tube. She sealed the tube in wax and waited. Maybe her house wouldn’t be fully destroyed. Maybe it would wind up underwater as the man
had briefly mentioned. Maybe her message would endure and be found
one day, as the last relic of a world that had been wiped away. She wouldn’t be around to see it, but maybe
her world would be remembered. The true purpose of SCP-2000 is the Foundation’s
most closely guarded secret. A massive underground facility designed to
prevent humanity’s extinction, able to produce over a hundred thousand humans per day. It contains memory banks that hold the entire
history of the human species and all associated information. But all documentation regarding its initial
construction and history has been lost, though no one is sure whether this information was
lost in one of the resets - or by design. The Foundation has made sure that SCP-2000
will not be breached. The facility is guarded by cognitohazards
that will stop anyone without the appropriate inoculation. Any unauthorized access attempts are considered
grounds for instant termination regardless of how high-ranking someone might be in the
Foundation. SCP-2000 is to the Foundation what the Svalbard
Global Seed Vault is to agriculture - the fail-safe in case everything goes wrong. That’s why it has the object class of Thaumiel,
a rare classification that is secret to all but the highest levels of the Foundation. But to almost everyone, including every SCP
Foundation member who has never encountered it, SCP-2000 is just an old, rarely used park
ranger station in Yellowstone National Park, with absolutely nothing unique about it, and
no reason to look closer. And the Foundation will ensure it stays that
way. That’s why when, a letter was found at the
bottom of the Marianas trench that describes one of these world resetting scenarios, a
letter that pleads to not let the world that existed before be forgotten, or hidden away,
the Foundation made sure with absolute certainty, that it would never see the light of day. Now, for more on SCP facilities, check out
SCP-2000 Deus Ex Machina or the entire saga of SCP-1730 and what happened at the mysterious
Site-13.
