It skitters in the dark - its insect-like
legs tapping across the marble floors as terrified Foundation researchers flee. They hear its voice - the deep, silky tones
of an elderly British man, spouting nonsense like “The nightmare is a dream to the nameless
slug that wanders across minefield and the remains of deer and kings.” While the scientists run, the creature gains
on them. It’s fast. Impossibly fast. While they still try to escape down this darkened
hallway, earsplitting containment breach sirens blast through the air. They may try to escape, but it’s futile. In a sense, they’re already dead. All they are now… is prey for the Heart
of Darkness. When someone says the word “heart,” there
are a lot of images that come to mind. You might think of Valentine’s Day, heart-shaped
cards, and candies. You might think of heartbreak, rejection,
loss. You might simply think of a heart in the anatomical
sense, the vital organ that pumps blood through our bodies. It’s unlikely though that you would associate
the word heart with terror, destruction, and countless deaths. However, employees of the SCP Foundation might
think differently, especially if they’ve ever had a run-in with SCP-058. Much of the information about SCP-058’s
discovery is highly classified, but the few details that are known paint a chilling picture. At an SCP Foundation test site, the day was
proceeding as usual with scientists and security personnel going about their regular daily
tasks. There was no hint of danger in the air - beyond
the base level that always comes with setting foot in an SCP Foundation site, at least. Several researchers were performing an experiment,
the specifics of which have been expunged from all records, involving the carcass of
a cow. When a researcher, Dr. C, placed his hands
on the specimen and prepared to dissect it, he was shocked to feel a pulse coming from
the supposedly dead animal. Dr. C shared his surprise with his colleagues,
but his concerns were dismissed immediately. Clearly, this was a corpse. He was imagining things, they said. After all, he was relatively new to the job. It was probably just nerves. The head researcher, Dr. L, insisted that
he take over. Pushing Dr. C to the side, Dr. L began to
make an incision into the animal’s chest. As he did, he too felt something peculiar. There was no doubt about it. This dead cow had a beating heart. He looked up from his work to tell the other
researchers, to explain what he felt, but by then it was too late. Something horrible was already happening. With a stomach-churning sound of squishing
flesh, the cow’s heart burst from its chest and flopped onto the floor. It was terrifyingly large and all the doctors
jumped back from the sight of it. Four spindly, spider-like legs poked through
the flesh of the heart, and it began to quickly skitter about the room. Researchers reviewing the security footage
would later note that it didn’t just move randomly. It seemed agitated, angry at being discovered,
and it displayed immediate hostility toward the scientists in the room. Four tentacles next unfurled from within the
heart and stretched out into full, writhing appendages. They moved frighteningly fast as the heart
whipped around the room, and were coated in sharp spines. Finally, a stinger poked out from the back
of the heart, where the hole of the superior vena cava should be. All of the scientists leapt into action, with
one reaching for a scalpel and another moving towards the door. But before the men could so much as call for
help, the tentacles wrapped around them and ripped them to shreds. Hearing screams coming from the laboratory,
security personnel arrived to contain the threat. However, they were no match for the strange
creature that would soon be known as SCP-058. It tore through the security team in minutes,
leaving their tattered remains in its wake. Much to the horror of the surviving personnel
at the site, SCP-058 was able to escape containment and make its way to a neighboring town. Reports of the incident said that, when the
creature reached the town, you could hear the screaming for miles. SCP-058 carved a path of violence through
the town, attacking everything in sight with its stinger and tentacles, and leaving a trail
of strange fluid from its stinger. Dozens of citizens were killed, and seventy
percent of the buildings were completely destroyed. When agents were dispatched to the location
to retrieve the creature, they were shocked to see the level of destruction caused by
something so small. The scent of blood and smoke filled the air
and severed limbs littered the ground alongside splintered wood and collapsed brick. The survivors removed from the wreckage were
inconsolable, only calming down once they were given an amnestic to erase their memory
of the encounter with SCP-058. They had to be given new lives as well, as
there was nothing left of their old ones. SCP Foundation Agents were only able to capture
and contain SCP-058 after it was crushed by pieces of a building that collapsed on top
of it. They found it, flattened under a slab of stone,
legs flailing uselessly, tentacles limp. The agents were able to safely remove the
debris and bring in the heart without any more casualties that day. Once it was brought into captivity, the heart
was contained for three weeks, and remained largely quiet during that time. It was almost inconceivable that this small
creature hadn’t been killed in the incident - but the Foundation would soon learn that
this creature was freakishly durable. It escaped once more while being transferred
to an SCP Containment Site, again causing injuries and death. Having only experienced SCP-058 in its docile,
injured form, the team responsible for the transfer was unprepared for the sheer power
and violence the creature was capable of. It was able to escape an armored car and make
its way into a forest, where it eviscerated several squirrels and rabbits. Or rather, they were believed to be squirrels
and rabbits. The remains were too mutilated to properly
identify. It was only finally apprehended after being
crushed by an armored tank. But even this didn’t kill the creature,
and it was transferred to Armed Bio-Containment Area 14, where it remains to this day. There is a great deal about SCP-058 that is
horrifying, but there is one attribute it has shown in captivity that would make even
the most seasoned researcher’s skin crawl. Though it has no anatomical capacity for speech,
no throat, vocal chords, or even a respiratory system, SCP-058 speaks. Not only does it speak, but it speaks constantly,
in the deep voice of an elderly British man. No one knows who the voice might belong to,
or if it belongs to anyone at all. Perhaps it belongs only to SCP-058, somehow. As is often the case with SCP’s that are
capable of speech, there have been multiple attempts to interview the creature and each
time it ended in complete disaster. The only interview with an available transcript,
Interview 058-04, was conducted by Dr. Johnston with several personnel in the room for additional
security. Dr. Johnston attempted to get at the origins
of the creature, asking for its name and where it was from. The creature responded in cryptic, unsettling
poetry, giving answers to simple questions with “I had dreams of the queen wonders
that lived inside the hearts of love and silent treatments of all the elderly that I knew
were once whole.” After the fourth recitation of a similar verse
from the heart, Personnel D-067 made a comment on the creepy nature of its responses. Almost as if it was offended by the remark,
SCP-058 immediately stretched a tentacle across the room, wrapped it around D-067, and lifted
him into the air. He began screaming and clawing at the tentacle
in an attempt to free himself as his fellow personnel tried to help him. They grabbed at the tentacle, but found their
hands pierced and bloodied by the spikes that cover it. Dr. Johnston commanded 058 to let him go,
but it did not oblige. Instead, the man was crushed to death by the
tentacle, and his limp body left to drop to the floor. The interview concluded with a single statement
from the nightmarish heart: “The sensual violence of lust is all the assurance you
will ever need to know the worth of life.” SCP-058 never seems to say anything that has
to do with the people or events around it. It speaks in the same haunting, poetic language,
even when it’s attacking or killing something. No matter what happens to it, what is done
to it, or what anyone says, SCP-058 keeps talking and its tone of voice with the pace
of speech never changing, and further attempts to interview it have been abandoned due to
the safety risk involved. So what happened to the creature often called
“the heart of darkness?” Where is it now? SCP-058 is kept in an isolated containment
chamber made of reinforced heat-resistant steel with a backing of reinforced concrete. In order to placate its bloodthirsty, carnivorous
tendencies, the creature is given a live cow every three days. It is uncertain how exactly SCP-058 eats,
given that it does not have a mouth or stomach, but every time it is finished with a cow,
only bones remain. Routine maintenance is conducted on a tight
schedule, and the heart is never allowed out of its containment area under any circumstances. After two previous escapes from containment,
the Foundation is not taking any chances. Its constant speech is recorded via audio
devices that are running at all times. Out of concern for their safety and mental
health, no personnel are permitted to listen to recordings of SCP-058 speaking for more
than thirty minutes at a time. It is unknown what will happen to someone
who listens for longer, but it has been suggested that the consequences could be dire. If the creature ever escapes again, the containment
site is ordered to be destroyed via the detonation of an on-site nuclear weapon. Under no circumstances can it be allowed to
make its way out into the world again. Even with all of these precautions in place,
SCP-058 has been responsible for over 150 deaths at its current containment site. There are some at the Foundation who have
campaigned for SCP-058 to be terminated, believing that there is more harm than good done by
keeping it alive. However, all attempts to terminate it have
so far failed. No matter how much physical trauma the heart
suffers, it does not seem to be able to be killed. It can only be incapacitated for a short time. There is a classic horror story by Edgar Allen
Poe called The Tell-tale Heart. In it, a man murders an old man and buries
his body beneath the floorboards of his home. There, even though the old man is certainly
dead, the murderer swears he can hear the beating of the heart coming up through the
floorboards. No matter what he does to quiet the sound,
he cannot escape it, and is eventually driven mad by the incessant beating of the dead man’s
heart. SCP-058 may not be a man’s heart, a human
heart, or even a real heart at all. However, just like the tell-tale heart, it
continues to impossibly beat no matter how hard anyone tries to stop it. The steady thump of its pulse haunts the SCP
Foundation, a grim reminder that there is something within its walls that can, and will,
kill everyone it can if given the chance. It couldn’t be destroyed by collapsed buildings,
an armored tank, or an army of experts, and the contingency plan of a nuclear blast is
not even guaranteed to work. It is entirely possible that, once the facility
has been laid to waste and all of the staff have been incinerated, and the smoke has finally
cleared, the heart of darkness will still be there… still beating, still talking,
and still killing. Now go check out “SCP - 1981 - Regan Cut
Up While Talking” and “SCP - 2662 - Cthulu” for more of the strangest anomalies contained
by the SCP Foundation!
