The year was 1994, and all seemed well at
Site-19. Researchers, administrative staff, containment
specialists, and guards saw to their daily tasks. As the largest SCP Foundation containment
site on the books, there was something paradoxically prestigious and pedestrian about working at
the legendary facility. Of course, among staff at the SCP Foundation,
the Site was famous and took on a certain mythology around break-room discussions for
those who weren’t assigned there. “Did you see the crazy new tech they got
at Site-19? It’s like something out of Star Wars.” “I heard some of the anomalies they store
at Site-19 can cause XK-Class End of the World Scenarios, so they’ve got Hammer Down on
speed dial.” “My buddy told me that Site-19 has a pool
on the fifth floor. Everyone who works there gets to go up and
chill there once a week, and they’ve got a dedicated bar up there that serves cocktails
with the little umbrellas all night long!” Of course, some rumors are truer than others
- Not the pool thing, though. Sorry, that one’s complete baloney. It is, however, completely true of the SCP
Explained Office, but hey, that’s a story for another day. Site-19, as a result of its size, does indeed
need a simultaneously large and elite staff to handle its many unique containment requirements. People work around the clock to ensure everything
runs smoothly, knowing that the risk of dropping the ball means death and destruction on a
wide scale. Personnel have been trained to meticulously
study new anomalies, discover their strengths and weaknesses, drum up ideal containment
requirements, and get the situation on lock as quickly as possible. Most of the time, the operations at Site-19
run smoother than George Benson. Most of the time. Of course, with the exception of a few researchers
there - Sorry, Dr. Bright and Dr. Crow - everyone who works at Site-19 is only human. Mistakes can happen, even when the cost of
those mistakes is much costlier than when you forget to carry the zero on your dull
office job’s latest mind-numbing spreadsheet. Little oversights can pile up into catastrophes
over time, especially when you put your mind to committing the greatest sin of all: Underestimating
your opponent, exactly as the SCP Foundation did one fateful day in 1994. You see, the SCP Foundation contains hundreds,
if not thousands of new anomalies every single year. When this job becomes your daily bread and
butter, what once seemed exceptional slowly becomes humdrum and mundane. Just like the earlier rumors suggested, there
are monsters, entities, and objects locked up at Site-19 that could cause an XK-Class
End of the World Scenario if they ever got out. Could the fine folks staffing that site really
be blamed for not paying that much attention to some anomalous sculpture? They just weren’t aware how incredibly dire
the consequences of taking your eyes off of SCP-173 were yet, but believe me when I say
they were about to receive a hell of an education. The Sculpture had come into their care a year
earlier in 1993, though the exact circumstances of how it came to Site-19 tend to differ depending
on who you ask. Its anomalous ability had become apparent
rather quickly, at the expense of a few careless personnel’s lives - But hey, isn’t that
always the way these things unfold? The Sculpture could be frozen in place by
looking at it, though whenever people turned their gaze away, it moved towards its prey
at shocking speeds and killed them by either strangulation or, more commonly, snapping
necks. Sure, it wasn’t the kind of entity you’d
want to have a cup of coffee with or place in your living room as a striking new Objet
D’Art, but the Foundation had plenty of these so-called “Murder Monsters” in containment
already. And this was one you didn’t even need to
shoot - Just looking at it is enough to freeze it in place. A few D-Classes were lost during the first
few months of figuring out the best way to clean the nasty creature’s cell - on account
of the fact that it poops constantly - but other than that it was all pretty smooth sailing. They had no idea just how dangerous this work
of malicious modern art was. This brings us back to the fateful day in
1994: The day when SCP-173 first breached containment. Researcher Theo Trask was walking down the
long, winding halls of Site-19, marking off each successfully contained anomaly on his
clipboard. It was a monotonous job, but somebody had
to do it. He looked through the viewing windows of all
the anomalies that it wasn’t deadly to look at, taking inventory. He’d worked at the SCP Foundation for eight
years now, and nothing amazed him anymore. He was thinking about what he might have for
dinner that night, or whether he should go to the movie theater to see that new film,
Pulp Fiction. Up in the security office for Sector C of
Site-19, Security Officer Todd Buffett and his men observed the monitors glowing before
them. It was a blissfully boring day. One of them was discreetly playing Snake on
his Nokia under the table. Days like this were made for wasting, and
they were tragically few at the SCP Foundation - Where being excited was often the prelude
for being dead. Todd yawned and was happy for the privilege
to do so. In a darkened Sector C server room, a group
of engineers performed routine maintenance. They could see their breath; these rooms were
kept extra cold to prevent the technology from overheating. It was intricate work, but they were well-trained
to do it. So much so that they sometimes slipped into
a state of auto-pilot while conducting these checks, saving the burden of conscious thought
for meatier tasks further down the line. These were unremarkable tasks on an unremarkable
day, and they would be happy for it all to end. And of course, it would, just not in the sense
that they meant. A mixed group of researchers and administrative
staff sat in the breakroom, enjoying their mediocre packed lunch and sharing their own
version of inane office banter. It was nice to step away from the often-deadly
grind and shoot the breeze with others in their line of work. After all, it was a strange job with its own
unique pressures - You needed to discuss it with others who got it sometimes just to avoid
going insane from the pressure. But then, you needed to avoid the unforgiving
blade of this double-edged sword’s mirror half: You never wanted to get too attached
to a co-worker at the SCP Foundation, because who knows, you might not be seeing them again
tomorrow. Or they might not be seeing you. Back in the server bank, a junior technician
named Colin Muntz was about to make one teeny, tiny little mistake. While running diagnostics on one of the room’s
power cores, he tripped a fuse and set a terrible chain reaction in motion. Cables running all through Site-19 caught
the shockwaves of Colin’s poor decision in a moment, causing a series of power cuts
that ran through different systems throughout the facility, each one tripping the next like
the proverbial series of tumbling dominos. Back to Researcher Theo Trask, lazily ticking
boxes on his clipboard. He was about to do another one and break for
lunch when the lights overhead suddenly went out, leaving him in a dark hallway. He was immediately broken from his trance,
heart beating twenty to the dozen. Seconds passed and the dark somehow remained. What was going on here? It didn’t make sense. Surely the auxiliary generator should have
kicked in by now, right? And on any other day, it would have. But unluckily for Theo Trask, this just so
happened to be the one day in the last several months that the facility’s main backup generator
was also experiencing routine maintenance. Sometimes, life just isn’t fair. Trask felt his heart leap up into his throat
as a door somewhere behind him slowly creaked open with a torturously long, metallic screech. Trask didn’t have a gun, or even a taser,
but he did have a small flashlight attached to his belt. With draw speed that would rival Clint Eastwood
in his prime, the terrified Trask whipped out his flashlight and shone it in the direction
of the noise. His beam caught a static figure, staring at
him without a face. The rigid, soulless body of the Sculpture,
SCP-173, was standing less than ten feet away from him. In this light, its smears of Krylon-brand
spray paint looked almost like a mocking grin. Your move, researcher, it seemed to say. Trask had broken into a cold sweat. His hand was shaking, but he needed to keep
the beam on that monster. Whatever tripped the power must have compromised
the system that governed the Sculpture’s electrical deadbolt, and unless the lightbulbs
came back on and the hallway was suddenly flooded with other personnel and a forklift
to get that miserable chunk of concrete back into its cell, then he was in real trouble. He couldn’t run - It would kill him the
second he turned around. And he couldn’t walk backwards - one trip
in the dark and he’d be found dead on the ground, head facing in the wrong direction. All he could do now was hope. Hope, and of course, not blink. But as the seconds passed and the pressure
mounted, this became harder and harder to achieve. He could feel the surface of his eyes drying
out, leading to a sharp stinging sensation. Still, the Sculpture lingered, and waited,
as Researcher Trask’s eyes began to water. People should be coming, shouldn’t they? Surely help should be on the way? But he couldn’t hear footsteps or the squeaking
tires of a forklift just yet. He couldn’t hear anything except his heartbeat
and the blood rushing in his ears. His eyes were killing him - Just metaphorically
for now, but not for long. What harm would one little blink do? Only for a fraction of a second… Now, before we proceed to the researcher’s
gruesome and terrifying death, we’d like to perform a quick experiment with you, the
viewer of SCP Explained. We’ve created a number of videos exploring
the fascinating and frightening enigma of SCP-173, and one statement seems to pop up
in the comments again and again from back-seat containment experts: “Why not just blink your eyes one at a time? That’s a surefire way to keep it locked
into place.” Okay, let’s give that a try. Open both your eyes nice and wide. Now blink your left eye, now blink your right. Left, right, left, right. Keep going while I’m talking. Don’t stop. Keep it up. How are your eyes feeling? It makes your vision a little blurry, doesn’t
it? Kind of makes your eyes sting a little as
time goes on. Oh, look who it is… Well, if it isn’t SCP-173. What a surprise! And it looks very interested in you, doesn’t
it? Better keep one of your eyes open at all times. Left blink, right blink, left blink, right
blink. No pressure, of course, but if you’ve closed
your eyes at any time during this little experiment, you’re already laying dead on the ground
with a broken neck. Left, right, left, right. Do you feel the burn yet? There’s no shame in giving up. All it’ll cost you is your life. And that’s why we don’t blink one eye
at a time. Back to the story. Researcher Trask couldn’t take it any longer. His aching eyes fluttered closed for an almost
imperceptible moment of time, and that was all this sinister Sculpture needed. Trask felt the impossibly cold concrete grip
of its stubby arms on either side of head, and a sharp jerk that communicated a mere
moment of unimaginable pain followed by the physical answer to silence. His body went slack underneath him and his
thoughts drained, his head twisted at an utterly unnatural angle. The Sculpture dropped Trask’s limp corpse
onto the ground and darted through the darkness of the hallway, with no living eyes left to
freeze it in place. In the darkness, it was impossible to defeat. It would do the two things it knew how to
do: Hunt and murder. In the Sector C security office, all hell
was breaking loose. Thanks to Colin Muntz’s little oopsie in
the server room, all the monitors were dark, and the corded phones that gave them a direct
line to assistance were all dead. They had no idea what was happening out there. Maybe they’d gotten lucky and none of the
cells were open. Maybe they’d gotten extremely unlucky and
ALL of the cells were opened. Whatever caused this catastrophic power failure
must have also knocked out the alarm system, because they were getting nothing. When the door behind Security Officer Todd
Buffett and his men opened, he was profoundly relieved to think that assistance had already
arrived. He and his men were a lot less relieved when
they fall fell to the ground, their necks snapped with exquisite efficiency - if you’re
into that kind of thing. That’s because The Sculpture had found its
way into the security office and gave itself more crunch than you’d get from a family-sized
bag of Doritos, but with these new victims now little more than dead meat, it was time
to move on. Over in the break room, the collection of
research and administration staff who were enjoying pleasant chitchat not long ago were
now hidden away in darkness. It was so bleak in there that they couldn’t
see the cup ramen steaming inches away from their faces. In moments like this, the usual advice is
to stay calm and wait for the situation to be resolved. After all, if you tried to take anything into
your own hands, you might fall over and injure yourself. Normally, this is good advice. It’s less effective when the thing that
wishes you grave injury is actively on its way, and sitting in the dark certainly isn’t
going to stop it. Elsewhere in the building, the engineering
time were scrambling like there was no tomorrow to rectify their mistake. Partly because, if SCP-173 got to them before
they’d gotten the lights working again, there really would be no tomorrow. With their mini flashlights, they desperately
searched for any way to rectify the issue and get everything turned back on. In a normal company, the biggest concern in
a situation like this might be massive irretrievable data loss. But of course, at the SCP Foundation, the
issue is more a massive and irretrievable loss of human life. And also the data, too. A few miles south of Site-19, a different
kind of cavalry was on its way: A detachment of MTF Nu-7, Hammer Down, were on their way
in a pair of armored helicopters. Their assault rifles had flashlights fixed
to them and their helmets came fitted with night vision goggles as standard. Their intel suggested a large portion of Site-19’s
Sector C had gone dark for whatever reason, and they were ready to drop in and get things
back under control. The one question was whether they’d get
there in time to save the people in the break room, as the Sculpture drew ever closer to
their location. Speaking of, the group of research and administration
staff were still just sitting around, waiting for the lights to turn back on. One of the more senior researchers in the
room, Dr. Sherry Brewis, was a lifelong smoker, and as such, she was fishing around in her
purse for her Zippo lighter to shed some light on the situation. Her rummaging was so loud that she could barely
even hear the door to the room beginning to creak open. But she heard the first snap, and the awful,
animalistic chorus of screams that followed. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. As each of her fellow members of Foundation
personnel fell, she could feel the thing killing them getting closer. She could almost feel the same icy limbs gripping
her skull when she whipped out and lit the Zippo, the flame coming alive in front of
her face with that pleasing metallic click. It didn’t offer much light, just enough
for her to see the monster looming inches away from her face: SCP-173, limbs outstretched
and ready. The rest of the room was silent. She knew, in that moment, she was the only
one alive in here now. But she still wasn’t the only survivor yet. That all depended on what happened next. The flame danced and the Sculpture remained
frozen in place, standing so close to her. It wanted her. It wanted to hear her neck crunch. The flames began to dance erratically and
Dr. Brewis felt her heart rate spike. One careless breath, and the light keeping
her alive would be gone. But even if she did everything right here,
it might not be enough to save her. It didn’t even need a second to do what
it wanted so badly to do. The light seemed almost to flicker. Getting smaller, getting weaker. Dr. Brewis felt tears dribbling down her cheeks. Any second now. Any second now… Click. The lights above her turned back on. She could have screamed in delirious relief
- But that might also have been a scream at the expense of her many dead coworkers, littered
around the room. Either way, her thoughts were interrupted
by a staccato burst of footsteps, followed by the BOOM of the door being kicked in by
a booted foot. The members of Hammer Down were standing in
the doorway. She was saved. In the hours that followed, things were righted,
as best they could be with so many deaths. The Sculpture was returned to containment,
the bodies were cleared away, the electrical issues were fixed. Much would continue on as normal after that
day - death, after all, was an occupational hazard for those working at the SCP Foundation
- but one thing forever changed: SCP-173 was never underestimated again. Now go check out “SCP-173 Origin Story - How
173 Got to Site-19” and “The Eye Pods - SCP-131” for more terrifying incidents
involving this singularly savage statue!
