It had been getting slower; the longer the
days, weeks, months, and years went on, the more time it took to move. Before, long before
the collapse, it used to move like lightning. In the blink of a human eye, it could go from one
side of a room to the other. It had moved with such speed that it looked to have disappeared
from one place and reappeared in another. By the time the same human’s eye reopened,
there it would be, standing before them. And as they realized that they had to strain, keep
their eyes open and stare at it, it would wait until they inevitably had to blink again. That was
when it struck. But now its movements were getting sluggish. It had been able to move around of its
own volition for some time after the collapse, unobserved and thus free for the first time in
a while. Yet, now it was succumbing to the one thing it couldn’t move faster than; the one thing
that makes dust of all things eventually: time. A sound, suddenly and faintly, but undoubtedly
caused by movement. A human… a victim. It turned to see the man enter the room, stopping still as
his gaze fell over it. All it had to do was wait… The agent could barely believe his eyes.
The second he’d spotted The Sculpture, he’d instinctively frozen to the spot, rigid with
sheer terror, heart drumming against his ribcage. Standing across the room from it, directly
opposite, he kept himself as still as the concrete and rebar statue was; the agent knew
that, as long as he looked at it, it couldn’t move. He just had to make sure he didn’t so much
as blink… or at least, that’s how it used to work. To his horror, the agent noticed the arm
of SCP-173 start to slowly reach towards him… But how? How had The Sculpture, an anomaly
only capable of moving while unobserved, found a way to suddenly start reaching for this
agent? Well, for a start, that has something to do with the particular Foundation operative who
was looking at SCP-173… and technically wasn’t at the same time. Let’s start at the beginning.
You see, some time ago, a former field agent working at the SCP Foundation suffered quite an
unprecedented accident. Let’s call him Daryl, a seemingly average man in his thirties. Well, as
average as someone working for the Foundation can be. However, one mission would unexpectedly change
Daryl’s life forever – turning him into SCP-451. It started as a straightforward retrieval
operation. Daryl was instructed to recover a dangerous anomalous artifact, however, he
ultimately failed and was declared missing in action as a result. That is, until he
miraculously resurfaced a month later at Site 19. But from Daryl’s point of view, the
entire Foundation facility looked like it had been deserted. Corridors and labs that had
previously been bustling hives of activity were now unsettlingly empty. SCPs seemed
to still be in their containment chambers, but without anyone watching or guarding them.
As far as SCP-451 knew, he was the only man still alive on Earth. Some anomalous influence
had left him with a unique affliction: A permanently altered perception. Daryl was rendered
incapable of seeing other human beings. It wasn’t just limited to his sight either, he couldn’t
hear anyone or even perceive their existence. Any attempts the Foundation’s researchers made
to communicate with SCP-451 were unsuccessful; they could still see him, but it was like he was
absent, standing just outside the real world. And yet, to Daryl, it was somehow worse than
that. Given the lack of people around him, being unable to see, hear or interact with
anyone, SCP-451 quickly adopted the belief that by interacting with the anomalous artifact,
he had single-handedly wiped out the entire human race. While this wasn’t true, he had no way
of knowing that everyone else was still alive; he just couldn’t perceive them. The guilt
instilled in Daryl weighed heavily on the agent’s conscience. He spent a lot of time wandering the
corridors of Site 19, overwhelmed by his apparent isolation, convinced he’d single-handedly
caused the extinction of the human race. But what does SCP-451 have to do with SCP-173?
How did Daryl go from being unable to see and hear other humans to staring down The
Sculpture? Well, while Daryl was suffering from his newly altered perception, something
catastrophic was unfolding, in the wider world he could hardly interact with anymore.
An End of the World Scenario had taken place, and left barely any survivors, making
the perceived extinction of humanity by SCP-451 oddly prophetic. Something had
caused the human race to actually die out, and with nobody around who could explain what had
happened, the actual how and why were forgotten to history. And even if someone had managed to
survive, SCP-451 would still be as oblivious to their explanations as he was to the disaster
that claimed the lives of not only the whole SCP Foundation, but the rest of the world too.
Of course, without the Foundation and its personnel around any longer to safeguard the
rest of humanity – or even anything left of humanity for them to protect – things quickly
got even worse. The various contained SCPs soon found themselves free to run amok. Whatever
had wiped the human race from existence left the world mostly uninhabited, and it didn’t take long
for some of the more aggressive anomalies to turn on each other. With no humans for them to prey
on, they had to make do. But while they fought, killed, and died in the ruins of
the world, one was left to roam freer than it had ever been: SCP-173.
Now that the Sculpture was no longer caged by the Foundation, it could
move around unobserved. Before, it would be frozen in place whenever personnel
entered its cell to clean it every two weeks, constantly watching it to stop it from moving. But
now, there were no personnel. After the human race had been wiped out, SCP-173 set about bursting
free from its container. It took quite some time, using its heavy concrete and rebar arms to dent
the walls from within, continually pounding on the metal until it eventually gave way.
Bursting free, SCP-173 found itself in a world with hardly anyone around to look at it –
and that meant it could go anywhere it wanted, do anything it pleased, so long as none of
the other surviving SCPs came across it. That happened from time to time, of course.
Any of the more humanoid anomalies that were capable of sight would sometimes stumble upon
the Sculpture. But they had to blink sometime, and when they did, SCP-173 would effortlessly zip
over to where they stood and break their necks. Exercising its newfound freedom, SCP-173 moved
unnoticed to the office of Doctor Alto Clef, the infamously unhinged Foundation
researcher, weapons fanatic, and specialist in ‘decommissioning’ SCPs. Clef, like the rest of
the human race, was nowhere to be found when the Sculpture burst into his office. If it had the
capacity for emotions, maybe it felt angered, even cheated to find that Clef was gone. After
all, it seemed to have come seeking revenge. For a number of years, Doctor Clef had been
infatuated with SCP-173. Were he still alive, Clef himself would have described the anomalous
statue as a former flame, someone he had a bond with. Although he had no idea how one-sided his
feelings truly were. The Sculpture, if it could feel, would have been indifferent towards the
crazed researcher… were it not for ‘Date Night’. Clef had, on a number of occasions, dressed
SCP-173 in a black dress and blonde wig, and shared romantic evenings in its company.
It’s never been known if SCP-173 is just an object with anomalous movement properties, or if
the Sculpture is an actual living creature with sentience. But if it was, then no doubt being made
to go on repeated dates with Doctor Clef would’ve humiliated SCP-173. And as if searched Clef’s
office, while it couldn’t find the loathsome researcher, it did find a certain black dress
and wig… that the Sculpture quickly crushed under the weight of its heavy, stony arms. It wasn’t
Doctor Clef being smashed, but it was enough. Meanwhile, SCP-451 still remained completely
unaware that everyone else was gone. To him, nothing had changed; he still couldn’t perceive
anyone, not that there was anyone around anyway. He’d witnessed a lot of the destruction unfurled
by the anomalies breaking their containment, but most didn’t pay Daryl any mind. Ones that
did quickly found they couldn’t interact with him or cause the former Foundation agent
harm, and quickly lost interest in him. That was an added, torturous part of
SCP-451’s condition: he couldn’t die. A long time before the End of the World Scenario,
Daryl had found a firearm belonging to another member of Foundation personnel in the main
breakroom of Site 19. As SCP-451 tried to fire the weapon, the bullet richoted off the
wall, and the gunshot passed directly through him. The same bullet mortally wounded another
nearby member of Foundation staff. And it was after he’d accidentally injured this unsuspecting
researcher that SCP-451 found he was briefly able to interact with them, right as the researcher’s
life was fading. That was the last time he’d been able to see anyone. Well, any human anyway.
But then, he encountered SCP-173. The pair of them came face to face with each other in
the ruins of a Foundation site. By that point, the overwhelming loneliness of believing himself
to be humanity’s sole survivor had already taken a bad toll on Daryl. He was losing himself,
every day getting more and more overwhelmed by the anomalous hell he was living.
SCP-173 was caught for a moment when SCP-451 walked in on it, stuck fast like it
had been whenever someone observed it. But, as Daryl stared and tried not to blink, the
Sculpture found itself still able to move. It could see SCP-451, and he could see it… yet
it could still move. Somehow, due to the way Daryl’s perception had been anomalously altered,
it affected the way he saw The Sculpture. It was almost like he was seeing it, without seeing.
It had been so long since humanity disappeared that the Sculpture’s movements had been gradually
getting slower. The rebar holding it together had been rusting, creaking more as it bent and
twisted. Its concrete parts were starting to crumble away. And now, despite being free,
it was struggling just to reach an arm out to SCP-451 to kill him. For his part, SCP-451 had
been forced to live out a painful existence, spending every day alone. As delirium had begun
to sink its claws into him, Daryl had wished for one thing: some company… and now he’d found it.
Misinterpreting SCP-173’s arm extending towards him, SCP-451 broke down crying and embraced
the Sculpture. His tears ran down the anomalous statue’s decaying concrete body, the struts in
its arms creaking as it tried to reach for Daryl. But the Sculpture was getting old, too old to
kill as quick as it used to. Time and lowliness, two of the most painful things to experience
the side effects of. And yet, while SCP-173 continued to wither, it was unknowingly
helping alleviate someone else’s pain. Although it could still move while SCP-451 looked
at it, Daryl didn’t leave the Sculpture alone. In his mind, driven half-mad by being isolated for
so long, he genuinely believed that SCP-173 and he were friends. The Sculpture had spared him; after
all, SCP-451 had no idea what had happened to the rest of the human race, and the other SCPs now
loose on the world barely acknowledged him. But in the concrete and rebar statue, he had a friend.
SCP-451 followed SCP-173 as it shuffled itself away, not leaving its side, matching the slowed
speed of its stony, scraping movements. As they wandered together, Daryl poured his
heart out about everything and anything, glad to have someone- anyone – to talk
to, even if the Sculpture couldn’t reply. Again, nobody knows for sure if SCP-173
was an object or a living creature, but if it was the latter, then there’s still no
telling how it perceived SCP-451. It could have taken pity on him, maybe sympathizing with
his plight and begrudgingly alleviating his solitude. Or it might have found Daryl to be a
nuisance. We’ll never know, and neither would SCP-451. As the years passed, SCP-173 continued
to slow down, and kept withering. Portions of its concrete body crumbled away until they were
little more than dust. The metal wired through the Sculpture rusted, eventually coming to a stop.
What was left of SCP-173 stopped moving, fixed to one spot where it would stay.
Forever still. Not realizing it had perished, SCP-451 sat beside it and kept talking.
Now go check out “SCP-096 VS. SCP-173” and “SCP-173 ORIGIN STORY - HOW 173 GOT
TO SITE-19”? for more killer Sculpture!
