Think back to your childhood, and ask yourself:
what was the most pain you ever felt while growing up? As we develop, our understanding of pain evolves
according to our different experiences. The older we get, the injuries we suffered
as children like a scraped knee, or a bee sting rarely cause us the same level of distress
as they used to. Of course, when you are young and unfamiliar
with sensations of pain, what you really need in that moment straight after you’ve fallen
off your bike, or tripped playing soccer, is someone to pick you back up and give your
sore spot a kiss. Perhaps you even need a bowl of warm soup
to comfort you. Luckily for you, SCP-348 is exactly that. While many of the anomalies held in containment
by the SCP Foundation have earned the “Euclid” or infamous “Keter” class designations,
SCP-348 is one of the few considered to be Safe - both in the sense it poses no containment
risk, and in that it wouldn’t hurt a fly. It is neither an ancient, eldritch abomination
from another dimension spreading its influence in our world through memetic stimuli, nor
is it a recording of a basketball game in which all the players and spectators are trapped
inside. It isn’t an indestructible, limb-regenerating
reptile, or a towering winged being, wielding a flaming sword and guarding the entrance
to the Garden of Eden. To put it simply, SCP-348 is a bowl. A white ceramic bowl, the kind you would find
almost anywhere in the world. It may even look indistinguishable from one
in your own kitchen cabinet. Of course, SCP-348 is hardly as ordinary as
it outwardly appears to be. And it certainly isn’t the only inanimate
object that the Foundation keeps safely stored away. The key thing that differentiates SCP-348
from most other anomalies is how genuinely harmless it is. Its anomalous properties do not cause injury
to any individual that interacts with it, nor does this bowl have any adverse effects
on the world around it. SCP-348 cannot bend or reshape reality, it
does not cause the person eating from it to have premonitions of their own death, and
using it certainly does not manifest a contract-making entity at the opposite side of the table. So, what makes this bowl in any way anomalous? What about it categorizes it as an SCP, and
not just a harmless piece of fine crockery? Well, why don’t we start with how SCP-348
was first discovered. Some time ago, the SCP Foundation was made
aware of rumors surrounding a child living in an unknown part of the world. According to the intelligence gathered by
the Foundation, this child seemed to possess some sort of healing ability, or at least
this is what rumors suggested. Upon further investigation, the source of
these so-called “remarkable recovery abilities” wasn’t the child, but appeared to come from
a small ceramic bowl, which we now know as SCP-348. This is not to say that the bowl has any inherently
supernatural healing properties, and it doesn’t impart any regenerative power to those that
eat from it, either. It does heal in a certain sense, but not in
the way you’re probably imagining. When the SCP Foundation recovered SCP-348,
there were no markings on it indicating where the bowl came from or who it was manufactured
by. The only visually distinct details worthy
of note were flowery patterns that appeared to be hand-painted around both the inside
and outside of SCP-348. The ceramic surface also bore the Chinese
letters 想着你. Which translates to the phrase, “thinking
of you.” The child that first discovered it found the
ceramic bowl in the attic of their home. The child’s parents were both full-time
workers and seemed to be somewhat neglectful of their child, although they refused to comment
on this, but according to the findings of the SCP Foundation, the child had come to
rely on SCP-348. Deciding to further investigate the anomalous
properties of SCP-348, the Foundation began testing it. Given that the child who first discovered
the bowl had relied upon it, tests involved Foundation researchers presenting certain
children to SCP-348 and observing the results. So, was this bowl haunted? Perhaps harboring some malicious spirit or
entity that sought to corrupt these children, maybe even healing them in order to somehow
use them as a vessel to break into our world? No. And while it may not have “healed” in
any overt or expected way, it did heal in at least a metaphorical sense. If presented with an injured child, sporting
any form of minor ailment such as a cut or a runny nose, SCP-348 fills with warm soup. And yes, that’s right, we said soup. What kind, you may ask? Well, that seems to vary. Sometimes it is tomato soup, other times it
might be chicken noodle soup. While the ingredients used in its soups are
often different, there are notable consistencies to how SCP-348 heals. If anyone between the ages of four years old
and eighteen years old sits down in front of the blue flowered bowl, then SCP-348 will
fill with soup. Numerous young test subjects brought in by
the Foundation to eat from this particular bowl of soup have reported that they enjoyed
their meal, usually finishing the entire bowl when permitted to by research staff. Many of the injured children that were tested
have stated that the soup they eat from SCP-348 reminds them of their parents’ cooking. These children have expressed contentment
and feelings of comfort after acquiring their various cuts and bruises. Some even claimed that, even though they were
in a room all alone, they didn’t feel lonely when they were eating the soup. And the anomalous properties don’t end after
a child finishes the soup. Usually, although not always, the bowl will
leave the child a message, often some brief words of reassurance or comfort. These messages materialize on the inside rim
of the bowl, and seem to be specifically tailored to the subject that has just eaten. The words will not only be written in the
child’s first language, but are often linked to the child’s home life or relationship
with their parents. Messages that appear on SCP-348 usually fade
over time, normally disappearing after a few hours, or when the bowl refills with more
soup. One test of SCP-348 saw a little girl, aged
eight and suffering from a sore throat, brought before the bowl. According to a background screening made by
research personnel, the girl lived with her biological parents, and apparently had a good
relationship with both her mother and father. When SCP-348 filled with soup for her, the
girl took almost a half hour to finish eating, and afterwards reported that she felt her
sore throat get better as she ate. By the end of the meal, this test subject
remarked that she felt completely normal. In this instance, no message appeared within
the bowl. Another child was brought in to continue the
testing of SCP-348, this time a boy of ten. Unlike the previous test, this boy was not
on good terms with his parents and often argued with them. At the time of testing, the boy had sustained
several minor bruises, the result of a small accident that had occurred while the boy had
been out riding his bike. Much like the little girl, this subject ate
the soup that SCP-348 presented him with. This time though, the bowl offered a message
to the boy. The lettering found on the ceramic surface
of SCP-348 simply read “Don’t forget to brush.” Messages also appeared when an eleven year
old boy with a slight cold ate soup from the bowl. This child had been adopted by a foster family,
and after eating from SCP-348, he saw the message “I’m glad you’re happy” appear. Another young test subject, a boy aged six,
had a similar experience. In this instance, the child had several scrapes
and scratches from playing with his friends. His parents had divorced, and he was living
with his mother at the time of testing. This time, SCP-348’s to message this boy
read “I’m sorry, son.” A seven year old girl suffering from a cough
was brought before SCP-348. She had lost her father to a traffic accident
some time before testing commenced, and received the message “I love you” after finishing
her soup. Further testing conducted by the Foundation
revealed that anyone over the age of eighteen years who attempted to eat soup from SCP-348
experienced things slightly differently. Unlike the children, older subjects mostly
displayed a disinterest in finishing their meal. A common complaint among those over eighteen
was that the soup was “missing something.” However, in a few isolated cases, testing
SCP-348 on older candidates still revealed messages, although the words seemed to be
faded, not the clear, hand-painted blue that appeared when the children had finished their
soup. One woman, aged thirty, who was suffering
from a headache sat down in front of SCP-348. Much like it had done before, the bowl filled
with soup and the woman ate. As with some of the younger subjects, a key
aspect of this woman’s background seemed to be what triggered the message to appear. Specifically, she admitted to being on bad
terms with her mother and father. The woman explained that she had opted to
live on her own, isolating herself from her family. In fact, she even described having rejected
an offer her father made to her many years earlier, refusing some career training that
he was willing to give in order to help her secure a job. When she’d finished the soup, one word appeared
in the bowl: “Why?” Another woman, who was forty years old, was
also brought in for the SCP-348 testing. Much like the previous subject, she had moved
away from home and become estranged from her parents over the years. But unlike the previous test, this woman had
taken it upon herself to not only send money to her parents, but also arranged senior care
for both as well. Prior to testing, her father had died peacefully
of natural causes after spending his last days in the care that this woman had paid
for. As the woman ate the soup from the bowl, she
remarked about its apparently “bitter” taste, but also described her meal as “fulfilling”. After she had finished, the words “Thank
you” appeared within SCP-348. One other adult subject that produced a noticeable
result from SCP-348 was a forty year old male. The results of this test appeared to be the
most distinctly different from any previous adult or child. By now, researchers working for the SCP Foundation
had determined that familial history seemed to play an important role in the outcome of
any interaction with SCP-348, and this individual was certainly different to most. The man in question had murdered his father
roughly a year before the testing took place. He began the test with SCP-348 while afflicted
with aches in his back. After one taste of the soup that appeared
in the bowl before him, the murderer was immediately repulsed. He complained about the taste, refusing to
eat any more from SCP-348. Shortly after, the man began to experience
severe stomach pain. The potentially poisonous soup was disposed
of, but SCP-348 immediately filled with salt water, which took three hours to disappear
from the bowl. Despite conducting numerous tests with subjects
of all ages and ailments, the SCP Foundation researchers have so far been unable to determine
the origins of the messages that sometimes appear in SCP-348. Some have theorized, because of the family
histories of some children and adults tested, that the words somehow come from the father
of whoever eats the soup, since even when a subject’s father is alive or present in
their life, the message seems to convey feelings that their father has, or would have. Other researchers claim this is just the purpose
of SCP-348, to provide comfort to small children dealing with pain, both inside and out. And after all, isn’t providing comfort what
a good bowl of soup, anomalous or not, is best at? Now check out “SCP-999 - The Tickle Monster”
and “A Sea Snail's Fantasy SCP-1867 - A Gentleman” for more fascinating anomalies
that mean you no harm.
