It was the summer of 2012 in Damascus, and
for the people of Syria, it certainly seemed like all the predictions about “The End
of the World” were coming true. The Syrian civil war was raging between multiple
rebel groups and the dictator Bashar Al-Assad, whose government was shelling its own people,
as well as using chemical weapons and brutal campaigns of violence across the country in
hopes of quelling the rebellion. Little did they know, amidst all this pain
and bloodshed, something even more dangerous was brewing. An anomalous phenomenon in the sunny plains
North of Damascus that may pose a threat to all of humanity someday. A threat known to the SCP Foundation as SCP-3989… The Bone Orchard. This temporal and spatial anomaly was discovered
a few years earlier in 2009, before the Syrian civil war even officially began. It’s strange for a highly dangerous Keter
Class anomaly to be discovered under such seemingly mundane circumstances. The SCP Foundation first became aware of SCP-3989
after a small olive orchard owner sold a strangely high amount of olives that shouldn’t have
been possible when compared to his reported number of Olea europaea olive trees. Field Agents were dispatched to question the
owner about his sudden success, but he was resistant to questioning. The Agents began a covert surveillance operation
to figure what was actually going on here, at which point they discovered a considerable
spatial anomaly. The Olive Orchard was far bigger on the inside. The property was seized by the Foundation
for containment. The owner had no real knowledge of the spatial
anomaly, it’s likely he just decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth while making
money hand over fist from the extra olives he sold. The owner was given amnestics and a new life,
as the Foundation began to study this anomaly which was now labeled SCP-3989. To this day, no researcher has been able to
figure out the origin of 3989’s anomalous qualities. It was first given a Euclid-class designation,
and cordoned off from the public with a simple chain link fence while Foundation investigations
were underway on inside. On a map, the plot of land the olive farm
should only occupy about five square acres, but this plot contains an unseen portal to
a pocket dimension within its 12 meter active zone which doesn’t follow the same spatial
laws that our reality does. This sub-dimension, known as SCP-3989-A, is
a hotbed of fascinating anomalous activity. Upon the discovery of this hot zone, the Foundation
established the nearby Area 126 as a research center and a makeshift containment facility
for any anomalous entities captured from SCP-3989-A. It seemed like the Foundation really had a
handle on this situation, but they were blissfully unaware of the true horrors lurking within
SCP-3989-A. But they’d soon find out… in the most horrifying way possible. Dr. Farik Ghazalie was assigned to head the
research into the anomalous zone within 3989, and naturally, he began organizing fact-finding
expeditions into the heart of the affected area. The first guinea pig to head into the hot
zone was former Foundation Agent Josiah Harrick, who’d been demoted to the lowly D-Class
position of D-126-15 due to failures on a previous mission. With a remote link to Dr. Ghazalie, Harrick
was forced to venture into the active anomalous zone to collect footage and samples of the
flora and fauna within. The first thing Harrick noticed on his expedition
was the strange quality of the olive trees within the active zone. The bark was a stark white, and the leaves
a bloody red. Up close, Harrick could see that the trunks
and branches of the trees had undergone a process known as ossification, where the material
slowly becomes bone or bone-like tissue. Hence the anomaly’s creepy name, The Bone
Orchard. These ossified trees became known as SCP-3989-1. Harrick also made another discovery, all over
the trees and ground were worm-like creatures that looked like long maggots that the Foundation
dubbed SCP-3989-1A. Agent Harrick then noticed that something
was off about the leaves of the ossified trees. They were beating. He looked closer and they appeared to be heart
tissue, filled with pumping veins. Dr. Ghazalie ordered Harrick to take a branch
for testing, and when he did, the tree began to bleed. When he looked down, he saw that the worm-like
creatures that covered the ground were now crawling up his legs. Ignoring orders from Dr. Ghazalie, Harrick
fled from the active zone in terror. As he left, Dr. Ghazalie caught something
in the corner of Harrick’s body-cam footage: A long, white hind-limb, disappearing behind
a tree. Back in our normal dimension, tests on the
samples Harrick collected yielded more upsetting discoveries. Genetically, the trees were identical to humans. The trunks were human bone, and the leaves
really were made of human heart tissue. Fascinated and just a little bit horrified,
Dr. Ghazalie authorized further expeditions into 3989-A. This time though, Agent Harrick
would be accompanied by another D-Class, and both would be armed with handguns and protective
body armor. As it would turn out, this expedition would
be even more horrifying than the first. As the two D-Classes explored the active zone
to collect further samples, they found that the worms were responsible for the ossification
of the otherwise non-anomalous olive trees. They consumed the wood, little by little,
and deposited human bone matter in return. Harrick and his companion also noticed that
these trees were beginning to bear fruit. Dr. Ghazalie ordered Harrick to collect some
of this fruit for testing, but when they attempted to remove the fruit it burst, releasing more
worm-creatures. It seemed that the converted trees acted as
incubators for their egg sacs. Before the duo could return with the samples
they were able to take, the creature that’d been spotted on Harrick’s body cam during
the first mission finally appeared. It was huge, with long, white limbs, and no
facial features except for a huge mouth. It grabbed Harrick’s companion and literally
ate the top half of his body in a single bite, before dropping his legs to the ground. This horrifying beast, and the many others
like it, would later be designated as SCP-3989-2A. Harrick pulled out his side arm and shot the
creature several times. The creature ignored the bullets though and
charged Harrick. The feed from his bodycam cut soon after. Both men were declared killed in action, and
in recognition of his sacrifice, Josiah Harrick was posthumously reinstated to his old position
in the Foundation. Job well done, Agent. Dr. Ghazalie, meanwhile, prepared for the
next mission. This time, knowing of the clear dangers present
within The Bone Orchard, Dr. Ghazalie recruited the help of MTF Zeta-9, aka The Mole Rats. Three members, referred to as Charlie Team,
were sent into the anomalous zone, once again remotely directed by Dr. Ghazalie. They were equipped with experimental ultrasound
technology so that they could scan the fruit of the trees within 3989-A without breaking
any and incurring the wrath of 3989-2A, which seemed to act as sentries for the trees. Early on in their journey, they found the
body of Agent Harrick crucified against one of the ossified trees, his skin covered in
mysterious symbols that were likely of a Sarkic origin. While we don’t have time to fully explore
Sarkicism, that will require a video explanation all of its own, all you need to know is that
it’s a dangerous religious cult that worships flesh and disease and has close ties to similar,
dangerous anomalies like SCP - 610, also known as the Flesh That Hates. People familiar with that SCP will note eerily
strange similarities to some of the things the Mole Rats were about to encounter. As Charlie Team explored, they saw a huge
number of 3989-2As observing them with eyeless faces from between the ossified trees. They pressed on, until they discovered what
seemed to be an entirely new kind of tree within the Bone Orchard. SCP-3989-2 were huge trees made out of what
appears to be enlarged human spines in place of a trunk. The smaller twigs on the tree were made from
heart and lung tissue, and the whole thing was covered in what appeared to be human amniotic
sacs. Charlie Team attempted to use their ultrasound
scanners to discover the contents of these sacs, but one of them exploded in the process,
releasing an entirely new variety of monster. From the sacs emerged the larval stage of
SCP-3989-2B, smaller humanoid monsters with no faces, no sensory organs, two pelvises.,
four legs, and an exposed spine. Suddenly, Charlie Team could feel a horrifying
Sarkic presence around them, which one member of the team described as being like someone
grabbing her liver and giggling in her face. As the various monsters of the Bone Orchard
began to converge on the team, the voice of the Sarkic prophet of war and the hunt, Orok,
began sounding in their ears. He was beckoning them to join him. While Charlie Team fled from the active zone,
Dr. Ghazalie felt increasingly drawn into it. He heard the voice of Orok, and he liked what
he heard. Little by little, the workers of Area 126
were losing their minds, manipulated by the Sarkic power of the Bone Orchard right next
to them, day after day. They were no longer loyal to the Foundation,
they wanted to serve their new dark masters. The fourth and final expedition was led by
Dr. Ghazalie himself. He took a band of loyal followers, and one
non-believer, on a quest into the active zone to find an Orokian temple they believed was
hidden in the very heart of the Bone Orchard. Once they were inside, Ghazalie and his loyalists
murdered the non-believer as a sacrifice to their new master. They carried on until they eventually found
what they were looking for: A giant, stone temple resembling an Aztec ziggurat, dubbed
SCP-3989-4. There, they also encountered a new kind of
monster, dubbed SCP-3989-3. These beasts were larger than the others,
and resembled ancient warriors. They had insect-like exoskeletal armor, horned
heads, additional hind and forelimbs, and integrated bladed weapons. What Dr. Ghazalie and his companions thought
would be paradise turned out to be a kind of Hell as they were led into the temple,
where temporal and spatial distortions broke their mind, and the multiple, highly aggressive
instances of SCP-3989- 3, -2A, and -2B broke their bodies. The whole thing had been a horrifying trap. In that moment, back at Area 126, another
fleshy, horrifying tree sprouted out of the ground in the middle of the complex. Monsters that had once been Dr. Ghazalie and
his followers emerged from its amniotic sacs, and all hell broke loose throughout the complex. Soon enough, the base was crawling with monsters
from the Bone Orchard and staff who’d become brainwashed, Sarkic cultists working in service
of Orok. Humans were gathered up to be sacrificed to
the ever-growing number of anomalous trees. Things came to a head when the anomaly and
Area 126 was visited by an outside agent from the Foundation working on behalf of the Hazardous
Materials Containment Liaison. Biological Containment Specialist Dr. Marshall
Grant and his team arrived at the site and were horrified to see the Sarkic nightmare
that had unfolded. They quickly engaged in a firefight with the
anomalous creatures and Sarkic Devotees who’d gained control over Area 126. A number of Dr. Grant’s team were lost in
the process, but thankfully, they were able to eventually regain control of the base and
the anomalous area. After this incident, SCP-3989 was upgraded
to Keter Class and given a huge upgrade in security, including four meter high concrete
walls and a platoon sized regiment of Mobile Task Force members with heavy weaponry. The force that took over the minds of those
exposed was designated SCP-3989-V, a force so powerful that those infected are given
the choice to self-terminate… or be contained forever. This may seem like a somewhat happy ending
to a grim tale, but one detail keeps Dr. Grant, and everyone at the Foundation who is forced
to deal with 3989 awake at night. According to all recent studies into the Bone
Orchard, it isn’t contained at all. In fact, the active zone… is getting bigger... Now go check out “SCP-4000 - Taboo” and
“SCP-5545 - Abnormality” for more strange, nightmare locations from the SCP Foundation!
