Ashen-faced villages walk in a solemn line
down a long, dirt road. The light from their torches makes their face into masks of shadows.
They chant in an ancient and arcane language as they move in a procession towards the
darkened cemetery on the edge of the village. It’s an unpleasant duty, but a burden
that they must carry nonetheless. In the middle of the procession is the one being
honored tonight: One of the village elders. And in this village, to be an elder is a truly
special thing. From his wizened, creaking body, his deep-set eyes, milky with cataracts,
his almost transparent, liver-spotted skin, it would appear that he is in his nineties.
But, in fact, he is over 300 years old. The other villagers pass ghostlike
through the gates of the cemetery, crowding around the elder as he
hobbles across the uneven terrain. It will be his final pilgrimage, and all of them -
including him - know it. He breathes a ragged sigh and mutters a prayer to the deity
that he will soon be meeting. Up above, the moon shines brilliantly.
Down below, a chasm yawns in an open grave, with something very old and very powerful
roiling underneath. The villagers do not fear it. They revere it. They worship it.
It gave them everything they have. The elder stands at the mouth of the chasm,
staring down into its depths with resolute silence. The village priest opens an ancient
book and chants a rite in an antique tongue. His words translate roughly to, “To
our lord, our father, our protector, we commit one of our own back into your hands and
heart. For one thing is immutably true: The Black Gift is only borrowed. The Black Gift gives us our
life, and in death, we return to the Black God.” As he goes on, something rises from the pit:
tendrils molded from liquid dark. They reach out and embrace the elder, tenderly wrapping
around him and lifting him from the ground. He doesn’t scream though. He simply accepts
his fate as the villagers pray and the tendrils pull him down into the dark. When their
prayer is done, there is only silence. The torches go out. The villagers return
home. It’s just another night for them. There is a village in the deepest, darkest reaches
of Eastern Europe. A place forgotten by time. Where the locals live by old
rules and even older gods. A place where strange rituals occur, and
people with unnatural abilities thrive. And beneath it all, the blood of a hungry,
curious god runs in endless, dark rivers. It goes without saying, something incredibly
strange is afoot in Ciemność, Poland, and the SCP Foundation have designated
the heart of that strangeness as SCP-6198. However, the decidedly peculiar locals have
a very different name for the phenomenon: Chernobog, old Slavic for “The Black God”, an
ancient deity said to rule dark fates and the Underworld. And considering the events
that unfolded in the incredibly old, incredibly isolated village of Ciemność, this is
a reputation that Chernobog has very much earned. Sadly, several members of Foundation
personnel had to learn this the hard way. The Foundation first discovered the
village when they intercepted strange communications from the local authorities
investigating a missing person’s case from the Lower Silesian Forest region.
While searching for this missing person, Polish police found a series of strange, dark
chasms in the ground, each one leading down to a deep, mysterious pit filled with black
liquid. This was enough for the Foundation to realize something anomalous was likely occurring
here, prompting them to step in and intervene. Before the authorities could arrange any
potentially dangerous excursions into one of these chasms, the SCP Foundation showed up under
the guise of Poland’s Ministry of Public Security and relieved them of their duties. They
designated the strange black liquid in the chasms SCP-6198-B, and the
chasms themselves SCP-6198-C. Thankfully, while the locals weren’t exactly
rolling out the welcome wagon, they didn’t show active hostility, either. Most simply
appeared wary and kept their distance, watching Foundation activities from inside their homes and
staying out of the way of researchers and guards. Early on, one of the biggest issues
was the communication barrier, as the majority of the village spoke an otherwise dead
proto-slavic dialect that seemed impenetrable, even to modern Polish speakers. Linguistic
experts became key to facilitating later communications between Foundation
personnel and residents of the village. The residents of the village were all quite old,
but appeared unusually youthful for their ages. They were all worshippers of Chernobog.
And the villagers claimed that, through worshiping Chernobog, they were given the Black
Gift - facilitated by imbibing the dark liquid from the chasms - which they credited
with their health, youth, and longevity. The Foundation was obviously interested in
figuring out just what exactly this black liquid was, so they began their studying in earnest,
but they soon realized something very strange. The chasms… were not always there. It seemed that they would only appear for fourteen
day periods between the New and Full Moon. The initial exploration into the heart of
the village was performed by two intrepid Field Agents, Agent Kazimierz Nowak and Agent
Maria Bakula. Nowak and Bakula arrived in the dilapidated town, finally realizing just how
cut off from modern society the place was: Dirt roads, ramshackle wooden
buildings surrounded by old ruins, and strange makeshift hierograms
everywhere. The duo pulled into town, seeing the many ashen faces of the locals
staring at them from nearby windows. They proceeded to the cemetery, where the majority
of the chasms were believed to have opened. There, in what appeared to be an open
grave, they found themselves staring down into one of the many abysses. Dark,
light-absorbing liquid roiled deep below. However, they soon realized that it was time
to go when they noticed locals hiding behind the gravestones around them, watching
intently. Something was very wrong here. They traveled back into the center of the
village, still keenly aware that they were being observed from the sidelines. They approached
one of the many houses and attempted to knock. An extremely old woman peered out of the window
and began speaking to them in proto-slavic, which neither of them could understand. However, as they were leaving, one of them
was able to swipe a leather-bound book from a table outside the home - believed to be
some kind of bible for the local religion. While still in town, and still being watched,
the duo collected a sample of the Black Gift from a local well, then began making their way
back to their vehicle. The whole time they were followed by an eerie old man who looked to be in
his nineties, but was surprisingly spry for his age. The two left shortly after that, and shared
their findings and samples with their superiors. The leatherbound book retrieved by Agent Nowak
and Agent Bakula was given to SCP Foundation linguistic expert Researcher Albin Iskra.
Researcher Iskra quickly became enraptured with the book, and the unique challenge
it and its proto-slavic dialect presented. After many long nights of pouring over
books on slavic linguistic history, and many pots of very strong coffee,
Researcher Iskra’s work finally bore fruit. In a note to other personnel
working on the SCP-6198 case, she wrote: “Let me start by saying that, despite my extensive
knowledge of the history and origins of Slavic language, this is the first time I've ever
encountered what appears to be Proto-Slavic in written form from a direct descendant
source. This is a truly fascinating discovery. Initial progress on translating the text was
slower than expected. There's something about the linguistic structure of the language that, for
reasons I can't fully deduce, make it incredibly difficult to retain the knowledge of. For every
few words committed to memory, it's as though one dissipates from it. It's as if I can feel a sense
of reluctance coming from the language itself. Eventually I was able to solidify my understanding
enough to begin picking at the various passages found throughout. I can confirm that the
contents of the book hold a great deal of religious significance, not only for those in
Ciemność but throughout all Slavic culture, dating back to roughly the fourth century. While there are references to the more well
known Slavic gods such as Perun and Veles, the book focuses primarily on one
of the sibling "successor" gods, "Chernobog, the Black God";
detailing various prayers, rituals, and tenets, that followers of
the Black God should live by and practice. I've highlighted a selection of
excerpts of notable interest that may shed some light on the occurrences
witnessed by Foundation personnel.” Three areas of interest in Researcher Iskra’s
translation are “The Rite of the Black Passage”, “Expurgation and the Black Gift”, and “The Fall
of Veles”, each of which, in their own way, shed some light and some darkness on
the cryptic happenings of Ciemność. The section on The Rite of the Black Passage read: “For it is to Him, where the dead must go
and return to the roiling abyss from which our forms are moulded
to be one again with Him In this, we share in their fathomless knowledge
and learn of untold and forgotten epochs unfurling mysteries of stygian transcendence
bestowed with blessings beyond death At darkest hour on darkest night
within lamented dwelling hollows shall hypogean thresholds unveil
entwining submerged departed Now relinquished of tethers corporeal
and sustained amidst blackest waters become one with perennial ancestry
granting insight to those adherent.” The section marked “Expurgation
and the Black Gift” read: “There are those that only turn to
Chernobog when their time is at an end, and it is those that shall be offered
the least when they inevitably pass. To live solely in the light of the brother
is to neglect the eternity that follows, condemning oneself to the lowest
echelons of consciousness. Those with wisdom and foresight
do well to embrace the Black Gift, to forfeit a part of oneself in
exchange for parts of the many. To drink of the Black Gift is to offer one's
life in a bid to be tested of mind and spirit. Should one be deemed worthy, that which was
offered will be returned but with boundless acuity and vigour. Should one's offering fall short,
their essence is given to the Black God entirely, yet, the truer they walk the Black Path, the
more openly their soul shall be welcomed. Before one is to be tested, they must first
be expurgated through ritual, else any sense of self is lost upon passing. This ebonises
the soul, proving devotion to the Black Path and allowing one's essence to find greater
connection upon being taken in by Chernobog. The ritual must be carried out by followers in
the living realm now sustained by the Black Gift, with these followers bringing about a trance
of blindness and drowning within the aspirant. Should an aspirant prove resolute throughout
this trial of panicked terror and asphyxiation, the Black Gift is then offered
and true judgement begins.” And finally, the section labeled
“The Fall of Veles” offers a mythological origin for the Black
God, Chernobog, himself. It read: “Veles, god of the harvest, livestock, earth,
rivers, the underworld, magic, and trickery. Much did humanity depend upon him
for not only the means to survive but also for peaceful death. Alas, where there
are those with great power, there are also those that seek to claim it for themselves, and in this,
brothers Belebog and Chernobog were no different. Harsh winter followed by foul harvest lead to
the death of the brother's village, leaving the dead unburied atop frozen ground. Enraged at
the neglect Veles had dealt them and adamant that between them, they could govern the lands of
the living and the dead better than the great god, the brothers set out in search of
Veles, their minds intent on deicide. In their journeys the brothers overcome many
challenges, redoubling their affinity in magic and honing their cunning in warfare, Belebog excelling
in martial guile as Chernobog mastered the spell. However, Veles watched the brothers, aware of
their quest. In a bid to undermine them, Veles returned the body of their mother to the living
world to convince them to return home with her. The brothers were not fooled and with a heavy
heart, returned their mother to the underworld. Veles continued to break their will,
turning the food they gathered rotten. But again, the brothers were not fooled as they
endured putrid illusion of smell and taste, knowing that in truth what they
consumed would nourish them. Every trick cast down by Veles was
foreseen and averted until eventually, frustrated at the brother's tenacity, Veles
himself confronted Belebog and Chernobog. Veles challenged the brothers to battle,
offering his godhood should they best him but on the condition that only one may
fight him. Suspecting that Veles may attempt to divide the two, the brothers had
made a pact with Perun, Veles' adversary. The brothers agreed that Veles would
indeed fight only a single combatant, to which Veles acknowledged and draw up
a boundary from which to battle within. When asked who shall fight,
the brothers announced "Perun" and upon uttering his name, the god of thunder
appeared with a great flash within the boundary. A battle of world-shattering magnitude
commenced as Veles took the form of dragon and Perun harnessed the power of the skies.
Despite his skill in magic and deceit, Veles was struck down and killed by Perun. With
Veles dead, Belebog claimed domain over harvest, the earth, and livestock; as Chernobog claimed
the underworld, the rivers, and magic.” Combining information from these extracts with
contextual information they’d gathered from observation allowed them to paint a more complete
picture of the goings on at Ciemność, as well as SCP-6198 itself. But to develop an even greater
understanding of what they were dealing with here, they’d need to open a dialogue with a friendly
member of the village. That villager ended up being Tesia Konieczny, a woman who appeared
to be middle-aged but was, in actuality, in her mid-70s, her youthful outward appearance
thanks to the positive effects of the Black Gift. Tesia was pleasant and forthcoming with
her information as Foundation researchers questioned her, allowing them to glean
a variety of interesting information. For example, the Black Gift is exclusive
to those who were born in Ciemność, and many worshippers used to make their
pilgrimage to Ciemność to pledge their bodies to Chernobog in their final moments, and
become one with him. Tesia also seemed to possess information that either would have predated her
life, or would be impossible for her to know, suggesting a shared consciousness between
those who had been given the Black Gift. The question of what it exactly meant to offer
oneself to Chernobog continued to linger, until the Foundation began to conduct tests
with the samples collected by Agent Nowak and Agent Bakula. Given that supposedly only people
born in Ciemność could receive the Black Gift, the Foundation was eager to discover what
effect the black liquid might have on a D-Class. Incidentally, despite being
truly opaque in any quantity, chemical tests showed that the
composition of the black liquid was no different from water. So how
severe could the effects really be? When a sample was applied to a D-Class subject’s
skin, there were no noticeable effects, nor were there any when the D-Class was
submerged up to the neck in the substance. When given diving equipment and
entirely submerged in the liquid, still, nothing happened. However, when the D-Class
was instructed to drink a glass of the liquid, he became incredibly ill, his veins and
then skin turning black. He quickly expired, and his body rapidly decomposed
into more of the same black liquid. This implied that it was all part of the life
cycle of Ciemność. The Black Gift sustains life, but when life finally comes to an
end, everyone rejoins Chernobog, and becomes the same black liquid that
sustains the next generation of worshippers. Also, when a sample was given to a Ciemność
native to drink, there were no noticeable effects. After all this, the SCP Foundation decided
it was finally time to lower a member of their own personnel into one of the SCP-6198
chasms to better figure out what was inside. This, however, was the beginning of the
troubles that would alert the Foundation to the true danger presented by
SCP-6198 and his worshippers. Researcher Ela Gorski agreed to
suit up and be lowered into the blackness of one of the chasms and
report back what happened within. As expected, when she was lowered in, she
reported the eerie darkness around her, and the black liquid that seemed to almost have a mind
of its own. When they attempted to pull her out, there was evidence of spatial distortion, as
despite being theoretically raised enough to leave the underwater cavern, she was still down
there. It was at this point that Researcher Gorski began to talk to someone who wasn’t there,
concerning the research staff up above. When they tried to raise her, they
realized that something was terribly wrong. Researcher Gorski was gone - She’d been
absorbed, body and mind, into the great collective consciousness of Chernobog.
The entity begged, in Gorski’s voice, “There is nothing of interest to be found
within this abyss. The only knowledge worth seeking is above us. Please. Send more
Foundation. Please, I must survive.” This was how the SCP Foundation gleaned another
extremely valuable piece of information: Chernobog is able to grow stronger based
on his number of victims and worshippers, as more minds and memories are absorbed into his
great collective consciousness. And disturbingly, after consuming Researcher Gorski, he knew
about the SCP Foundation, and he was extremely, extremely eager to know more. This was
when things took a turn for the worst. In the hours following the disappearance of
Researcher Gorski, a Mobile Task Force unit was dispatched from Site 120 to assist in the search.
As they searched, various townsfolk approached Foundation staff and began questioning them on
subjects that they had no business knowing about, such as the fate of Researcher Gorski, the
status of various anomalies in the region, and the location of the O5 Council - Which led
Foundation agents to detaining the villager who asked that last particularly dangerous
question. But the worst was yet to come. The Foundation first had to stop a bizarre
ritual, where some of the villagers began taking bucketfuls of water from the village
well and bringing it to the different houses, and it took intervention from the Mobile
Task Force unit on site to get them to stop. And not long after that one of the MTF members,
Agent Adam Kowalski, didn’t report back for duty, The remaining MTF members began
searching for their missing colleague, but at the same time villagers also began
attacking the task force members at the cemetery, forcing them to fight their way back into town. When the embattled group entered a suspicious
house, they found a startling sight: A room filled with dark chasms, surrounded by
makeshift paintings of the SCP Foundation’s logo. Further in, they discovered Agent Kowalski, laying
on the ground, with two villagers appearing to pray over him. When nothing else would make them
stop, they were forced to neutralize the two villagers and retrieve the comatose Agent
Kowalski for evacuation from the village. The villagers crowded around
the center of the village, as the MTF members approached
with Kowalski in tow, after being forced to kill several more villagers,
the crowd finally parted and allowed them through. During the car ride out of the village,
Agent Kowalski briefly became semi-lucid, and muttered about “something black” watching him
from beneath the water. He was able to provide no other information on what had happened to him,
and just moments later, he died of cardiac arrest. Security footage would then show something
extremely disturbing occurring within the MTF vehicle: Agent Kowalski’s dead body sat up,
retrieved his gun, and then killed his fellow MTF squadmates before they even had a chance to react.
The driver of the car was seriously wounded and the vehicle crashed. Agent Kowalski’s reanimated
body then exited the vehicle, and screaming could be heard as he pulled the injured driver from
his seat and dragged him away into the darkness. The sounds of begging, vomiting, and wheezing
were heard after that, as, we can only assume, he was forced to ingest the Black Gift,
No bodies were ever recovered - Just various MTF uniforms floating in
black liquid near the roadside. Since this incident, the SCP Foundation has dealt
with the village of Ciemność and SCP-6198 with increased caution. Agent Kowalski’s reanimated
corpse remains at large and regular searches are conducted for it in the Lower Silesian Forest
since it is vital, above all else, that Chernobog cannot come to know any more sensitive SCP
Foundation information than he already does. Due to his intelligent nature, and capacity
to learn and exploit SCP Foundation secrets, Chernobog has been given the Euclid Object
Class and files pertaining to Chernobog are classified to Level 3 personnel and above. The
entity has been given the Disruption Class Vlam, as it is thankfully, currently localized
entirely to the village of Ciemność, Poland. And given the recent events that have unfolded
there, it has also been given the Risk Class Caution - Since there’s no way of knowing
what the Black God still has up his sleeve. Now go and watch another entry from the files of
Dr. Bob, like “SCP-783 There Was A Crooked Man”, for another anomalous location inhabited
by a powerful and dangerous being. And make sure you subscribe and turn on
notifications, so you don’t miss a single anomaly, as we delve further and further into the
SCP Foundation’s classified archives.
