It’s Saturday night, and a teenaged boy
and girl are out on a date. They are strolling through a shopping mall,
with plans to see a movie later at the theater attached to the mall. As they walk through the mall waiting for
their show to start, the girl spots something. It’s a photo booth. She excitedly grabs the boy’s hand and pulls
him inside. They close the curtain, insert a coin, and
the machine comes to life, snapping a series of photos. The two exit the booth but both seem to be
a little… off. It’s getting close to showtime though, so
they start making their way to the movie theater. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the mall patrons,
something is happening deep below the ground. The boy and girl exit the theater and walk
arm in arm through the alley back toward the parking lot where the boy left his car. It’s late now, the sun has long since set,
and they’re all alone. But they don’t hear the footsteps behind
them, or sense the pair of bodies that are following them… getting closer and closer. They get to the car, it’s the only one left
in the parking lot, and the boy takes out his keys to unlock the car when he fumbles
and drops them to the ground. As he bends over to pick them up he finally
sees who has been following them. It’s… them. A pair of doppelgangers coming straight towards
them. They look exactly like the boy and girl except
for their faces, which are horribly distorted with strange lumps and no eyes or mouths. They look as though they were a drawing of
a face that was somehow smudged out. The boy quickly gets the keys and grabs the
girl, dragging her away from the creatures who are now reaching for the boy and girl,
grasping and clawing at their faces as they try to moan through their skin covered mouths. He gets the car unlocked and both manage to
get inside. As the creatures bang on the windows, the
boy starts the engine and drives away, leaving the abominations behind. Hi! I’m Dr. Bob, and this is SCP-715, also known
as... My Face That I May Be. SCP-715 is a “Take Your Own Photo” brand
photo booth, a product of the Sony Corporation made in the 1970s. This is a standard looking photo booth, bearing
a close resemblance to the many thousands of others that were in operation around the
world at the time, with no anomalous visual characteristics at all. The only detail setting this machine apart
from its countless brethren is a small metal tag which has been added to the back of the
machine at some point, but a significant amount of wear has made it impossible to read what,
if anything, was ever stamped on the tag. SCP-715’s basic operation is also not anomalous
in appearance. It will only activate if an individual sits
inside and inserts the required coinage, at which point it will take a series of photos,
just like a normal photo booth. The photos will also appear normal, though
often some will be heavily distorted and obscure the subject’s face in various ways. What truly sets this photo booth apart, however,
is what happens outside of the booth when the pictures are taken. While the individuals who had their photos
taken, classified as SCP-715-B instances, are able to exit the booth with no obvious
effects, below the mall, deep underground, something truly terrifying takes place. Underneath the mall is Site 81/715, an extradimensional
space which is accessible through a mall maintenance service door located in sub basement three,
a door that does not appear on any of the mall’s structural blueprints or in other
records. The site consists of a giant, cavernous room,
which appears to have been hewn right out of the surrounding limestone. In the middle of the room is its most distinguishing
feature, a large, deep pit. The walls of the pit are made of an unidentified
substance, though it appears similar in both appearance and composition to human fat tissue. These fleshy walls secrete a powerful, corrosive
substance which makes examination and exploration of the pit particularly dangerous. When SCP-715 is activated in the mall above,
a humanoid creature, classified as SCP-715-A, will appear in this pit. The bodies of these creatures are similar
in appearance to the individuals who had their picture taken inside of 715, but their faces
are radically different. Each has severe facial disfigurements and
abnormalities such as large growths, deep lacerations, and the absence of facial features. After appearing in the pit, these SCP-715-A
instances will attempt to scale the fleshy walls of the pit and leave Site 81/715. These instances are considered hostile, and
Foundation security personnel are authorized to neutralize the creatures by any means necessary. Further research into how the SCP-715-A entities
are formed and what exactly the pit is are ongoing, and it’s not currently known how
many 715-A instances exist down in the pit. With the entities who were able to climb out
of the pit able to be relatively easily neutralized by security forces, SCP-715 was originally
classified as Safe. It was contained at its point of origin within
the mall in Ohio and Foundation personnel posing as mall employees would collect the
photos printed by the machine. However following additional discoveries,
this classification necessitated changing. The Foundation began noticing inconsistencies
with SCP-715-B entities, after a researcher tested SCP-715 himself by sitting inside and
having his photo taken. Soon after, he began acting in ways that were
considered strange, such as when he turned down a promotion to a prominent position with
better pay and perks for seemingly no reason, and when he skipped a mandatory site inspection
for reality bending anomalies. After noticing these strange behaviors, a
Foundation research head had an Anomalous Optical Enhancement device placed in the oddly
acting researcher’s bedroom, and learned a surprising truth about the SCP-715 A and
B entities… The Foundation had been killing the wrong
ones. The device, which could remove anomalous reality
distorting effects from images, showed that the researcher was actually one of the creatures
from the pit, with the telltale facial distortions. Following this shocking revelation, the research
head used the same device on the creatures still inside the pit underneath the mall. They found that when the anomalous visual
effects were removed from the distorted creatures who were trying to get out of the fleshy pit…
that they were actually normal looking humans. These SCP-715-A entities were the human beings
who had entered the photo booth, had their pictures taken, and were somehow transported
to the pit. They had been trying to escape their prison
and tell the Foundation who they really were, but this only resulted in them being terminated
by the on site security forces. In order to fix this mistake, SCP-715 was
hastily reclassified as Keter, and SCP-715 was removed from the mall in order to be stored
in a secure locker at Site 19. Research personnel were no longer able to
access SCP-715 without special authorization, and study of the interior was limited to what
could be done via remote drone use only. The Foundation began rounding up all known
instances of SCP-715-B who were now the ones subjected to immediate termination. Foundation staff did manage to interview one
715-B instance though, who had been previously believed to be a fellow Foundation researcher. It is unknown exactly what the researcher
doppelganger said in that interview, but it must have been extremely serious, as the end
result was another complete change in protocol. All attempts to contain and neutralize instances
of SCP-715-B would immediately cease, since if there were as many out in the world as
the doppelganger claimed, then ultimately it would better maintain normalcy and ensure
the secrecy of SCP-715 if they were allowed to go free. Sadly the same was not the case for the SCP-715-A
instances that still existed down in the pit. The researcher doppelganger advised that it
would be unwise to remove them from the pit, and the current Foundation policy is that
down in the pit is where they will remain. Following this interview, SCP-715 was re-classified
once again as Safe. The photo booth was also moved again, this
time to a maximum security storage locker at Site-81, and Foundation personnel have
been prohibited from interacting with SCP-715-B instances at all. However there is one more piece of information
about SCP-715, and it is only accessible to those with proper security clearance. Another Foundation agent was found to actually
be an instance of SCP-715-B, and taken into custody for observation. While under surveillance, it was discovered
that this instance, classified as SCP-715-B7, was emitting low level radiation that was
somehow directed at Site 81/715 - the location of the pit. During an autopsy of the creature, it was
found that the radioactive emissions were actually increasing in output and frequency,
and soon after, a power outage and containment breach occurred at the site where the autopsy
took place. Following these events, the body of SCP-715-B7
disappeared, and video surveillance confirmed that several members of Foundation staff were
responsible, all of whom had been involved in SCP-715 research. The staff members escaped with the body and
left no other evidence behind, save for a single photo with the ominous text “My ears
that I may hear, my eyes that I may see, my mouth that I may speak… Do not touch my face.” No other information regarding SCP-715 has
been found and many questions remain. Just what are instances of 715-B and what
do they want? Are they some kind of hivemind colony that
reproduces through the use of a mysterious photo booth? What happens to those left behind in the pit,
and what will they do should they ever get out? Investigations are ongoing. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, 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.
