A kindly looking old woman is carrying groceries
into her home. When she closes the door, a crack forms in
the wall and a tile slides down off her roof, crashing to the ground and shattering. The next day, the local builder seems confused. He’d just fixed a similar problem a week
ago at another house. And another the week before that. He’ll patch this crack just like he did
before and repair the roof. But as he does so, he can’t help but think
he’ll be at another house with the same problem soon. Old people are like this sometimes though,
breaking things on purpose to get someone to come visit them. Oh well, as long as the money is right he’ll
keep doing the repairs. That evening the old woman is in bed when
she’s woken up by something falling onto her face. A crack has opened in the ceiling right above
her bed and plaster is falling on her. What is happening to this house? She would have to call the builder again in
the morning and let him know that it was getting worse. She gets up to clean the plaster dust off
her face but stops halfway to the door. Was that a noise she heard? It sounded like it was coming from downstairs. Another noise, she definitely heard something. Is someone in her home? “Hello?” she cries out. “Whoever you are, you better go. My husband is going to be home any moment
and he won’t be happy.” The noises seem to have stopped. Maybe she was imagining things. Who would rob a poor old woman after all? She didn’t have anything worth taking. She still needs to wash the plaster off her
face though. She listens for a moment, and when she doesn’t
hear anything else, she opens the bedroom door… and screams. The next day a child stands in front of the
house with a look of shock. Was there an earthquake? How could a house end up like this? They ring the doorbell but there’s no answer. They knock on the door and are surprised to
find that the door is open. “Grandma?” the child cries into the quiet
house. No response. The child enters and looks around. The house is a mess. Chunks of plaster have fallen off the walls
and ceiling, shelves have fallen over spilling their contents, and there’s broken glass
from shattered light bulbs everywhere. The boy looks up the stairs and can see that
his grandmother’s bedroom door is open and the light is on. “Grandma, are you up there?” Still no response. The child nervously starts up the stairs,
gripping the railing tight. They quietly make their way to the bedroom
and step into the sliver of light coming from the cracked door. The child pushes the door open to find their
grandmother on the floor, only, it isn’t their grandmother. Whatever this is looks like their grandmother,
but like she has been stretched and twisted, her body bent at angles where no joints exist. The child is paralyzed with fear, unable to
do anything but stare. But the nightmare isn’t over yet, because
their grandmother... is still alive. Sadly, reports like these are all too common
in this small town that is plagued by attacks from SCP-783, also known as… The Crooked Man. SCP-783 is an extremely dangerous anomalous
creature that is currently plaguing the population of Temby, a small, rural village in Oxfordshire,
England. Every twelve years during the fall and winter
months, SCP-783 will engage in a period of hostile behavior that lasts for roughly seventy
days during which time it will target and attack people who are indoors and alone after
sunset. Those targeted by SCP-783 will find that the
building they are in rapidly deteriorates, causing damage and creating structural integrity
issues. These often appear as cracks on the outside
of the building that lead to the buildings taking on a crooked appearance. Unfortunately, while the SCP Foundation is
aware of both the location and the periods within which SCP-783 operates, it has so far
been unable to prevent any attacks. Additionally, the Foundation has yet to be
able to produce either an image or even a physical description of SCP-783 due to the
effect it has on recording equipment. Cameras set up to capture the anomaly produce
only distorted or corrupted footage, leaving its appearance a mystery. Victims targeted by SCP-783 meet a fate that
is, in many ways, worse than death. Their bodies will experience extreme deformations
as their bones suffer dozens of fractures and are stretched and twisted in various unnatural
directions. They are then healed by the rapid generation
of cartilage and the growth of extra skin to cover the new elongated limbs, leaving
the victims a malformed knot of gnarled extremities. Some of the cases are quite severe, with one
victim having just their forearm extended to over 2.4 meters and another who was left
stretched to 12 and a half meters in height. Despite the gruesome injuries suffered, the
majority of victims are still alive following the attacks, though they will more often than
not be left completely paralyzed, in a persistent vegetative state, or both. Twenty-seven victims of SCP-783 are currently
being held in a long term care facility within a wing of a local hospital that was requisitioned
by the Foundation specifically for the care and treatment of 783 victims. Like many of the anomalies that the SCP Foundation
investigates and contains, many of the residents of Temby appear to have some awareness of
the Crooked Man, and the anomaly has become something of a local boogeyman. Researchers have even documented local school
children singing a nursery rhyme that appears connected and may even explain the origins
of the creature. It goes: There lived a crooked man, who made a crooked
deal He kept a crooked cane, and his catch in crooked
creel He stole a crooked child, who cried a crooked
squeal And that crooked little man was broken on
the wheel A month before a recent SCP-783 period of
activity was to begin, a Class D Personnel, D-209, was sent to live in a Foundation owned
home in the village. Audio and video recording equipment was set
up throughout the house in case the D-Class was targeted, in the hopes that some information
could be gleaned should something take place. Forty-three days after he began living in
the house, something finally did. One evening while in bed reading a book, D-209
heard noises on the ground floor of the home. Cameras on the first floor experienced corruption
and showed only a distortion moving through the house. When D-209 attempted to leave the bedroom
and escape the home, they immediately encountered SCP-783. During a period of time that lasted roughly
five hours, their bones were broken numerous times and re set over and over, leaving D-209
a twisted mass of flesh and bone. Strangely, at the exact same time that D-209
was being attacked, all twenty seven of the living prior SCP-783 victims in the hospital
experienced violent seizures, despite most of them having been declared functionally
brain dead and the rest being totally paralyzed. Also concurrent with the attack was a seismic
event on the outskirts of town. And the details revealed by this event were
both illuminating… and extremely disturbing. Foundation personnel were dispatched to the
site of the seismic activity to investigate and determine if it was connected to SCP-783
in any way. There they found a small group of angry townspeople,
perhaps frustrated by seemingly unending paranormal events in their town and the lack of progress
that had been made to stop them. After a tense standoff, SCP Agent Collins
fired her service weapon into the air and the crowd quickly scattered. Now, free of distraction, the agents could
begin their investigation in earnest. They immediately spotted several objects sticking
out of the earth. Upon closer inspection, these were identified
as elongated human toes. A dig team was sent to the site and by the
next day, a mass grave had been uncovered that was filled with a twisted mass of what
appeared to be victims of SCP-783. Their mutated and drawn out bodies were well
preserved despite being buried directly in the ground, and had all been buried head down,
with their arms extending deeper into the burial pit. As one researcher was attempting to take a
tissue sample from one of the bodies, the ground beneath him gave way and he fell into
the pit. He landed on the tangled mass of limbs, which
shifted under his weight and he disappeared into the pit beneath them. Agent Collins immediately found a length of
rope, tied it to her waist, and climbed into the pit with instructions to the onsite team
to pull her back up when she signalled. Agent Collins descended into the pit beneath
the bodies and after several minutes, she was extracted, though without the missing
researcher. At debriefing, she described how she found
an anomalous location under the ground beneath 783’s victims’ corpses. And she was so rattled by what she saw, that
she was granted a temporary leave of absence. The Foundation had to know more, and a D-Class
personnel was quickly selected for exploration of the underground anomaly. D-2172 was equipped with audio and video recording
equipment, along with several scientific measurement tools as well as a firearm, and was lowered
down into the pit via crane. Their wired tether to the surface would both
send the information they collected back as well as serve as their lifeline to the surface. As D-2172 was lowered past the mass of corpses
into the darkness, they experienced a sense of vertigo, before it was realized that the
anomalous effects extended to gravity as well, which had become reversed, and that they would
need to start climbing up in order to descend further into the pit. They soon climbed out of the hole surrounded
by the reaching, extended arms of corpses, and emerged into an open world with an overcast
sky. It looked exactly like the town of Temby with
the same buildings present there as in our world. The world appeared to be uninhabited though,
with no sign of the missing SCP Foundation researcher. D-2172 began investigating the buildings and
found them all to be empty as well. Though they did unfortunately find signs of
a struggle in one house, with what looked to be evidence of the missing researcher’s
demise. They continued exploring the area and found
that the anomalous properties of the location extended to its borders too, and as the D
class walked north out of the town, after several kilometers they found that they were
now somehow back at the southern edge of the town. D-2172 was ordered to return to the entry
point but as they walked, they were suddenly impeded by the deformed body of an SCP-783
victim that stretched across the road in front of them. D-2172 drew and fired their weapon at the
entity but it didn't react, and they were forced to retreat into the nearby woods. After several minutes, they stopped to rest,
when they spotted something else. In the distance, the D-class saw what looked
to be a giant, white birch tree. And it was coming towards them. As the living tree approached, it became clear
that it wasn’t a tree at all. What looked like branches were extended bony
fingers that it was using to walk. The long, branchlike fingers were coming out
of the top of the “tree” where D-2172 could see their origin. These branches were the elongated fingers
of the missing SCP Foundation researcher. D-2172 turned to run as the giant living tree
chased them back into the town, firing their weapon at the creature whenever they had the
chance, but was unable to stop it. The visual feed was soon lost as the audio
continued to broadcast the screams of D-2172. But this wasn’t the end of the expedition. The on-site team was surprised to witness
after several hours that the tether was pulled on twice, the signal that it should be reeled
in. A medical team was sent to the site, since
it is assumed that D-2172 would need immediate care, and the team began reeling in the line. After several minutes, they spotted the harness
that should have been strapped to D-2172, but with nothing in it. They continued to pull but the harness became
stuck on the mass of corpses in the pit. They then noticed that it wasn’t actually
stuck, there was a hand holding onto the harness for dear life. It was D-2172’s hand. The team kept pulling as D-2172’s arm kept
stretching out of the pit, to a length of over three meters. But eventually the resistance became too much,
D-2172 lost its grip, and it was seen sinking back into the mass of corpses inside the pit. Following this expedition, it was determined
that only Special Operations teams and Mobile Task Forces would be used to explore the dangerous
anomalous location in the future. At least three such expeditions have been
undertaken, though the details remain classified for the time being, and perhaps it is for
the best if they remain so. The SCP Foundation will continue to monitor
the town of Temby in an attempt to learn more about SCP-783 and hopefully discover a means
to contain it and its related phenomena. Due to the difficulty in containing the anomaly,
it has been classified as Keter, and a local building adjacent to the Temby hospital has
been requisitioned and designated as provisional Site-5 in order to accommodate the increased
Foundation presence. As the SCP Foundation continues to research
this mysterious and highly dangerous anomaly, any victims of SCP-783 are to be retrieved,
their injuries catalogued, and then their bodies are to be incinerated. 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.
