A group of friends are driving down the highway
late at night. They’re on their way home from a concert
and after the long night of dancing and partying, all of them are feeling quite tired. The radio is turned off, and after so much
loud music, the silence is refreshing. No one is talking at all, and in fact, the
driver notices that both his girlfriend sitting next to him as well as his friend in the backseat
have fallen asleep. The driver tries to make sure that he doesn’t
do the same as the car moves down the long stretch of straight, empty highway. The driver’s eyes start to grow heavy though. He can feel the weight of sleep starting to
press on him. He turns the radio on at a low volume, but
that only staves off the drowsiness for a moment. He can’t fight the approach of sleep any
longer, and his eyes start to close. As he drifts off to sleep, his foot presses
down slightly more on the accelerator. The driver’s head slumps to the side as
the car gains speed and begins to pull to the right where it crosses the white line
marking the edge of the highway. The tires dip off the road into the dirt and
the sudden change causes the driver to jerk back awake. He quickly swerves the car back onto the road. The sudden jolt causes both the passengers
to wake up. Is everything okay? The driver tells them that he just swerved
to… to avoid an animal in the road. That’s right, nothing to be worried about. They can go back to sleep. As both of his friends close their eyes and
try to go back to sleep, the driver spots something. Lights have appeared in his rearview mirror. It’s a pair of headlights. He didn’t notice a car pulling out or speeding
up behind him, but he must have missed it when he was dozing off. His heart is still racing from when he drifted
off the road, and he’s trying to regain his composure but it’s about to get a whole
lot harder because when he looks in the mirror again he sees that the telltale red and blue
lights of a police cruiser have lit up behind him. “Oh crap, oh no, oh no,” the driver says
out loud. Everyone is awake now and aware of the cop
behind them. They grow nervous and start freaking out,
not all of the activities they had partaken in at the concert were, strictly speaking,
technically legal in this state. “What do we do?” the driver asks. “You’ve got to pull over,” says his
girlfriend. The cop car’s sirens come on, this is serious. But then something strange happens, they hear
a voice in the car, coming over the radio. It’s too quiet to hear but when the driver
turns up the volume, the message comes through loud and clear. It’s a gruff voice that keeps repeating
the same phrase over and over… “You better run.” How is this message coming over the radio? They don’t know but the passenger in the
backseat agrees with the voice, they’ve got to try and run, they have to get out of
here. The driver’s girlfriend is screaming to
pull over. The cop car speeds up and is right behind
them now, almost on their bumper, its lights flashing and sirens blaring. The driver doesn’t know what to do. Should he pull over? Should he try to run? Everyone is yelling. He starts to push down on the accelerator
but then thinks better of it, there’s no way this old car can outrun a cop. Finally, he makes the decision to brake and
starts to pull the car to the side of the road. The police car comes to a stop behind them. The sirens are off, but the bright lights
are almost blinding. They sit in the car and await their fate,
but nothing happens, the car is just sitting there behind them. After what feels like a long while, the door
of the cop car finally opens. The three passengers watch silently as a highway
patrol officer steps out and begins approaching their car. The driver tells everyone to relax, that this
is going to be just fine, but the passenger in the back starts to panic. He can’t get arrested, if he does it will
mean that he loses his scholarship, he’ll get kicked out of school, his whole life will
be over. The highway patrol officer reaches the car. Despite it being late at night, he’s wearing
dark aviator sunglasses that cover half of his face. He stands in front of the door to the car…
and waits. The driver, feeling nervous and afraid, rolls
down his window. The police officer doesn’t move or react
though, he just keeps standing next to the car. “Umm… good evening officer,” the driver
says. No response. The driver turns and looks at his girlfriend
in the front seat but all she can do is shrug. He turns back to the highway patrolman. “Did we do something wrong?” There’s another long pause but then the
patrolman finally reacts. He bends over and leans in close, sticking
his head practically through the open window and putting his tight-lipped face right next
to the driver’s. “Do you… do you want my license and registration?”
the driver asks. The patrolman doesn’t respond. He reaches up and slowly grabs the side of
his dark aviator sunglasses. He pulls them down, and the driver finds himself
staring into a pair of bright, red, glowing eyes. Evil eyes. Everyone in the car starts to scream as the
thing standing in front of them opens its own mouth to reveal a big, black, gaping hole
with no gums or teeth, a horrifying void in its face that screams right back at them. As you may have already deduced, this was
no normal traffic stop, and certainly not a normal highway patrol officer. No, the entity that this group of young adults
encountered that evening was one that dozens before them had the same misfortune of running
into, and one that the SCP Foundation is actively trying to stop from engaging in its frightening
and dangerous behavior. This is SCP-973. SCP-973 is not one, but actually two separate
entities. The first, designated SCP-973-1, is a police
cruiser that appears to be a model similar to those used by actual state troopers during
the early 1970s. And its condition is much like you would expect
for a well-used, nearly fifty-year-old vehicle, with much of it being in an advanced state
of disrepair. Eyewitness accounts of SCP-973-1 have described
the police car as having numerous dents on the doors and hood, cracks in the windshield,
multiple rust spots, and a rear bumper that looks to be held on with duct tape. The vehicle’s driver and sole occupant has
been designated SCP-973-2. This humanoid figure has an appearance that
resembles a caucasian male in his late forties. It is dressed in a state trooper uniform that,
like 973-1, also looks to have come from the early 1970s, and eyewitnesses have described
him as being slightly overweight, balding, and sporting a handlebar mustache. Both the anomalous car and its driver will
appear at night in a specific location along a particular US highway. It is unknown exactly what will cause SCP-973
to show up on this road, but Foundation researchers have hypothesized that its manifestation may
be triggered when a vehicle accelerates over a certain speed. You may think you’re safe then if you stay
below a certain speed, but unfortunately, you’d be wrong. It’s unknown exactly what speed limit infraction
will lead to SCP-973’s appearance, with reports ranging from 35 miles per hours all
the way to 70, but when it does occur, the driver will find that they are now a target. SCP-973 will materialize roughly half a kilometer
behind the targeted vehicle and will approach them at a high rate of speed. SCP-973-1’s sirens will turn on and its
lights will flash, as it also somehow broadcasts a message into the targeted car that is picked
up on the car’s radio, a message that urges the driver to run, often accompanied by several
expletives. In most cases, the targeted vehicle will abide
by the instructions over the radio and begin to flee, though it’s unlikely that this
is due to any memetic effect, rather it would seem that most run out of pure terror. SCP-973 will then pursue the targeted car
leading to a high-speed chase. No matter how fast the targeted car is though,
the SCP-973-1 police cruiser will always be faster, and it typically takes no more than
six minutes for them to be overtaken. SCP-973 seems to have no qualms about ramming
into the fleeing car, which likely accounts for the extreme damage present on the patrol
car. While it is unclear exactly what happens once
973 forces the targeted vehicle to stop, either through their own choice or by being rammed
off the road, the results are quite disturbing. The vehicle that fled will later be located
somewhere near SCP-973’s spawning location, usually within roughly six kilometers of the
road. Whether the vehicles that are found that far
from the road drove there in a panic or were somehow transported there by anomalous means
isn’t clear. What is clear is that the occupants of the
cars met a truly grisly fate. Their bodies will show signs of extreme violence
and assault, including evisceration, and some have been so badly maimed and mangled that
visual identification was impossible. The vehicles themselves are badly damaged,
showing signs of impact from another vehicle, and severe burn damage is often present in
the interior. So far over thirty-four individuals and nineteen
vehicles have been designated as victims of SCP-973, though it is likely that the true
number is much, much higher. Perhaps most terrifying of all, is that some
of the victims survived. The Foundation has recovered five individuals
from sites of SCP-973 attacks, who in addition to their gruesome physical injuries, also
suffer from varying levels of ongoing mental trauma. But why not just destroy the road that SCP-973
appears on, you ask? Well the Foundation had this same idea and
in 1983, the section of highway affected by SCP-973 was demolished in an attempt to stop
it from manifesting. This attempt failed though. All this led to was SCP-973 changing its location,
where it immediately began engaging in the same deadly behavior. Numerous attempts have also been made to try
and capture both 973-1 and -2. In one such event, several teams of SCP Foundation
containment specialists were dispatched to its section of highway with the mission to
subdue and contain the anomaly. After multiple attempts to get SCP-973 to
appear by driving down the highway at various speeds, a car carrying several agents was
finally successful, and they spotted the flashing red and blue lights of 973-1 behind them as
the message telling them to run began playing over the radio. With no further warnings, the anomalous police
car closed in on them, even faster than the agents were expecting, and immediately began
ramming into their car. A van filled with additional containment specialists
was dispatched to the area to help, and when they reached the area that the GPS tracked
on the pursued car led them to, they found that they were too late. SCP-973 had pushed the agents’ car far off
the road and was ruthlessly tearing their bodies apart. The arriving containment team immediately
began firing on 973 in an attempt to save their fellow Foundation agents. The team’s weapons appeared to cause some
injuries to 973-2, showing that it is perhaps vulnerable to lasting damage just like the
973-1 vehicle is. In a post-mission interview, one of the agent’s
described SCP-973’s new appearance. “His eyes were red… and his mouth… it
was just a black hole. No teeth, no tongue, just a hole.” No other reports would come from this incident
though, as this agent was the only survivor. SCP-973 killed the other nine agents and fled
the scene. While it is believed that the Foundation team
was able to wound the anomalous creature, it was neither contained nor incapacitated
in any real sense, and the next report of a 973 incident occurred just nine days later. SCP-973’s ability to seemingly appear at
a new location, and the difficulty it has shown in being contained has gotten it a well-earned
Euclid classification. The roughly 60 kilometers of highway oh which
it is known to appear is under satellite surveillance at all times, and all traffic between 10 pm
and 4:30 am is diverted along a non-highway detour route, by force if necessary. Unfortunately for the SCP Foundation and the
general highway using populace, these security protocols have necessitated frequent updates,
because while the area that SCP-973 engages in its predatory behavior on is well known,
both the time of day during which it will appear and the area it seems to affect…
are expanding. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, like SCP-745 The Headlights, for another anomaly that will make you question
whether you should ever drive again at night. 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. A young woman on her way home is walking down
a city street, and just like most nights, the downtown empties out after the working
day ends, leaving the streets empty of both cars and pedestrians. She hates when she has to close the shop and
walk to her bus stop alone, and she is excited that in just another week she will be starting
a new job that’s just around the corner from where she lives. She just has to get through these last few
nights of being the last one at the store and having to walk home alone. Her more immediate concern now though, is
that her music has stopped. The young woman takes her phone out to check
it. Dead. She must have forgotten to plug in the charger. She hates when she does that. Now she’d have to spend the bus ride staring
out the window at nothing. What was that? The woman looks up from her phone. Did she see someone? She turns around and sees something on the
other side of the street. It’s dark, and all she can make out is a
big shadowy figure. She doesn’t stare for long though and starts
to walk again, picking up her pace slightly. She can hear the sound of footsteps and glances
over her shoulder. The person across the street is moving too,
and they seem to be matching her pace, avoiding any street lights to remain in darkness. She starts to move a little quicker… and
so do they. The young woman grips the pepper spray in
her pocket. She doesn’t know what this person is doing
or what they want, but she’s going to be ready for them. She keeps walking and glances over her shoulder
again… they’re crossing the street towards her now. She ducks into an alley and as soon as she’s
around the corner and out of sight she starts to run. She sprints through the alley as fast as she
can. She looks behind her, frightened of what she
might see, but no one is there. Maybe she was wrong and they weren’t following
her, but she’s not about to stop running and find out. She emerges from the alley still running as
hard as she can. She reaches her bus stop and finally stops
to catch her breath. She checks her watch… the bus should be
pulling up right now, but it’s nowhere to be seen. She looks around, and what she does see, is
the shadowy figure coming out of the alley. And it’s coming straight towards her. She backs up into the bus stop and takes the
pepper spray out of her pocket, her finger ready on the trigger. The shadowy figure keeps moving towards her
when suddenly, the dark street is lit up. The woman looks behind her to see her savior…
it’s the bus. She turns back to see the shadowy figure retreating
to the alley, as if the light is pushing it away. The woman breathes a sigh of relief and finally
lets some of the tension in her body release as the bus comes to a stop in front of her. The door swings open and the woman steps inside. “I’ve never been so happy to get on the
bus” she says to the driver as she scans her transit card. The driver doesn’t respond though, in fact
he doesn’t react to her at all, he just keeps staring straight ahead. The woman doesn’t push it though, she’s
just happy to be on the bus, even if it is completely empty. She heads to the back of the bus and takes
a seat. As the bus pulls away, she can almost swear
she could see the shadowy figure standing in the alley, watching her. The bus rumbles along the empty city streets
as the woman looks out the window and takes deep breaths, trying to calm herself after
her harrowing ordeal. After a while she notices that the bus doesn’t
seem to be stopping as much as it normally does… or at all for that matter. Did they change the route? Or did she get on the wrong bus? They are approaching her stop though so it
doesn’t matter, and she reaches up to pull the cord. A bell chimes and the “stop requested”
light illuminates in the front of the bus, but the driver doesn’t show any sign of
stopping or even slowing down. She pulls the cord again, but still no reaction. As she sees her building go by she calls out
“hey this is my stop” but the driver doesn’t acknowledge her at all. She stands up and walks to the front. “Didn’t you hear me? This is my stop.” Still no reaction from the driver. “Hey I said - “ She reaches out and grabs
his shoulder spinning him towards her, only to find herself staring into the eyes of a
fresh corpse. The woman screams and jumps back as the driver
slumps forward towards her. She’s terrified by the dead body, as well
as the fact that the bus will crash, but when she looks at the steering wheel she sees that
it is continuing to move on its own. The woman is in a full blown panic now. She screams and pounds on the door but it
won’t open. The engine roars as the bus starts to pick
up speed. She doesn’t know what to do and runs to
the back where she tries the rear door, but it doesn’t budge either. The bus speeds up even more, whipping around
corners and tossing her from side to side. She’s thrown to the ground and hits her
head. Her eyelids feel like they weigh a hundred
pounds and she struggles to keep them open. She manages to stay awake though, and as she
looks up in a daze, staring at the ceiling of the bus, she can see a green gas emanating
from the vents. It’s the last thing she sees before her
eyes close for good. The bus finally comes to a stop in a deserted
area of the city. The vehicle raises slightly as one after another,
each wheel appears to unfold, revealing them to be ong, black, spindly legs. The bus stands up on these insectoid appendages
as its roof splits into two massive wings. The bus then leaps up into the sky, spreading
its wings, and flies off into the night. How could this young woman have known that
after escaping danger, that her rescuer would be something worse, much worse. Unfortunately for her, she had just willingly
stepped onto an instance of SCP-2086, a deadly and terrifying anomaly that hides in plain
sight as it stalks and hunts its human prey. SCP-2086 is the designation the SCP Foundation
has given to a species that appears to belong to the arthropod phylum, a group that also
includes arachnids and crustaceans. These strange creatures differ from most of
their lobster and spider brethren, in that they make use of an advanced form of camouflage
to move among modern society unseen. Adult SCP-2086 instances all resemble some
sort of public transportation vehicle, with the exact make, model, year, and branding
varying from instance to instance. SCP-2086 instances move about the streets
of our cities foraging for food, and at first glance they are virtually indistinguishable
from the standard transit vehicles they are mimicking. Close examination of them though, will reveal
that the steel, wood, plastic, and glass they are composed of aren’t those materials at
all, but a form of specialized chitin, which is the substance that makes up the hard exoskeleton
of many insects and other arthropods. And that’s not the only aspect of SCP-2086
that isn’t actually what it appears to be. The “wheels” on the bus may go round and
round, but they also are capable of unraveling into long, thin legs that create a very imposing
image when SCP-2086 is standing up at its full height. The roof too is able to unfurl into a set
of giant insectoid wings, and after leaping into the air with its powerful legs, the wings
will spread and the bus can take flight, which appears to be its preferred method of travel
when it is not in its camouflaged hunting mode. Its headlights too are an entirely biological
mechanism, consisting of two large bioluminescent optical organs similar to those possessed
by SCP-015-IT and SCP-745. Dissections of SCP-2086 specimens have shown
them to have an entire system of organs including a heart, brain, and stomach, which are found
beneath the flooring in the creature’s interior chamber. SCP-2086’s appendages are not just used
for locomotion though, and they have been observed as being able to use them for fine
object manipulation. This fact was learned when they were observed
building crude shelters from scrap materials at their nesting grounds. More on these nests and the terrifying events
that take place there later. When SCP-2086 is not at its nest, it engages
in its “foraging” behavior. Typically, an SCP-2086 instance will fly to
the start of a “route” and begin driving along city streets picking up human passengers
who willingly enter the creature’s inner chamber, thinking that it is a standard bus. Along with its exoskeleton closely resembling
a real vehicle, SCP-2086 has one more particularly gruesome trick to fool would-be passengers
into becoming its prey. A bus that drives itself would lead many to
think twice about stepping on board, so SCP-2086 makes use of a decoy driver, which is actually
a human corpse encased and preserved in a shellac-like substance. Smaller, fibrous appendages protrude from
the “front seat” and into the corpse, which hold it in place and are even capable
of manipulating the corpse, giving it the appearance of movement as it “drives the
bus.” Once SCP-2086 has gathered up what it considers
to be enough victims, a number that appears to vary from instance to instance, it will
release a noxious gas from its interior vents. The gas produces an effect in humans similar
to chloroform, and everyone on board will be rendered unconscious. The creature, now filled with its prey, does
not feed on the humans trapped inside it though, instead it will take them to its nesting grounds,
which is where the real horror begins. These nesting grounds are most often localized
in scrap and junk yards that have fallen into disuse or are completely abandoned, and it
is in these nests that the juvenile instances of SCP-2086 are found. While a full grown instance can weigh as much
as 17,000 kilograms, which is the approximate curb weight of a normal bus, extensive field
research and observation into SCP-2086 has led to the identification of the smaller,
juvenile instances which are much smaller than their adult counterparts, weighing under
200 kilograms. But they don’t stay this size for long. When an adult SCP-2086 arrives back at the
nest with its interior chamber filled with human prey, it will open its doors and allow
the juvenile members to enter inside of it so they can feed, and grow. Once inside, a juvenile will remove a passenger
from the bus and take them outside. The effects of the chloroform gas will often
begin to wear off at this time, but by this point, it is already too late. The juvenile instance will then proceed to
force the human into a hole located under their hood. This leads to a sort of digestive tract, that
connects to its inner chamber where the driver’s seat is located. Small, hair like appendages will then emerge
from the seat and protrude into the prey’s body, which hold them in place in the driver’s
seat and trap them there, while at the same time acting as feeding tubes, draining the
blood from the now doomed passenger. Once the person has been completely drained
of blood, the feeding tubes will begin secreting a saline solution as the internal compartment
fills with the shellac-like substance, and the effects of both combine to effectively
embalm and preserve the corpse, which will serve as its own decoy driver once it enters
adulthood. And this process happens quite quickly. A newborn SCP-2086 will reach adulthood in
just one week provided that it has had access to nutrients, at which point it will begin
searching for new sources of prey for its own offspring, of which it will likely have
plenty. 2086 instances become capable of reproduction
at eight days, and females are able to produce up to twenty offspring, but their lives are
quite short, with their entire life cycle usually lasting just twelve to fifteen days. Prior to feeding and beginning the process
of becoming a full size adult, juveniles will also leave the nest, and will covertly move
about the city removing bus stop signposts and relocating them, often creating a route
that leads back to its own nest. These are the routes that adult instances
will then typically follow as they hunt for more prey to bring back to their colony. SCP-2086 instances have been found in metropolitan
areas around the world, and news reports are closely monitored by the Foundation for missing
persons that had recently used public transport, with Foundation Field Agents being dispatched
to potential high-threat areas to investigate further. Any nests that are discovered have their locations
condemned, if they weren’t already, and demolished using chemical explosives. Previously, an effort was made to capture
and contain live instances of SCP-2086 and currently the Foundation has five such specimens
in its custody which are stored in a converted airplane hangar. Due to their short lifespans and high rate
of reproduction, the amount of live specimens contained at any given time can vary widely,
and will often depend on the number of available D-Class personnel who can serve as drivers. Terminated specimens are either destroyed,
or sent to a specialized cold storage container at a secure site for further biological research. SCP-2086 continues to be one of the most dangerous
anomalies for common, everyday users of public transportation, and the SCP Foundation has
classified it as Keter. While identified colonies are able to be destroyed
with minimal effort once discovered, there is no telling how many nesting grounds still
remain in the wild. So the next time you’re about to board a
bus, pay extra careful attention to it, or you may find that your bus is rerouting you
somewhere you never wanted to go. It’s late at night, and you’re driving
down a desolate stretch of highway somewhere in New Mexico. There’s nothing out here except for you,
your car, and the road. What you don’t know is that you’re about
to encounter something. Something… terrifying. There’s no moon and the sky is pitch black. Your own car is barely lighting up the dark
road ahead of you. Just then you spot something in your rearview
mirror. It’s a pair of headlights. There’s nothing too strange about them,
except that they are especially bright. Your eyes are so adjusted to the darkness
that you have to look away. When you glance in the mirror again you see
that they’re closer. Much closer. They must be going awfully fast. You don’t know why, but something about
the car behind you makes you feel uneasy, there’s something off. You speed up a little. Maybe you can keep some distance from them. But the lights keep getting closer. So you speed up a little more. Still, they gain on you, growing bigger and
bigger in your rearview mirror. You’re getting nervous. They look like they are barreling right towards
you... You floor it. The lights are able to keep up easily though,
and now they’re right on your tail. No matter how fast you go they stay right
behind you. The lights are so bright and close that they’re
almost blinding. You’re in a full blown panic, what is going
on? Now the lights are swerving back and forth
behind you. What do they want? You take a sharp turn without indicating,
but they follow you without difficulty. You keep your foot smashed down on the accelerator,
your engine is screaming, but they just get closer and closer. They’re right on your bumper. The bright white lights burn your eyes so
bad that you swat at the rearview mirror to point it down. You look up just in time to see the deer standing
in the middle of the road. You slam on your brakes as hard as you can. Your tires squeal loudly in the night and
you brace yourself to both hit the deer and get rear ended from behind. You stop inches from the deer as something
incredible happens. The two headlights seem to split, passing
by you on either side of your car. You and the deer lock eyes for a split second
as if you’re both thinking “what was that?” before the deer hops away into the night. You don’t know what’s happening, but you’re
not going to wait around to find out. You throw the car in reverse and hit the gas,
before whipping it around one hundred and eighty degrees. You can’t remember how far the last town
was, but there’s no chance you’re going in the direction of those lights. You drive as fast as you can, checking your
mirror constantly to see if anything is behind you. Nothing. Just darkness. Maybe you’re finally safe. No! They’re right in front of you! The lights somehow appear out of nowhere right
in front of your car. You turn the wheel hard to avoid a head on
collision and you go flying off the road, smashing your head against the window as the
car goes flipping and rolling and tumbling. The car comes to a stop a hundred feet off
the road, upside down, with a lone blinking turn signal dimly lighting up the surrounding
field. A single headlight approaches the car, but
it’s not moving like a vehicle, it’s moving… like an animal. You’re concussed from the accident and your
vision is starting to fade. The last thing you see is a second light approaching. The next morning, the local sheriff is investigating
the scene of a single car accident. Curiously, there’s no body, just a few scraps
of clothing, and a pair of tennis shoes sitting neatly in the upside down roof of the car. Strangest though, are the childlike handprints
all over the dirty car door. The sheriff doesn’t know what to think. What the sheriff doesn’t know, is that he
has just come upon the aftermath of an SCP-745 attack. A strange and mysterious creature known as… The Headlights. SCP-745 is the classification the SCP Foundation
has given to a bipedal, nocturnal predator whose hunting grounds are an abandoned stretch
of highway in Northern New Mexico. SCP-745’s most distinctive feature, by far,
is its head, the top of which is a bloated sack of translucent skin. There are no visible sensory organs present
on the head, nor does it appear to have a solid skull, and the creature’s brain can
be directly seen through the semi transparent skin which is covered in a web of bioluminescent
organs. These organs are capable of producing a steady
output of light that’s been measured between 1400 to 3200 lumens, which is the equivalent
of bright, xenon gas headlights. The entity has been observed to have the ability
to change the color of this light, as well as flash it in specific patterns. It is theorized that it engages in this behavior
as a way to defend itself, and potentially may also use it as a way to communicate with
other members of its species. The rest of SCP-745’s body is covered in
skin that is a deep, dark, black color that almost seems to absorb light. This quality, when paired with their blindingly
bright head protrusion, gives the appearance of a floating point of light in the darkness. Because SCP-745 entities hunt almost exclusively
in pairs, with their preferred hunting grounds being remote sections of highway, they are
easily mistaken for oncoming or approaching headlights. Two SCP-745 entities are able to move together
in perfect synchronicity, running in tandem at speeds up to 180 kilometers per hour. Together they will target lone vehicles that
they spot on the highway and will begin to chase or run straight towards them, giving
the unlucky driver the impression that a fast moving car is rapidly approaching them. After they near the targeted car, they will
attempt to stop it by any means necessary, whether by simply forcing the driver to pull
over out of fear, or by running them off the road completely. Once their prey has stopped, crashed, or become
otherwise incapacitated, the pair will stop moving together and approach the car separately
to directly assault and then consume the vehicle’s occupants. Next to no remains are left following an attack,
save for a few scraps of clothing and the victim’s shoes. Other than the damage sustained during the
accident, there is never any other sign of struggle or forced entry, with the only other
evidence left at the scene being the child-like hand prints from SCP-745’s small front paws. Strangely, analysis of SCP-745’s genetic
structure has revealed that unlike humans, they are not a carbon based lifeform, meaning
it is unlikely then that they are able to derive any nutrition from the consuming of
human flesh. It is theorized then that they may be hunting
solely for sport or some other form of perverse enjoyment. This question remains unanswered, as currently
there are no recorded observations of SCP-745 feeding in the wild, as successful attacks
have never left any witnesses, and specimens captured by the SCP Foundation refuse to eat
at all. No lairs, nests, or other refuge of SCP-745
has ever been found, nor has the Foundation located any breeding grounds or young examples
of the entity. It’s unknown how or if they reproduce, or
when they may have first appeared. What is known, is that they had established
a wide hunting territory across the American South West, until Foundation teams began a
program to thin their numbers in the 1960s. The effort appears to have been successful
so far, and all recent sightings of SCP-745 have been limited to a specific stretch of
highway in Northern New Mexico. SCP-745 has been classified as Euclid, and
in order to limit potential exposure to civilians, the Foundation has purchased the land surrounding
the highway, with traffic being redirected to other roads. Foundation security teams disguised as highway
patrol officers are to remove any trespassers or lost travelers who accidentally find themselves
on the dangerous stretch of highway. The security teams are also tasked with attempting
to capture any instances of SCP-745 that they can, and any recovered creatures, live or
dead, are to be loaded into Class 3 BCU storage containers and transferred to Site 17 for
further study. Containment procedures that are able to preserve
living specimens are still being researched, and currently, no examples of SCP-745 have
survived for more than a week in captivity. However, seeing as there have been no new
sightings of SCP-745 outside of the isolated and monitored stretch of highway, and all
reports of phantom lights elsewhere in the country have not pointed to evidence of additional
SCP-745 outbreaks, they are considered to be effectively contained. 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. A seven year old girl and her thirteen year
old brother are settling in for their favorite after school activity - watching TV. The children’s parents won’t be home from
work for several hours, and watching the after school programming together before making
a snack is a staple of their day. The boy takes his normal position on the couch
as the girl plants herself right in front of the television and turns it on. This is the time when Pretty Pony Paradise
comes on and she never misses an episode. Her brother would prefer something else, but
he also loves to see his sister happy so he always lets her watch the ponies have their
adventures. Today though, when she turns to the right
channel, there’s something else. Instead of the usual Pretty Pony theme song,
circus music comes out of the television speakers. The girl watches as the brightly colored words
“Bobble the Clown” appear on the screen. “Hey, this isn’t Pretty Ponies” she
says to her brother, but when she looks back, he’s asleep. The girl isn’t happy, but she decides to
give this new show a chance. And maybe her pony show will come on after
anyway. The circus music stops and a happy looking
clown cartwheels on to the screen. “Hello Kids!” the garish clown says, “Do
you like… Fun?” The girl did like fun. Perhaps this new show wouldn’t be so bad. She watches as Bobble walks down the street
of an average, happy American small town. Everyone seems to love the happy clown, waving
at him as he passes by. Bobble pauses in front of a house where a
man is mowing the lawn. He convinces the man to stop his yard work
and join him, and the two happily head down the sidewalk together. The girl is a little confused by this show,
there’s not much in the way of jokes, but she decides to keep watching anyway. Bobble and his new friend stop in front of
a house that is painted to resemble a circus tent, this must be where Bobble lives. He invites the man in and they both enter
the house. Inside, Bobble motions for the man to sit
while he prepares some refreshments. The girl watches as Bobble moves to the kitchen. There he begins sharpening knives as he explains
directly to the camera the best way to prepare meat - the way the skin must carefully be
removed from the flesh, and how the bones should be saved for future soup stocks. The girl watches with fascination as Bobble
teaches his special lesson. Maybe this is a good show after all. Maybe… this is her new favorite show. The girl gets up, her brother still asleep,
and heads to the kitchen. She pulls out a drawer to help her reach the
counter where the knife block is located and pulls out the meat cleaver. She looks at it gleaming in the light, entranced
by its sharp, shiny edge. The girl returns to the living room and gets
up onto the couch next to her sleeping brother. She watches as Bobble steps away from his
pot of red, boiling meat, and looks right into the camera. The girl stands up and holds up the meat cleaver. Bobble walks towards the camera with fascination
in his eyes, as if he can see through the screen and is watching the girl. She slowly raises the knife above her head
as Bobble starts whispering “come on, do it” licking his lips in anticipation. The girl pauses for a second, looks at her
sleeping brother one more time, and brings the cleaver down. Hi! I’m Dr. Bob, and this is SCP-993, also known
as... Bobble the Clown. But first, there’s something I need from
you. I need your help to spread the word about
some of the lesser known anomalies in the SCP Foundation’s archives and the best way
you can help is to subscribe, turn on notifications, and then go tell your friends to do the same. This will help me bring you more and more
SCP videos. Now, back to our file. SCP-993 is the designation the SCP Foundation
has given to a children’s television program entitled “Bobble the Clown.” At first glance, the Bobble the Clown show
appears to be a standard, children’s educational cartoon, with bright colors, a mascot, and
a rote formula that involves the titular character of Bobble the Clown learning a new skill or
engaging in a new activity. The program appears to have no recurring supporting
cast, with Bobble being the only character who returns to each episode. The settings usually change between episodes
as well, with Bobble often being seen in a new or unique location. Despite appearing as a show made for children,
the anomalous properties exhibited by this strange television program make themselves
apparent almost immediately. First, anyone older than the age of ten who
watches the show will immediately fall unconscious as soon as it begins, and will remain in a
comatose state until the program ends. Upon waking, they will report having felt
a painful, stabbing headache just prior to falling unconscious. The show’s most disturbing property though,
is what has been described by those under the age of ten who are able to view the program. They report seeing Bobble the Clown teach
lessons similar to the way many children’s shows extoll the virtues of good hygiene,
or going to bed on time, but with Bobble, the lessons are quite different. Topics that Bobble has presented lessons on
and encouraged children to try have included torture, murder, and even cannibalism. As the subject watches, the lessons appear
to become ingrained in their minds, and repeated exposure to the show has resulted in permanent
effects that resemble symptoms of psychosis and schizophrenia. Documented episodes of Bobble the Clown have
included “Bobble in the Big City” in which Bobble appears in a large United States city
reminiscent of New York, and instructs the viewer on various ways to avoid detection
when lighting fires with common resources like mosquito coils. The episode ends with Bobble setting fire
to a large building before he exits the screen. The camera continues to stay locked on the
burning building for several more minutes as the sound of screams can be heard. In another titled “Bobble’s Sneaky Saturday,”
Bobble is again in a major city, this time one that looks similar to London, England,
with the Elizabeth Tower containing Big Ben visible in the background. In this episode, Bobble is shown to be quietly
following a woman as she walks into her home. Once she arrives, Bobble attacks her with
a large butcher knife before giving the audience tips on how to remain unnoticed in crowded
places. “Bobble Gets the Truth” finds the clown
in a prisoner of war camp, where Bobble is shown torturing a captured soldier as he asks
him nonsensical questions that the soldier can not possibly answer. This continues until the prisoner dies, after
which Bobble details methods for inflicting painful, but non-lethal injuries. “Bobble Hates You” is one of the most
unnerving of the documented episodes, and consists of Bobble sitting alone in a blank
room, silently and angrily staring at the viewer for a full thirty minutes. But the strangest of all is from an episode
title filled with expletives, in which Bobble appears to be in a Foundation secure site
video archive room - the same one where recordings of Bobble the Clown are stored. In this episode, a rage filled Bobble describes
methods for breaching several SCP’s containment. He then gives personal details about the researchers
assigned to these SCPs including their daily routines before offering several potential
ways to murder them. An interesting detail about this episode,
at one point an animated depiction of a particular SCP Foundation researcher is seen to walk
past Bobble. A clock on the wall shows the time, and this
same researcher later confirmed that they did in fact walk through the video archive
at this exact time, but had no recollection of seeing an animated Clown filming a television
program in the room when they did so. Episodes of Bobble the Clown continue to be
broadcast from an unknown source, but future episodes are to be intercepted using Protocol
Upsilon-Beta 3 to prevent them from being seen by the public. All broadcasts are recorded for the Foundation’s
archives and in order to perform research on the anomaly, subjects under the age of
ten must be used to view them. Once the viewers have described what takes
place in the episode, they are then to immediately be administered Class A amnestics. Despite the danger these episodes pose to
those who view them, since they are able to be reliably blocked from public broadcast,
SCP-993 has been classified as Safe, and for now, Bobble the Clown appears to be contained
as well it can be. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, and once again, please join me on my mission by subscribing, turning on notifications,
and telling a friend to do the same, so we can continue delving further and further into
the SCP Foundation’s classified archives. A child is sleeping happily in their bed dreaming
of Christmas morning What they don’t hear as they sleep, is the
sound of SCP-4666 slipping into their room. SCP-4666 watches the child for just a moment
before reaching into a giant bag… Hi! I’m Dr. Bob, and THIS is SCP-4666, also
known as... The Yule Man. SCP-4666 is thought to be a single humanoid
entity, but one that has been alive for an incredibly long time. Those who have come into contact with SCP-4666
and lived to tell the tale describe him as being very tall, between 2 and 2.3 meters. He also appears to be very old and very thin. He always appears without clothing, even when
the weather is below freezing and would be much too cold for any normal human to survive. Though the true extent of his anomalous properties
are still unknown, SCP-4666 seems to be able to travel instantaneously to any location
on earth above the 40th line of north latitude, and may actually be able to travel anywhere
on the planet. Encounters with SCP-4666 have only been reported
during a very specific time of year, a period of twelve nights running from the night of
December 21st to the early morning hours of January 2nd. This period is known as SCP-4666’s active
phase and the encounters with the anomalous humanoid creature have been termed “Weissnacht
Events.” During these events, SCP-4666 appears at family
dwellings, all of which so far have a few things in common. One, they are all isolated in rural areas. Two, they are in locations with snow that
covers the area for the duration of the event. And three, they are all home to a family with
at least one child under the age of eight. In places that match all of those characteristics,
Weissnacht Events sometimes occur and always follow the same basic progression. During the first seven nights, the children
will report seeing a strange figure within the vicinity of the home. The entity will seem to be watching the home
from a distance, such as from across a field or from the edge of a nearby forest. Some children have even reported waking up
at night to find SCP-4666 watching them sleep through a window. On nights eight through eleven, other family
members will report haering the entity, such as footsteps on the roof or in the attic. A bad smelling odor will also start to be
noticed in the house but no source of the smell is ever found. These strange occurrences will often lead
the family to think their house may be “haunted” or that they’re being terrorized by a madman. Finally, on the twelfth night one of two scenarios
can occur. In the first, which happens roughly fifteen
percent of the time, families will often report that they heard footsteps during the night
inside of their house, but there is never any sign of forced entry like broken windows
or doors. In the morning, the children will find crudely
made toys at the foot of their beds. For the lucky ones, this is the end of the
Weissnact Event for them. The roughly 85% who experience the other scenario
are considerably less lucky. In the vast majority of cases, the twelfth
night is a horrible experience. SCP-4666 still enters the home on the final
night, but rather than leave presents for the children, it incapacitates the family
and moves them all into a single room, where it proceeds to kill them one by one in view
of the rest of the family. The exact method of killing varies from event
to event, but there’s almost always an element of torture that occurs before they are finally
killed and this torture may serve a ritualistic purpose. The entire family is killed except for one
of the children who is under the age of eight. This child is instead abducted and placed
into a giant bag SCP-4666 carries with it. SCP-4666’s existence was first noted in
1974, by the Foundation’s then new Anomalous Signature Recognition Program, which alerted
the foundation to several suspiciously similar home invasions and murders that occurred throughout
the northern hemisphere on the night of January 1st. Further research uncovered evidence for what
was most likely other Weissnacht Events every single year dating back all the way to the
late 18th century, with there being on average a little more than three events per year,
and there’s even been evidence of references to what may be SCP-4666 dating all the way
back to the first and second century A.D. Identical fingerprints have been found at
all of the houses which matched the conditions for Weissnacht Events and have been matched
to a recovered partial print from all the way back in 1873. These fingerprints have characteristics that
don’t match any known human fingerprints, and the human-like white hairs that have also
been recovered do not appear to contain human DNA, or any DNA at all for that matter. In the rare Weissnacht Events where SCP-4666
does not murder the family and gifts are left behind, the gifts are anything but normal. The gifts, known as SCP-4666-A’s, appear
to be made from the bodies of children that SCP-4666 abducted from other homes. In one case from 2018 at the home of a family
in Alaska, a lifesize doll made from the body of a female child was left behind. The doll was wearing a dirty dress made from
sewn together rags, that was in some places sewn directly to the skin. Her mouth had been sewn shut and painted red
with human blood. Another child’s fingernails had been glued
over her own and three fingers were missing completely. The scalp had also been replaced with another
child’s scalp and hair like a crude wig. Worst of all, both eyes had been removed and
replaced with two stones which were painted to look like eyes. But most frightening of all was that the child
who had been turned into a doll was somehow still alive. Authorities took the girl to a hospital where
she was able to give a brief interview. She explained that the man who abducted her
had killed his parents before putting her into a giant bag where there were other children
too. SCP-4666 took the children somewhere deep
below the earth in a cave system full of ice and bones. There they were forced to make crude toys
until they couldn’t go on any longer, at which point they became toys. The girl, now known to be Ekaterina Morozova,
had been abducted two years previously in a known Weissnacht Event. She survived for only eighteen hours after
being discovered. An autopsy revealed many terrible injuries
and the cause of death was found to be from severe, sustained malnourishment SCP-4666 has been classified as keter and
is currently not contained. The foundation monitors web traffic and law
enforcement channels for any evidence of SCP-4666 activity and especially any potential Weissnacht
Events such as cases or stalking reported during the twelve night active phase or other
strange phenomena at houses with young children. Should a Weissnacht Events be suspected to
be in progress, the nearest Containment Task Force is dispatched to attempt to contain
SCP-4666 using the standard PDP 8 Humanoid First Contact Protocols. So far, no such containment attempt has been
successful. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, and be sure to subscribe as we delve further and further into the SCP Foundation’s
classified archives. It’s 1916, right in the middle of World
War One, and a British soldier is huddled in a trench, occasionally peeking over the
top. He’s supposed to be on watch, but there’s
little to see in the darkness that hangs over no man’s land. But then he spots something. Something big. It’s a shadowy figure, only about twenty
feet away, and it looks like it’s digging in the mud. It’s too dark to make out what he’s looking
at, so the soldier shoots a flare into the sky, lighting up the battlefield with a dull
red light. Now he can see it clearly and it’s like
nothing he’s ever seen before. A huge, terrifying monster, picking up bodies
out of the mud. The soldier can only stare, petrified by what
he’s seeing in front of him, when the creature suddenly turns to stare back at him. And smiles. Hi! I’m Dr. Bob, and THIS is SCP-3456, also
known as... The Orcadian Horsemen. SCP-3456 is the designation given to a group
of quadrupeds, of which the exact number that exists is unknown. These entities resemble horses, though with
some marked differences. SCP-3456s lack any hair and their thick skin
is translucent revealing the fat and muscle underneath. They have three toed hooves, and strangest
of all, they have one or more human shaped torsos fused to their backs. Each torso has a pair of arms and a head,
but no legs, the torso seeming to meld directly into the back of the creature’s horse-like
body. The arms are much longer than those of a human,
with a total wingspan that is double the anomaly’s height. The arms are so long they typically drag along
the ground when the creature moves. At the end of each arm are five sharpened
bones that protrude from where fingers would normally be. Instead of a nose, most instances of SCP-3456
have a hole in the middle of the face, which is capable of producing a high-pitched scream
that is as loud as a jet engine. SCP-3456 instances vary in size, with the
largest recorded manifestation standing 30 meters tall and 15 meters long. Their bodies have also shown to be quite resilient,
and are completely impervious to conventional weaponry. The anomalous creatures have displayed a high
level of adaptive intelligence, using complex tactics like setting up ambushes through the
use of property destruction and psychological manipulation to lure targets into traps. This high level of intelligence has led many
at the Foundation to believe that SCP-3456 is sapient. Any direct observation of an SCP-3456 instance
will cause the entity to become aware of its observer, at which point it will display this
awareness by turning in the exact direction of the observer. Once an instance of SCP-3456 has spotted its
observer, it will engage in predatory behavior, stalking its witness and pursuing them far
beyond the initial site of manifestation, all the while concealing itself and using
camouflage as it chases them. SCP-3456 will repeat this behavior over and
over, intentionally letting itself be seen by observers over and over as it hunts down
and takes each one, until it has captured a large number of individuals and suddenly
dematerializes. It’s currently unknown where SCP-3456 takes
its victims or what happens to them once it dematerializes, nor is it known how many victims
3456 needs to capture before it is satisfied and dematerializes for good, as the number
taken has varied between instances. It’s not currently understood why, but SCP-3456
is either unwilling, or unable to cross bodies of freshwater, and making it to the other
side of a freshwater source like a river, lake, or even a stream is the only currently
known way to escape the anomaly once it begins its pursuit. Instances of SCP-3456 typically appear near
sites of mass human suffering, such as battlefields and natural or manmade disasters, and there
have been numerous reports and sightings of 3456s at historical events throughout the
19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, with multiple manifestations often appearing at the same
event. One Foundation report contains an account
of an SCP-3456 instance appearing during the first World War at the Battle of the Somme. Rumors spread through the British troops in
their trenches of the appearance of a mythical creature many believe to be the Nuckelavee,
a horse-like demon with origins in Orcadian mythology. Like many SCPs, this ancient folktale turned
out to have very real origins. British Infantryman Dave Harkand kept a journal
which described giant hoof prints appearing in the battlefield mud, and soldiers disappearing
under mysterious circumstances, appearing to be killed by forces even more terrifying
than what the war could produce. Harkand describes one soldier who was firing
on advancing Germans when the mud beneath his feet started boiling. Before anyone could react, mud went flying
everywhere, and everyone was knocked to their feet. The soldier was gone, not even a bodypart
remained, and Harkand was sure he saw bony protrusions reaching up out of the mud underneath
the soldier just before he disappeared. No long after, Harkand spotted the Orkadian
Horseman on the battlefield, and the horseman spotted Harkand. He watched as the instance of SCP-3456 picked
bodies out of the mud and carried them off into the darkness. He took several shots at the entity with his
rifle but the bullets had no effect. As days passed, the half-man, half-horse continued
to appear night after night, always doing the same thing - picking up injured soldiers
off the battlefield and taking them into the darkness. It would always look back at Harkand, seemingly
taunting him, or inviting him to try following it. Soon more instances of SCP-3456 appeared,
many with more than one torso on their back. And then they began laying traps, burying
themselves in the mud and waiting for the soldiers to rush over them. Dave Harkand was declared missing in action
at the Battle of the Somme and it’s presumed he was taken by the same instance of SCP-3456
that he first observed. Another firsthand account of an encounter
with SCP-3456 occurred following the 2011 earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster
in Fukushima, Japan. With over 2,500 missing persons, several manifestations
of SCP-3456 were reported in the areas affected by the quake and SCP Foundation reconnaissance
teams were sent to investigate, two of which were quickly wiped out during encounters with
3456s. One squad, after exploring the evacuated city
and not finding anything, spotted an instance of SCP-3456 standing motionless in the middle
of an intersection. As they laid eyes on the Orkadian Horseman,
the human torso that was hanging limp off the motionless horse’s body stood upright
and began swinging its arms, damaging and destroying the buildings and structures around
it. It then turned towards the team and emitted
an ear shatteringly loud shriek from the hole where its nose should be, before beginning
its pursuit. The team immediately began evacuation procedures,
even ordering a drone strike in an attempt to slow down the chasing anomaly. The team took shelter in an abandoned high-rise
building, but knew their only chance of escape was if they could make it over the nearest
body of freshwater, which would mean crossing a bridge over the Arakawa River which was
a kilometer away. The team was 50 yards away from the bridge
with no further signs of SCP-3456 when one emerged from a side street right next to them. Small arms fire was used against the creature
and two rocket propelled grenades were fired at it, but all had no effect. A flash bang detonated in the anomalies face
bought enough time for some of the squad to make it across the bridge and escape, but
two members or the team were carried away by SCP-3456, with the last image captured
by one of the squad’s helmet mounted cam being a shot of the Orkadian Horseman smiling
just before it demanifested. SCP-3456 is currently uncontained and due
to its extremely dangerous nature, and the lack of any containment procedures, it has
been designated Keter class. Any personnel who observe the entity are to
be treated with Class G amnestics and their assigned treatment facility must be located
within one kilometer of a body of freshwater. The Foundation has an ongoing project to attribute
any historical references to SCP-3456 to myth, shell shock, hysteria, or PTSD and any reports
of loss of life or property damage involving the anomaly are to be replaced with explanations
that attribute the cause to other natural or manmade events. Regions where SCP-3456 is more likely to appear
are to be closely monitored with personnel ready to assist in evacuation efforts. But above all else, direct observation of
SCP-3456 MUST be avoided, since once that has happened, there’s very little even the
SCP Foundation can do to protect you. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, and be sure to subscribe as we delve further and further into the SCP Foundation’s
classified archives. A young man is with a group of friends eating
lunch in their college cafeteria. His friends are talking and laughing, but
they soon notice that the young man has hardly said a word. He seems distracted by something. Sitting a few tables away is a young woman. She’s eating by herself, and in fact the
whole table around her is empty. As he stares, one of the young man’s friends
leans over and tells him to snap out of it, that the young woman he is staring at is weird,
and he’s better off leaving her alone. The young man doesn’t think she looks weird. In fact he thinks she looks nice. Plus he’s seen her in one of his classes
and she doesn’t seem strange, just shy. The young man’s friends watch as he gets
up from his table and goes to sit across from the young woman. She seems surprised when he tells her “hi,”
as if she doesn’t know what to say back. The young man tells her that he’s seen her
in his anatomy class and introduces himself to her, extending a hand. After a brief moment, she returns his handshake,
she’s seen him in the class too. The two start talking, having one of those
awkward first conversations that happen with someone you like. They talk a bit about their class - they both
find it very difficult; about their majors - both pre-med; and where they live - he on
campus, her off. The young man needs to get going to his next
class, but he asks if she wants to study together some time. She seems hesitant, but then agrees to at
least exchange phone numbers. The young man walks away from the table with
a big smile on his face. That night, the young man is studying in his
dorm. His roommate asks him if he wants to come
with him to a party, but the young man tells him no, he has a big test coming up and needs
to focus on it. His roommate leaves and he checks his phone
for the hundredth time that night… still no messages. Just as he sets it back on his desk though,
it chimes. There’s a text, and it’s from her! “This stuff is really hard. Do you want to study together?” The young man is excited. Of course he wants to study together. Where? Her apartment? Great! The young man doesn’t waste any time, grabs
his jacket and his books and heads out. It’s starting to snow lightly as he bikes
to her apartment which is a couple miles off campus. He’s feeling a little nervous as he locks
up his bike and walks to her door. He knocks and the door opens. There she is, the young woman, looking just
as nice as she did in the cafeteria. The young woman shows him into her apartment. She offers him a glass of wine before they
sit down and get to studying. In between quizzing each other on the human
circulatory system, the two chat, getting to know each other a little better. Eventually she tells him that she has something
she needs to ask him. She wants to know if he thinks she’s weird. The young man is taken aback and answers no,
not at all. She tells him that she knows it sounds stupid,
but when she was younger, a rumor went around her school that she was some kind of witch. She didn’t know if maybe someone from her
childhood was still spreading that story around. The young man hadn’t heard that, but he
wanted to know why someone would think that? Because you do dumb stuff when you’re a
kid, she tells him. You read about a ritual in an old book and
try it just for fun. Nothing happens of course, but don’t tell
anyone that you tried, or you’ll never live it down. They look outside and the snow has really
started to fall. It’s getting late too. Does he want to stay the night? The young man would love to, the bike ride
back to campus will be much easier in the morning. She tells him to wait just a minute and goes
into her bedroom. The young man is nervous, he’s never been
in this kind of situation before, if it even is a situation at all. He’s never had a girlfriend, or even kissed
a girl before. Could tonight be the night? The bedroom door opens and the young woman
comes out… with blankets and pillows for the couch. She tells him to make himself comfortable
and she’ll see him in the morning. The young man is disappointed, but what did
he expect? She just wanted someone to study with. It was dumb of him to think that she might
like him just because he had a little crush on her. Maybe they’ll be great friends though. The young man lies on the couch and watches
the snow fall outside. It’s so peaceful and quiet here, not like
the dorm where someone is always making noise. He watches snowflakes pass by the window as
his eyes start to grow heavy and he drifts to sleep… What was that? The young man jolts up. He could have sworn her heard something. He listens, but now there is only silence. He lies back down and closes his eyes, it
must have been a dream. No, there it is again! A popping noise. Then more sounds… snapping and ripping,
like moist meat squished and torn. What is going on? The young man gets up off the couch and looks
around. It sounds like it’s coming from the bedroom. Her bedroom. The door is closed though and there don’t
appear to be any lights on. But the strange sounds continue. The young man doesn’t know what’s happening
in there, but he feels extremely nervous. He takes a step towards the door and the noises
stop. What should he do? Will she be mad if he knocks? But what if something is happening in there? What if she needs his help? He has to risk it. He needs to check that everything is alright. The young man knocks lightly on the door… No response. He knocks a little harder. “Hello? Are you okay?” Still nothing. Is he really going to do this? His heart is pounding. He grips the doorknob and slowly twists it,
cracking the door open ever so slightly. It’s dark in her room, a small beam of moonlight
coming through the frosty window is the only source of light. He opens the door a bit wider “I hope it’s
okay if I come in” he says “I heard something and...” the young man freezes in terror. Lying there in the bed, illuminated by the
moonlight, is the girl, but not the whole girl. It’s just her body. Her head has been ripped off at the neck. Unfortunately this student will never get
ahead in his anatomy class, because even something as innocent as a study date can turn bad quickly
when your partner is the strange and dangerous creature which many refer to as the Penanggalan,
but is better known to SCP Foundation as SCP-1060. SCP-1060 is the designation given to the human
female, both body and head included, who answers to the name Adilah. In interviews with the subject, she has reported
her age as being 22 years old, and she is fluent in the Malay language, with some additional
proficiency in Malaysian English, which is a form of English that, unsurprisingly, combines
elements of British English and Malaysian. The subject has told interviewers that she
is trained as an obstetrics nurse, also known as an OB, a type of nurse that specializes
in helping to care for women and fetuses during pregnancy, labor, and childbirth. It would seem at first glance, that SCP-1060
is a completely normal young woman, and that is true, but only during the day. At night, SCP-1060 undergoes some… rather
strange changes to her physiology. In the evening, roughly 80 minutes after SCP-1060
has fallen asleep, her head and certain internal organs including her heart, lungs, liver and
the majority of her digestive system will physically detach from the rest of her body. This occurs with a sudden jerking motion that
rips from the head and organs from the body, leaving a large, gaping hole in the subject’s
neck. The now detached head and trailing organs
will begin to levitate through a process that has to be explained by SCP Foundation researchers. They will begin to float around the room they
are in as other physical changes take place. The subject's tongue will increase in size
to roughly 22 centimeters in length and will begin flicking at the air much in the same
way that a snake does. The subject’s upper and lower canine teeth
also increase in both size and sharpness, all the while the body her head was once firmly
affixed to will remain lying in the same position as when the head detached. If there is food present, SCP-1060 will use
its dangling intestines as a sort of prehensile limb, lifting the food with its guts up into
its mouth where it will tear at it with its razor sharp teeth. Once it has finished feeding, the disembodied
head will dip its exposed organs into a tub of rice wine vinegar. Exposing the organs to the vinegar has an
immediate effect, causing them to shrink in size such that they will then fit into the
exposed neck hole on the waiting, headless body and can be stuffed back into the body
cavity. The head then appears to seamlessly reattach
itself to the body, the tongue and teeth return to their normal size, and no signs remain
that the head of this body was just floating around of its own volition moments ago. SCP-1060 claims to have no knowledge that
any of this takes place, insisting that she sleeps quite normally. Her complete unawareness of her condition
has led her to be very insistent that she be released from Foundation containment, and
frequently requests that she be allowed to contact her family members. So far both of these requests have been denied. A head that rips itself from its own body
at night and flies around with its exposed organs dangling beneath it is an extremely
unsettling image, but this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what makes
SCP-1060 truly horrifying. Just as the many Malay legends and myths describe,
this creature's favorite foods are children and unborn fetuses carried by pregnant women. The Foundation learned this fact in a particularly
unsettling incident, which has been designated SCP-1060.01A. During this incident, a researcher
who was in her second trimester of pregnancy entered the containment chamber of SCP-1060
while it was engaged in its night time cycle behavior, in order to refill the basin of
vinegar that would allow it to return to its complete human form. Despite not having previously shown aggressive
behavior towards staff, as soon as the researcher entered the chamber SCP-1060 immediately flew
at her. It used its dangling intestines to restrain
the researcher and… well the results were not pretty, and sadly neither the researcher
nor the fetus that she was carrying survived. Following this incident, the containment procedures
for SCP-1060 were updated to specify that members of staff who are pregnant or suspect
that they may be pregnant, are not allowed into the containment chamber during its night
time cycle. While the origins of SCP-1060 and just how
this young woman came to possess these anomalous properties are unknown, there are numerous
tales, most originating from Malaysian folklore, that describe a creature that is quite similar. Known as the Penanggalan, it is a creature
akin to a vampire, though with one key difference, this monster chose to become what it is. Malaysian myths tell of a method some women
use to become Penanggalan, where they will meditate while taking a ritual bath in vinegar. Their entire body must be submerged except
for their head, and through a black magic process, they gain the ability to have their
head detach from their body and turn into something that looks quite similar to SCP-1060. Some modern interpretations of the legend
describe it not as a choice, but as a curse, or as the result of breaking a demonic pact,
but they all have the same result for the woman in question. As SCP researchers continue to look into this
bizarre, and quite dangerous anomalous entity, she is kept contained in a humanoid observation
and detention cell at all times in Site 33. While she is in her complete human form during
the day, she is given food from the on site cafeteria, but during her night time phase,
she is provided with 0.8 kilograms of human placental material, and she is to have access
to a basin that contains at least 4 liters of rice wine vinegar. The lack of knowledge about just what this
anomaly is, and the threat it poses to certain populations, has lead to it being classified
as Euclid, and though progress has been slow, it is hoped that one day it will be better
understood, and perhaps once it is, Adilah can finally go home. Now go watch the file for SCP-015-IT, The
Boogeyman, for another anomaly that you may find yourself pitying and much as fearing. 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. A climber struggles on the side of the mountain. He’s so close to the summit of Mount Everest
that he can taste it, he just needs to triumph over this last difficult section and he will
have fulfilled his lifetime dream of standing at the top of the world. He needs to hurry though, at this altitude
the air is so thin and the temperature is so cold that your body is slowly dying. There’s a reason this topmost section of
the mountain is known as the Death Zone. He glances down behind him and spots something. Is that another climber? “That’s strange,” he thinks, he was
at the very back of his group and there shouldn’t have been anyone else coming up behind him. It must be a solo climber. The soloist doesn’t look to be moving though,
he’s just staring at him. And the climber can’t seem to take his eyes
off him. Suddenly the climber starts feeling odd. He begins to feel… warm. And comfortable. The aches and pains of the long journey melt
away. He decides to sit down on a small ledge and
relax. He watches as the solo climber comes towards
him. He must be a professional with the way he
effortlessly moves up the mountain. He watches him make great time, getting closer
and closer. He loses sight as the solo climber reaches
the same difficult section he had been struggling with. He imagines the solo climber will soon zip
past him on his way to the summit. But just then the soloist pops up right in
front of him. He clasps his hands on the climber’s shoulders
and pulls him close, staring into his eyes with those dark, black goggles. They feel like they’re pulling him into
their depths and there’s nothing he can do to resist it. The climber tries to scream but all that comes
out of his mouth is silence. Hi! I’m Dr. Bob, and this is SCP-1529, also
known as... King of the Mountain. But first, a quick personal request from me. I need your help to spread the word about
the lesser known anomalies in the SCP Foundation’s archives. The best thing you can do to help me is subscribe,
turn on notifications, and then go tell your friends to do the same. This is a huge help and will let me bring
you more and more SCP videos. Now, back to our file. SCP-1529 is an entity with a humanoid appearance
that resides near the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal. It is only found above 8,000 meters, which
places it in the part of the mountain referred to as the “Death Zone” where oxygen levels
are too low to support human life for any extended period of time. It is roughly equivalent to an average human
male in height and weight, and its outer appearance resembles normal mountaineering clothes, with
a heavy parka, pants, and boots that are all white in color. Its face is completely obscured by a large
hood, with the only visible detail being a pair of large, dark goggles. SCP-1529 has never been seen wearing any other
outfit, and in fact it is unknown whether these are articles of clothing at all, or
if they are actually a part of its body. The SCP Foundation first became aware of an
anomalous entity lurking near the top of Mount Everest in the 1970s, when climbing expeditions
to the summit became more commonplace among professional and amateur mountaineers alike. Rumors began to spread and told of a monster
that was killing unfortunate climbers. In 1999, the body of George Mallory, who is
believed to be the first person to reach the top of Mount Everest, was located, and photographic
film found on his body was developed. From those pictures, it is now known that
SCP-1529 was present at least as early as his 1924 expedition. When sufficient daylight and a lack of cloud
cover allows observation of the peak by telescope, SCP-1529 can be seen sitting or lying on the
mountain, apparently motionless in an inactive state. These motionless periods have been seen to
last anywhere from 17 minutes to as long as eight months. When active though, it can be seen summiting
and descending the upper portion of the mountain, though it never uses any climbing tools and
will ignore established climbing ropes and ladders that have been installed by other
climbers. It has also been observed easily traversing
portions of the mountain that are considered too difficult or altogether impossible by
experienced climbers. Additionally, SCP-1529 is not impacted by
the freezing temperatures, extreme wind speeds, or low oxygen levels at the top of the mountain,
and it has never once been seen to stumble, fall, or even lose its grip. It is unknown what prompts SCP-1529 to become
active or enter a resting inactive phase, nor has there been any established correlation
of these phases to weather, time of year, or traffic on the mountain. Its active periods have been observed to last
between mere hours to several days, but the exact amount is hard to know for sure. Nighttime observation of 1529 has so far been
impossible even with thermal imaging cameras since it produces no heat, with its temperature
being the same as that of the surrounding environment. When in its active phase, if a human climber
passes the 8,000 meter mark then SCP-1529 will begin to make its way towards them, putting
itself in the path between the climber and either the summit if they are ascending or
their camp if they are descending. It seems to prefer to go after solo climbers
or those that are significantly ahead or behind their climbing group, but it has been observed
targeting climbers in a group when a solo opportunity is not available. Once SCP-1529 is within eyesight of its targeted
climber, it will attempt to gain their attention and then lock eyes with them, which produces
a hypnotic effect. The climber will find that they are unable
to break eye contact with SCP-1529, and will then begin to experience feelings of warmth
and euphoria, similar to the effects of hypothermia and hypoxia, also known as altitude sickness. The victim will feel the overwhelming desire
to sit down where they are, and once they stop moving, SCP-1529 will quickly close the
distance between them. Once SCP-1529 reaches the victim, death is
almost a certainty, and examination of bodies has shown the cause to be from hypothermia. Strangely, it’s been observed that victims
seem to succumb within just one to two hours after having first made eye contact with SCP-1529,
a period of time much shorter than usual for climbers trapped on the summit of Everest. After death, the victims’ bodies experience
an accelerated rate of decay, and after mere hours or days, the bodies become rotted and
mummified at a level comparable to bodies that have been exposed to the wind and cold
of the mountain for decades. Many of the over 200 deaths on Mount Everest
have been attributed to SCP-1529, and the rare survivor of an encounter is almost always
due to the intervention of another mountaineer who was able to offer assistance to the entranced
climber before SCP-1529 was able to reach them. There have been several notable reports from
survivors of interactions with SCP-1529. One, known as Incident 1529-1, is also the
only documented instance of SCP-1529 descending below the 8,000 meter mark. During the incident, the entity entered Camp
five, located on the northern approach of the mountain at 7,775 meters, which resulted
in multiple deaths including two Foundation personnel who were operating the monitoring
post. One climber, who had initially believed to
have been killed in the incident, was discovered to still be alive two days later when Foundation
personnel were conducting investigations of the camp. He was safely removed from the mountain though
he required the amputation of several frostbitten fingers and toes. During an interview with a Foundation agent,
they described spotting SCP-1529 just ten minutes after leaving the summit of the mountain. After locking eyes with the entity, they began
to feel happy, comfortable, and relieved, like they were back at home next to a warm
fire. But then suddenly the warmth was gone, and
they experienced a sensation of cold more powerful than anything they had felt before. They were stuck, and could only watch as 1529
made its way towards them. When it finally reached them, it placed its
hands on their shoulders and pulled them up into its face, so that they were staring right
into its black goggles. Images began to appear in the dark depths
of the goggles - people warm and happy, sitting next to fires, in hot baths, or sunning on
a beach. They tried to resist the strange pull of the
creature with all of their might. They then heard something in their mind. A question from SCP-1529. It asked “you would refuse my gift?” The stranded climber struggled to answer,
using all of their willpower and strength to move their lips and whisper a single word… Yes. SCP-1529 responded by showing more images
of people, but this time, they were bodies lying dead in the snow. Countless victims trapped on Mount Everest
forever. SCP-1529 made them watch their deaths play
out in long, drawn out detail, a witness to every second of their demise. The climber was sure they would soon join
them but then they found something deep inside of them, a spark of life, a will to resist. They clenched their fist and with their final
ounce of strength they punched SCP-1529. The goggles appeared to crack, and the next
thing the climber knew, they were woken up by the Foundation recovery team. Following this encounter, the climber never
attempted to summit another mountain, When they eventually passed away some years later,
an autopsy revealed that their cause of death was consistent with extreme hypothermia, frostbite,
and cerebral edema, despite not having been in a cold environment or above 500 meters
in altitude in the previous 12 months. SCP-1529 has been classified as Euclid and
is to be kept under telescope and satellite surveillance whenever possible. Though telescope observation should make use
of a delayed video feed, as observers have reported seeing SCP-1529 appearing to stare
back at them, and reported feeling symptoms consistent with an encounter including hypothermia
and frostbite. The foundation maintains communication with
civilian mountaineering expeditions to prevent summiting attempts when SCP-1529 is active. The bodies of any victims are to be removed
from the mountain, if possible, for autopsy, with their deaths being officially classified
as having been from natural causes related to altitude sickness and hypothermia. Any survivors of encounters with SCP-1529
are to be debriefed and administered amnestics. Mobile Task Force Psi-29029, also known as
Alpine Echo, is to remain on standby at all times at a permanent monitoring station, with
on-duty members remaining in a pressurized environment acclimatized to 7,900 meters above
sea level, allowing them to quickly deploy via helicopter if need be. Finally, and most troubling, is that aerial
surveillance of another mountain has revealed an individual similar in appearance to SCP-1529. The location remains classified and the local
government has prohibited climbing on the peak, so threats to humanity are minimal at
this time. But the foundation will continue to monitor
it and other mountains for anomalous activity. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, and once again, please join me on my mission by subscribing, turning on notifications,
and telling a friend join us as well, as we delve further and further into the SCP Foundation’s
classified archives. A businessman steps out of his hotel room
holding a silver ice bucket. He looks up and down the empty hallway until
he spots what he was searching for - an ice machine. He slips his room key into his pocket and
heads down the hall towards the machine. As he waits for the machine to fill his bucket
with ice, he glances around and spots something. There at the end of the hall it looks like
someone is sticking their head out from around the corner, watching him. But then they suddenly disappear. He doesn’t think much of it, it’s probably
just some kid playing around. His ice bucket is only a quarter full, these
old machines can be really slow. He looks around again and sees the same head
poking around the corner, looking at him. He thinks it might be a young girl, but as
he squints to get a better look, she disappears around the corner once again. The ice machine finally finishes filling his
bucket. He picks it up and starts to walk back towards
his room but stops. He turns around and looks down the hall to
see the same girl there again, watching him, with a creepy, unblinking stare. “Do you want something?” the man asks
down the hallway, but there’s no response from the girl. She simply keeps looking at him. “Are you just going to keep staring at me?” That’s exactly what she does. The businessman is really starting to get
annoyed now. All he wanted to do was unwind with a drink
after a long day at a job site. Why does this girl want to keep messing with
him? He starts walking down the hall towards her. “I don’t know what you think you’re
playing at,” the businessman says as he walks down the hallway in her direction. When gets halfway to her she disappears behind
the corner once again, but the businessman keeps walking and talking to her. “But if you don’t stop messing with me
I’ll - “ he rounds the corner and sees… nothing. There’s a short hallway that leads to a
maintenance closet, but no girl. Did she somehow slip inside the closet? He didn’t hear the door, but she couldn’t
be anywhere else. He sets down the ice bucket on the floor and
reaches towards the handle with more than a little apprehension. He feels uneasy for some reason, and maybe
even a little scared. But there’s nothing to be afraid of, it
was just a girl, wasn’t it? He grabs the handle and opens the door. “Aha I’ve got… you…” There’s nothing in the closet, just a couple
of mops, a bucket, and some cleaning supplies. He pushes the mops aside, as if she could
somehow be hiding behind them, but no, there’s no place to hide or secret doors to be found. He really must have imagined the whole thing. It was a long day. And a long flight before that. He needed that drink. He sticks his roomkey into the door and pulls
it out. A green light flashes and the lock clicks
open. He grabs the handle to open the door when
he realizes he’s forgotten something. The ice bucket, the whole reason he left his
room to begin with. He walks back down the hallway and past the
ice ma - wait a second. Where’s the ice machine? Isn’t this where it was? The alcove where he could have sworn he got
ice just minutes before is empty. He looks around, up and down the hallway. Did he somehow get turned around? He walks to the end of the hall and turns
the corner. Sitting there on the floor in front of the
maintenance closet door, is the ice bucket. He looks around, confusion on his face, and
picks up the ice bucket. Back at his room he puts his roomkey into
the door. The lock flashes red. He tries the key again, and once more it flashes
red. He tries the key a third time and as he does
so, the door opens. He looks up to see a large man standing in
front of him. “Do you need something?” The businessman is confused, “what are you
doing in my room?” he asks. “Your room?” the large man responds. “Yeah, room 237.” The large man looks annoyed. He shoves past the businessman and points
across the hall. The businessman follows his finger’s direction
to see that he’s pointing at another door, one that has the number “237” next to
it on the wall. The businessman looks at the number next to
the door he’s been trying to unlock. 239. The businessman laughs nervously at his mistake
as the large man pushes past him again and closes the door behind him. Back in his room, the businessman can finally
sit down and pour himself a drink. He takes two ice cubes from the bucket and
drops them in his glass before taking a long sip. Ahhh. He turns on the TV, but after watching for
a few minutes he finds that he’s having a hard time concentrating. Whatever this show is, it moves too fast and
he can’t keep track of what’s happening. He turns off the TV and picks up a book instead,
maybe some reading will help him to relax and get his bearings. He still feels really… off. He opens the book, but gets confused. Is this the same book he bought in the airport? It looks like it’s written in a foreign
language. It’s just a bunch of squiggles. He tosses the book on the table and yawns. It’s not that late, but he’s feeling really
tired. He gets up, kicks off his shoes, and lies
down on the bed without bothering to undress. He’s too tired for that. He mumbles to himself for a moment, half awake,
talking about how he needs to return that foreign book when he goes back to the airport. What were they trying to do selling him something
he can’t even read? He continues to mumble about the things he’ll
do to the cashier who sold him the book for a while until he finally drifts off to sleep. His eyes open. It’s dark. He must have been sleeping for a while. The room is cold too. He goes to pull the blankets up over him but
immediately realizes that he can’t move. Try as he might, his body won’t respond. Not a single muscle. Only his eyes seem to work. He’s completely paralyzed, he can't even
yell for help. What happened? And what is he going to do? Did he have a stroke? Is he dying? As his mind races through all the different
possibilities he suddenly sees something. From his bed in the dark room, he can just
barely make out the door to his hotel room, and he is terrified by what he can see coming
through it. A figure has appeared in the door. Literally in the door, as if it is phasing
through the solid wood. The man is scared to death as the thing fully
enters his room and turns to look right at him. The man wants to scream but his mouth is still
completely numb. The figure starts crawling towards him. He can see now that it’s small, smooth,
and completely white. He fights as hard as he can, willing his body
to move, but nothing happens. He can’t so much as whisper. The thing climbs up onto the bed and sits
down right on his chest. He prays that he is dreaming, telling himself
to wake up over and over again as the creature leans its face in close to his. It seems as if it is somehow looking at him
with its smooth, eyeless sockets. It tilts its head slightly to the side and
- Welcome! I’m Dr. Bob, and we couldn’t be happier
that you’ve decided to stay with us as we delve into SCP-5172, an extremely dangerous
anomaly that is known by the extremely non-threatening name of… North American Hotel Ice Machines. SCP-5172 is a phenomenon that only affects
guests staying at hotels located on the North American continent. It is unknown how or what causes these guests
to become affected, but those that are will begin to notice something - ice machines in
the hallway of the hotel they are staying in. Now you might think this sounds perfectly
normal, after all, don’t most hotels have ice machines? If you just had this thought then I have bad
news for you, because there is a high probability that you too may have been affected by SCP-5172. You see, ice machines are actually extremely
uncommon in hotels and it is likely that you have never actually seen one, or at least,
not a real one. Allow me to explain. In the 1950s, the founder of the Holiday Inn
chain of hotels, Kennon Williams, had an idea that he thought would set his hotel apart
and attract customers which was to offer more perks and amenities than his competitors. For example, he implemented a new policy where
children would be allowed to stay for free, something most hotels charged extra for. Hotels at the time also had a policy of making
their guests pay for ice, but Williams decided to change that… by installing ice machines
in his hotels. Sadly, the marketing stunt didn’t work. The cost of the machines wasn’t made up
for in new customers and the plan was discontinued by the mid 1960s. The vast majority of the machines were removed,
with the rest being pulled from the hotels as they would break down, since they were
no longer worth the expense of maintaining. Despite the fact that they only existed in
hotels for a brief period of time, there is still a widely held belief among the public
that ice machines can be found in nearly every hotel. In a poll of the general population conducted
by the Foundation, over 80% of adults claimed to have memories of seeing an ice machine
in a hotel, a number that is quite literally, impossible. Just where this mass delusion came from or
why it persists is currently unknown, but it’s theorized to be related to the SCP-5172
phenomenon in some way. The SCP Foundation first became aware of SCP-5172
in 1973 after a series of unsolved murders occurred at hotels in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada. Foundation investigators soon discovered the
prevalence of false ice machine memories and installed a number of hidden cameras around
the hotels in both their public spaces as well as in the room themselves. It was after viewing the footage captured
by these cameras that the Foundation finally got their first look at just what happens
during an occurrence of SCP-5172, which has been dubbed a Zalmunna Event. The Zalmunna Event is triggered whenever a
guest at the hotel sees and then uses an ice machine. The moment they use the ice machine, the event
can not be stopped unless certain actions are taken, but more on that later. The targeted individual who used the ice machine
will immediately begin to have the sense that they are being watched. This usually comes in the form of an unknown
individual who appears to be looking at them from the end of the hall where the ice machine
is located. Third party observers are unable to see the
person who is supposedly watching the target, nor do they appear on any recording devices,
visual or otherwise. The targets have described the watchers in
various ways, leading the Foundation to believe that they may actually be nothing more than
hallucinations. Shortly after, the targeted individual will
begin to experience feelings of confusion and fatigue not dissimilar to the symptoms
of early-stage dementia. The longer it takes the target to return to
their hotel room, the more pronounced these feelings will become, and they will soon have
issues completing everyday tasks and will experience short term memory loss. Despite these feelings of fatigue and disorientation,
targets report that their mind feels too active to fall asleep, anywhere other than a hotel
room bed, that is. This feeling will usually cause the target
to seek out their own hotel room, though they may have difficulty finding it due to their
confused state. They don’t need to sleep in their own room
for the next stage of the Zalmunna Event to be triggered through, sleeping in any hotel
room will do. Once the target lies down in a hotel room
bed, they will immediately enter the hypnagogic state, which is the confusing and dreamlike
state that one experiences in between full sleep and waking. The temperature of the room will begin to
lower during this period as well until it reaches approximately 11 degrees celsius or
51.8 degrees fahrenheit. After about an hour, the target will enter
into a state of deep sleep, at which point SCP-5172-1 will finally make its appearance. The humanoid-like entity is quite diminutive
in size, standing just four feet tall and appearing to weigh a little over 60 pounds. Its arms are twice as long as normal humans
though, and the top of its head is enlarged as well. Though it is not visible to observers present
in the room, cameras are able to record the creature. After phasing through the door of the hotel
room, the 5172-1 entity will begin crawling towards the sleeping person who will wake
up to find that they are in a state of sleep paralysis. The entity will climb up onto the bed and
sit on the person’s chest. It will move its smooth skinned face close
to the target’s before opening its mouth, revealing a long, thin proboscis-like appendage
that it inserts into the target’s eye socket. It’s long been theorized that it may be
administering some type of paralytic or anesthesia directly into the brain so that it can then
engage in the next stage of the Zalmunna Event… harvesting. The 5172-1 entity’s chest then opens to
reveal a pair of tools. It will take the tools out of its chest and
use them to begin extracting four centimeter cubes directly from the target’s body. Flesh, muscle, organs, and even bone will
all be cut and scooped out with the same ease, which it then places inside of its own chest
cavity. While it starts the process extremely slow,
collecting just two cubes per minute at first, it quickly ups its pace to as many as fifty
cubes per minute, leading to the entire harvesting process typically lasting two to three hours. Once it has finished harvesting, the creature
will simply place its tools back inside its chest cavity, crawl back towards the hotel
room door, and phase through it once more. But the horror is far from over. SCP-5172-1 collects all of the organic material
from the target during the harvesting process, all except for the central nervous system
which includes the spinal cord, peripheral nerves, the retinas, and the brain. These are left lying on the hotel room bed
after 5172-1 carefully cut and scooped around them. And the truly horrifying aspect of the Zalmunna
Event, is that the target is still alive at this point, and will continue to live for
several more hours in this condition. Even worse, reports from targets who had the
Zalmunna Event interrupted while in the middle of the harvesting process described being
fully conscious the entire time. It now appears that the proboscis-like appendage
that 5172-1 inserts into the target’s eye does not appear to be an anesthetic agent
at all, since the same rescued targets reported feeling excruciating pain. Instead, it seems that the purpose of the
entity’s appendage is to ensure that the victim stays conscious through the whole process,
fully aware of each cube being removed from their body, helpless to do a thing to stop
it. As mentioned, the triggering of a Zalmunna
Event is not a guaranteed death sentence, and can be stopped. While much faster than humans, SCP-5172-1
entities aren’t especially strong and sustain damage much like a human would. Once it begins harvesting, the entity will
become visible to others and can be terminated by the same methods that would kill a human,
such as with gunshots or stab wounds. However simply killing the entity isn’t
enough. The affected ice machine must be physically
removed from the premises in order to prevent a new instance of SCP-5172-1 from materializing. Once triggered through the use of an affected
ice machine, the only way to completely stop a Zalmunna Event is for the target to leave
the hotel and sleep in a private residence, which will prevent SCP-5172-1 from appearing. If the target sleeps in any bed in the same,
or even a different hotel, the event will continue. Efforts are underway to better understand
SCP-5172-1 entities by capturing a live specimen, but so far all attempts have resulted in failure. Captured entities are capable of manifesting
their tools and cutting out of containment, while all attempts at binding or otherwise
tying down the creatures has led to them dying within several minutes. Autopsies of dead instances have revealed
that like us, they have a circulatory system, though its heart is located in its head, which
explains how they can be killed by being shot or stabbed, but they lack respiratory and
digestive organs. As you can imagine, the existence of SCP-5172
presents a problem for Foundation personnel and their business travel. Agents who must stay in hotels rather than
SCP safehouses are briefed on the anomaly and required to wear heart rate monitors that
can detect when an elevated heart rate occurs that may be connected to a Zalmunna Event. Social media, text messages, and other forms
of communication from devices that are connected to hotel wifi systems are monitored at all
times for any references to “ice machines” and any mention triggers the dispatching of
a containment team to the site who will attempt to identify and remove both the ice machine
and the targeted individual from the premises. All ice machines discovered at locations thought
to be affected by SCP-5172 are then relocated to Site-30. One final note, while SCP-5172 has long been
thought to be a North American exclusive phenomenon, there has recently been one confirmed instance
of an affected ice machine in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Making it even stranger is the fact that the
Dutch do not seem to have the same mass public perception of the prevalence of hotel ice
machines that North Americans do, and it is still unclear if this was a single, isolated
event, or a sign that the Keter Class anomaly is spreading to other locations. Only time will tell, but in the meantime,
even if you’re staying outside of North America and want a frosty drink, consider
paying the outrageous fees and grabbing an already cold one from the minibar. If you don’t, you might find that you’re
paying for your refreshing beverage with much more than a pound of flesh. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, like SCP-150 The Body Stealing Parasite, for another anomaly that wants nothing
more than to get inside of your body. 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. “Dance Failed!” The young woman laughs as her date tries to
catch his breath. The dancing rhythm game was much harder than
he anticipated, and he can’t help but also laugh at his abysmal score. He takes her hand and the two continue walking
through the arcade. It’s not crowded at all tonight and the
two have their choice of games as they bounce between the many pinball tables, driving games,
and light gun shooters. As they finish up a game of air hockey, her
date notices something. It’s a door in the back of the arcade that’s
slightly ajar, the latch and a lock that should be keeping it closed hanging open. “I wonder what’s in there?” he asks. Broken games? Maybe ones that let you play without putting
in a token. Or keep spitting out tickets even when you
lose? “Come on!” The two slip through the cracked door and
find themselves in a dark room that doesn’t look like anyone has been inside in a while. There’s cobwebs and dust everywhere, but
her date was right, it really is filled with broken games! He motions for her to follow as he checks
out an old pinball machine. He presses the buttons but it remains dark. He gives it a hard slap and… nothing happens. How disappointing, they really are just busted
old machines. The two turn to leave, they might get kicked
out if anyone finds them messing around in here. They’re back at the door when they both
stop and look at each other. Did they hear something behind them? The young woman shrieks with fear at the sight
of the old woman staring at her. This time it’s her date’s turn to laugh
at her. It’s just an old fortune teller, nothing
to be scared of. They must have accidentally turned it on. She didn’t notice it before, but the machine
which has the words “Grandmother Predictions” written across the top has come to life and
the inside is now lit up to reveal the animatronic head and torso of an old woman. The old woman isn’t moving, but her glassy,
dead eyes seem like they are staring right at the young woman. The two look at eachother, unsure of what
to do, when without warning, the old woman comes to life. With the clicking and whirring of gears, the
old woman appears to breathe in deeply, opening and closing her mouth as she leans slightly
forward and back inside her glass container. The young woman steps towards the fortune
teller as the old woman inside keeps breathing in and out. But then suddenly, the old woman stops. There’s another loud click as a card appears
out of a small slot on the front of the machine. She looks down at the card, then looks back
up to see that the Old Woman is staring at her once again, as if the robotic figure can
really, truly see her. The young woman slowly reaches towards the
card as the old woman’s gaze stays locked on her. Her fingers touch the card and at the exact
moment she pulls it free, the fortune teller’s lights go out and the old woman slumps over. “What was that?” her date asks. She didn’t even notice that he is standing
next to her now. He starts to search around the machine looking
for something that may have triggered it, as the young woman looks down at the card
she pulled from the slot. Her face changes as she reads it as she goes
from a little freaked out, to completely terrified. “Hey, look at this” her date says as she
quickly slips the card into her pocket. Her date reaches behind the back of the machine
and pulls out a short piece of cord, one end attached to the fortune teller, the other
frayed as if it has been cut. “It’s not even plugged in.” “Let’s get out of here” she tells him. She doesn’t need to ask him twice and the
two leave the room, emerging back into the lights and sounds of the arcade. Later that night, the two are at the door
to the young woman’s apartment. He asks if she’s sure she’s okay, she’s
not still scared about that broken machine, is she? It’s probably just battery operated and
they switched it on somehow. The young woman agrees that must be it, and
that she’s fine, just tired. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and bids
him goodnight before going into her apartment and closing the door. Inside, the young woman leans against the
door. She takes something out of her pocket and
stares at it. It’s the fortune that was dispensed from
the machine. It reads: You look like you've made some mistakes. Some things are unforgivable, aren't they? “No way” she thinks to herself. “It’s just a coincidence.” The young woman walks further into her apartment
and picks up a framed photo. It’s a picture of her several years younger,
with another girl who looks just like her. Her sister. She thinks back to that night. The night that she’ll never forget no matter
how hard she tries. The night she lost her, and lost part of herself
too. She sets the picture back down on the table
before looking at the fortune she’s still holding in her other hand. She crumples the paper in her fist and drops
it in the trash before heading to bed. It’s late at night and the young woman is
tossing and turning with bad dreams when she suddenly pops up awake. Did she hear a sound? She looks around her dim room but nothing
looks amiss. There it is again though, a noise… is it
coming from… the closet? She gets up out of bed and walks towards the
closet, one slow step after another. She reaches towards the closet door, but the
moment her fingers touch the knob, the door bursts open. She screams and falls backwards as multiple
arms reach out of the darkness in the closet towards her. She screams and kicks at the arms as they
grab at her, trying to pull her inside. She fights with all her might as she tries
to crawl away from the arms. She manages to escape their grasp and stands
up. She runs out of the room and towards the front
door as the arms follow, reaching out of the closet, growing longer and longer, the sickening
sound of bones twisting and snapping as they form new joints to bend around corners. Her hands reach out for the knob and she grabs
it, just as the arms grab onto her. She’s jerked backwards and falls to the
floor as the arms drag her down the hallway. She tries to resist, her fingernails digging
into the floorboards as the arms pull her back into the bedroom. “Hello? Are you awake?” The woman knocks loudly on the front door. “Come on, we have reservations. You have to get up” The woman knocks again but still no response. She checks her watch and with a sigh, takes
out a set of keys. She finds the one she’s looking for and
unlocks the door. “Everyone is waiting for us and I’m going
to tell them we’re late because of - “ The woman gasps as she opens the door. She can’t believe what she’s seeing. The apartment is a mess. It looks like a bomb went off. She looks around but there’s no sign of
her daughter. Then she notices the bloody claw marks leading
down the hall towards the bedroom. She runs down the hall, stops in the doorway
to the bedroom, and screams. If you’ve ever been to an arcade, a midway,
or a boardwalk, then you may have encountered a fortune telling machine. These small booths containing an automaton
are great fun as you receive a random card that purports to tell you your future or reveal
a secret truth about yourself. There’s nothing to it obviously, it’s
just a random card you’re getting after all, but the SCP Foundation has a fortune
telling machine in its possession that’s both very real, and very dangerous. SCP-517 as it is known to the Foundation,
is a two meter tall, glass and wooden fortune telling machine that contains an mechanical,
animatronic facsimile of an elderly woman wearing a white blouse and a blue shawl. On top of the machine is a panel with the
words “Grandmother Predictions” written on it. Once per hour, the machine will power on if
an individual enters what could be considered the elderly woman’s field of vision. She will turn to directly face the person,
seeming to stare right at them, before dispensing a fortune card from a slot on the front of
the machine, after which it will appear to shut down and cease to function. It is unknown just how the machine becomes
active, seeing as the only cord coming out of the back of the machine appears to have
been severed. The “fortunes” dispensed when the machine
comes to life are less a prediction, and more of a veiled threat, and examples of ones received
have included: “Your mother raised you better than that. I'm sorry, but fair is fair.” “Some people don't know how to be kind. You'll know soon enough, won't you?” and “People who do terrible things deserve terrible
things. You've brought this upon yourself, my dear.” Following an activation of SCP-517, starting
at 1:43 AM local time, the same events will always occur. The individual that was targeted by the machine
will find themselves attacked by a number of entities which have been designated as
SCP-517-01. These entities are long, multi-jointed arms
that emanate from a location nearby the individual. The exact number that appears will vary, but
there usually seems to be between ten and thirty-six. The arms will appear from a single location
that’s often a low, cramped, and dark space like a closet, basement, or under a bed. The arms will reach out from this area and
try to grab the individual before dragging them back to the location where they manifested. They appear to be able to stretch indefinitely,
growing as long as they need in order to continue pursuing the individual, and their many joints
allow them to bend around corners or any other obstacles. Should the individual manage to fight the
arms off or escape, new arms will materialize nearby the victim to aid in the capture. Once the arms have subdued the targeted person
and gotten them back to the area where they appeared they will begin savagely assaulting
them, beating and clawing at them until nothing remains of the victim but a bloody pile of
flesh and bones. To date, the Foundation is not aware of any
targeted individuals surviving an attack by SCP-517-01 entities. In the event that the fortune telling machine
was activated multiple times on the same day, multiple instances of arms appearing will
occur at different locations at the same time, with each group hunting their own individual
target. Efforts have been made to figure out exactly
where the arms manifest from, and during testing cameras were set up around the targeted individual
in order to try and locate a place of origin. Unfortunately the arms somehow seemed aware
that they were being watched, and the arms always emanated from around a corner or other
place that was out of the field of view of the cameras. Tests on SCP-517 did reveal one piece of evidence
though, as fragments of DNA were recovered from the areas where SCP-517-01 instances
appeared, DNA that turned out to be human in origin. The origins of the DNA and the identity of
the owner have yet to be determined. Research and containment of SCP-517 has proven
to be quite difficult, as evidenced by an event designated Incident 517-1997-M. As Foundation
agent Dr. Meil supervised the transport of SCP-517 to a new containment storage locker,
the fortune teller suddenly activated and it was suspected that Dr. Meil had become
a target. Security personnel were alerted and a defensive
strategy was devised to protect her from instances of SCP-517-01 that were expected to manifest
that night at 1:43 AM. Dr. Meil was taken to a helicopter on the
roof of a Foundation cafeteria and given the protection of multiple security personnel
as they waited for the arms to manifest. Right on cue, the arms appeared in a storage
area inside the cafeteria and began stretching their way towards the roof. Security teams inside the cafeteria opened
fire on the arms, which took damage just like normal human arms, though they would quickly
be replaced by more. More instances of SCP-517-01 began appearing,
coming out from under parked vehicles and other storage areas, as the number of arms
coming out of the original manifestation site continued to increase until there were over
a hundred. The arms did not seem to want to fight back
against the security teams though. They seemed singular in their focus - get
to the roof where Dr. Meil was waiting. As the ever-increasing amount of limbs overwhelmed
the security teams and breached the roof, the order was given for the helicopter to
take off. The helicopter rose into the air, but the
arms began manifesting from somewhere underneath the helicopter itself. The arms broke through the windows and pulled
Dr. Meil out, passing her down to the waiting arms on the roof that then carried her through
the cafeteria’s ventilation system. A security personnel in the cafeteria attempted
to sever the limbs with a knife and rescue Dr. Meil, but the arms were no longer ignoring
their attackers and grabbed him as well, dragging him down towards the storage locker along
with the doctor. In the end, four members of the security team
along with Dr. Meil were pulled into the storage area by the arms. Their remains were collected the next morning
and the Foundation made their best efforts to separate and identify what was left for
individual funerary services. SCP-517, which has been classified as safe,
is kept in a dedicated containment cell at all times, facing away from the doorway, with
an opaque black sheet bound around it. Following the events of Incident 517-1997-M,
all testing has been halted, without the express written permission of the Site Director. Peering into our future can be a fun activity,
even when we know it’s all just a bit of make believe. When you pull your fortune from a booth containing
an elderly automaton though, you might just find that this time, Grammie Knows your fate
for real. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, like SCP-3998 The Wicker Witch Lives, for another anomaly that’s much more
than first meets the eye. 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. “The young couple held hands as they walked
through the forest, the only light coming from the full moon which streamed down between
the branches.” The young woman is riveted by her friend’s
story. She’s never been a fan of ghost stories,
she scares too easily, but her friends insisted. “But what they didn’t know was that there
was something else out there in the forest, something watching them.” The young woman can’t help but look around,
scanning the forest to see if there’s anything out there watching her, but it’s too dark
to see anything past the dim ring of light cast by the campfire. “Just then, something emerged from the forest. The couple had no idea that it was just feet
behind them, matching them step for step. Slowly, it began to reach out towards them... “ “What was it?” the young woman instinctually
asked. “It was… THE GASHADOKURO!” The young woman screams in fear as she is
grabbed from behind by a skeleton. But of course the laughing of her friends
clues her in immediately that this is not a real Gashadokuro, it’s just her stupid
friend in a mask. No one can contain their laughter, even the
young woman has to laugh a little. As her friend takes off his cheap, skull mask
she playfully hits him in the arm, “you jerk!” “You should have seen the look on your - “ [ANIMATION NOTE: This is the big jump scare
as the giant skeleton leaps out and immediately grabs the boy who was wearing the mask. Make sure the skeleton who first appears also
steps on the campfire and puts it out. Two of the others are immediately grabbed
by another skeleton. It’s just the storyteller and the main girl
who escape into the woods. The skeletons are huge. They can all vary in size but they should
be around 300 feet tall ] The gigantic, shrieking skeleton leaps from
the woods and picks up the young man, shoving him straight into his mouth and consuming
him, the boy crying out as his bones are snapped between its enormous jaws. Everyone screams and turns to run, but another
colossal skeleton emerges from the forest, picking up two of the group, one in each hand,
before smashing them together over and over, leaving nothing but a tenderized pile of flesh
between its bony fingers that it then begins to devour. The young woman doesn’t know what to do. She’s petrified with fear, unable to move
or even think. She’s grabbed from behind and turns to see
her friend who was telling the story. “Come on, we have to go!” She still doesn’t move, she can’t tear
herself away from watching the horror that’s playing out in front of her, but he grabs
her hand and forcefully pulls her into the forest behind him. As they run through the woods, they can hear
the sounds of their friends being eaten by the enormous skeletons. There’s nothing they can do to help them
though, all they can do is run. The two sprint as fast as they can through
the thick, dark forest, jumping over fallen trees, hoping that there’s solid ground
on the other side. The young woman’s foot catches in a root
and she falls hard to the ground. Her friend stops and quickly comes back. As he is helping her stand up out of the mud
they both notice something. A sound. The heavy thuds of another giant skeleton. And it’s getting closer to them. “Come on, we have to keep going!” With a loud shriek, a huge bony hand emerges
from the forest and grabs the young man. The young woman watches as he is lifted a
hundred feet into the air and stuffed whole into the gargantuan skeleton’s mouth. She steps slowly backwards, knowing that she
will soon meet the same fate, until the earth disappears beneath her feet. She tumbles down the hillside, somersaulting
end over end, crashing through the brush on the hillside until dropping over embankment. If the fall down the hill knocked her out
then the drop over the embankment was enough to wake her back up. Her wits come back just enough for her to
roll under the embankment’s ledge, and not a moment too soon. She huddles under the ledge and watches as
the two skeletons stride over her hiding place and continue on deeper into the forest. She listens until the sounds of their thudding
steps disappear. She doesn’t know what to do, should she
try to get back to the campsite and see if any of her friends are still alive? If they are, they might need her help. But what if there are more of these… things…
out there? What if they come back, looking for her? Her mind races, unsure of what to do, and
she has trouble thinking clearly. Her ears are ringing from her tumble down
the hillside and her teeth audibly chatter in fear. As she debates her next move, trying to make
sense of the nightmare she’s found herself in, she suddenly notices something. A shadow cast by the moonlight begins to grow
on the ground in front of her. That’s when she realizes something else,
it’s not her teeth that are chattering. The sound is coming from somewhere else. She stands up and turns around to see a huge
skull slowly rising up behind her. The giant skeleton, this one even bigger than
the others, reaches out towards her. The girl closes her eyes, preparing to meet
her fate as the skeleton starts to shriek. But it’s a different kind of sound. She opens her eyes and is almost blinded by
the intense white light on the skeleton’s face. It sounds like it is shrieking in pain from
the light being cast on it, and she’s forced to turn away and shield her eyes. As she does so, she sees the source of the
light. It’s a man in a uniform. He looks like some sort of tactical police
officer, but instead of a gun, he’s holding an enormous flashlight that he’s pointing
at the skeleton. More men who are dressed just the same emerge
from the woods, blasting the skeleton with more light. It continues shrieking but seems helpless
to do anything. She watches as the skeleton seems to lose
its form, slowly disintegrating in the light until eventually it disappears completely Later, the young woman is sitting in the back
of a van with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. One of the policemen, at least she thinks
he must be a policeman, brings her a hot drink. She still can’t believe what she saw that
night, the monstrous creatures that killed and ate her friends, it felt like it wasn’t
real, like she was watching a movie play out. “Were those… were those Gashadokuro?”
she asks. A man in a white lab coat looks up from a
nearby table where he had been working on something. She thinks he must be a doctor of some kind. “Yes,” he tells her, “or something similar
to them. Maybe they inspired the myth of the Gashadokuro,
maybe the myth inspired them. We simply don’t know.” She asks, “all my friends are - “ “Dead”
he interjects. “I know this is hard for you, getting chased
by giant anomalous skeletons and watching your friends eaten alive would be tough for
anyone to deal with.” The young woman starts to sob, the weight
of the moment finally hitting her. “But I have some good news” he tells her. She sniffs and looks up at the doctor. “Believe it or not, I’ve seen this thing
happen a lot, and you don’t have to worry, because you’re not going to remember any
of this.” “Ouch” the young woman cries, and looks
down to see that he has jabbed her in the thigh with a syringe. She tries to push him away but she’s already
feeling weak and disoriented. She sways a little before her eyes shut and
she passes out. The young woman wakes in the cheery morning
light of her own bedroom. She yawns and stretches, the strange dream
about skeletons in the forest already drifting from her mind. Konnichiwa! I’m Dr. Bob and today’s file is a terrifying
anomalous entity referred to in Japan as the Gashadokuro, but known by the SCP Foundation
as SCP-2863… the Starving Skeletons. SCP-2863 is not just one, but an entire population
of entities that resemble gigantic human skeletons. These enormous, bony creatures’ size can
vary, but on average they are approximately 30 meters tall. While their exact number is unknown, over
200 separate individual instances have been identified and catalogued, with each having
distinctive markings such as their bones having different types of damage or burn marks present. SCP-2863 instances are currently found exclusively
in Japan, where they will appear only after sunset. It is still unknown if the skeletons are sapient,
though they do appear sentient as they engage in their primary behavior of hunting down
and consuming humans. Despite their enormous size, they are capable
of moving very quietly when they want to, though there have been reports from survivors
of their appearance being preceded by a rattling like sound, which may be their own teeth or
giant bones hitting against each other. Once they have caught a human, they will immediately
devour them, with the human’s blood appearing to be absorbed directly into their bones,
since they lack any digestive organs. It is unknown if they require the blood of
humans for sustenance, or if their predatory behavior is motivated by something else. Monitoring and control of SCP-2863 instances
was previously the responsibility of the Imperial Japanese Anomalous Matters Examination Agency. The IJAMEA, which as the name suggests, was
Imperial Japan’s answer to the SCP Foundation, tasked with investigating the strange anomalies
within their own borders for the benefit of the empire. Several of the IJAMEA agents who had been
investigating the Gashadokuro at the end of World War 2 transferred to the SCP Foundation
when the Anomalous Matters Examination Agency was disbanded and continued their work on
the anomaly. They also provided their original files on
the anomaly, which gave the Foundation their first information on the giant anomalous skeletons. According to the IJAMEA’s translated file: “Gashadokuro are created by mass death,
by the concentrated suffering of hundreds. While the Gashadokuro will eventually fade,
they remain for centuries after their creation, lingering until their sorrow has diffused
and faded. There is no way to hasten this process.” The IJAMEA file also explained that while
conventional weaponry is useless against the anomalous skeletons, light can be used to
banish the creatures, and either natural daylight or manmade light will suffice. When exposed to light, the skeletons will
start to lose their corporeal form until they fade away completely. This doesn’t kill instances of SCP-2863
though, it only temporarily neutralizes them, and appearances of the same instance will
often be reported the very next night. Just as the IJAMEA had noted in their file,
the SCP Foundation also made the connection between SCP-2863 and locations of mass suffering. While Imperial Japan’s anomalous investigation
unit identified 203 instances of SCP-2863, the Foundation has since become aware of three
others, each of which were found at sites connected to death and destruction. The first new instance was found near Nanjing,
China, the location of an especially brutal massacre during the second world war that
may have resulted in as many as 300,000 deaths. It’s believed that the entity first appeared
in this location in 1938, just after the massacre, while the city was still under the control
of Imperial Japan. This has led some to speculate that the locations
where Gashadokuro appear are inherently tied to the borders of Japan as a nation, and have
fluctuated with geopolitical changes. The second was discovered several kilometers
from Fukuoka City in Japan, a city that saw heavy firebombing by Allied Forces during
the war. The third was identified in 2011 in the Tōhoku
region of Japan, which is where the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred. Each of these new instances appeared to bear
injuries consistent with someone who suffered through the nearby tragedies, with the first
showing evidence of crushed bones, the second appearing to have suffered intense burning,
and the third missing teeth which is common in cases of extreme radiation poisoning. These specific injuries add further evidence
of the connection the Gashadokuro may have to human misery. The impermanent nature of SCP-2863 and their
ability to manifest even after being neutralized has made long term containment of this anomaly
all but impossible, and they have been classified as Keter. In the event that an instance is spotted,
Mobile Task Force Omicron-3 is dispatched to the area where they will attempt to neutralize
the entity through the use of high-powered floodlights. Any civilians who are exposed to SCP-2863
and survive are given Class-A amnestics so that they can hopefully move on with their
lives and forget their horrifying encounter with the Starving Skeletons. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, like SCP-966 Sleep Killer, for another anomaly who has decided to make humans
its preferred prey. 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.
