It was such a normal morning. Almost comically uneventful. For the first time in what felt like forever,
the morning newscasts had very little to say. They covered fashion week. Some protests in the capital. A new health craze sweeping the nation. A funny viral video of a dog eating a pancake. The inspirational story of a young boy from
the midwest beating cancer. A minor political scandal out of Tallahassee,
Florida, that nobody would remember in a week. A round of interviews with an expert who’d
written a new book about the long-term effects social media might have on our children. None of them knew back then that “long term”
was a luxury they couldn’t afford. People went to work. To school. Some took the day off. Plenty took walks or jogs, deciding to exercise
outside for a change. After all, it was such a beautiful, sunny
day out. What a terrible shame it would be to waste
the light indoors. People were sleepwalking. So placidly, blissfully unaware of what was
rattling down the tracks towards them. It was an uncharacteristically slow day down
at Site-19. There hadn’t been any containment breaches
in over a week. A couple of new anomalies had been brought
into containment, one safe-class and one Euclid, but neither were the kind that was likely
to bring the SCP Foundation any trouble. Right now, the biggest threat facing their
employees seemed to be boredom, and they’d definitely take that over any other members
of their rogues gallery. Dr. Bright poured himself a mug of nice, hot
coffee, and decided to watch some TV in the break room, just to pass the time. The President of the United States was giving
a press conference on the White House lawn, surrounded by microphones. It was really nothing special. Just the same inane babble about how he was
going to fix the deficit, and with inflation on the rise, we’d all need to work on being
more fiscally responsible. The immortal Foundation researcher sipped
his coffee. These normal, boring problems felt like the
perfect escape from the insanity he needed to deal with every day at the Foundation. The President was saying something about the
importance of families, and about farmers being the nation’s real backbone, when something
happened. There was an odd shift in the quality of the
light. Dr. Bright barely registered it - Maybe it
was something to do with the cameras. However, things started to get stranger: The
President’s speech began to slur, as though he’d just been pumped with enough morphine
to take down an elephant. But it wasn’t just that - He was sweating
buckets, too. Wet patches expanded all over his suit and
perspiration was dripping off his skin. Dr. Bright was in suspense - Was he about
to watch the president have a stroke, live on air? Would he be called in to replace him yet again? But no, the situation unfolding was far, far
worse. The president of the united states slumped
forward over his podium while the reporting corps screamed. His face sloughed off his skull like melting
wax, the president’s words slurring off into infinity. It was the worst a US president had looked
on film since SCP-1981. Dr. Bright dropped his coffee cup. It tumbled and shattered on the ground below. The camera fell as the operator screamed:
It pointed down into the crowd, where the reporters were shrieking in pain and terror,
steam coming off of their bodies with the sudden, intense climb in heat. They were melting. All of them were melting before his very eyes,
broadcast out to how many people? It would be the mother of all containment
nightmares. Little did Dr. Bright know, that wasn’t
even the half of the true horrors unfolding. Alarms went off across every containment site
in the world. Any SCP Foundation employees unlucky enough
to be standing outside at the time were lost in the rapidly unfolding horrors. They screamed as the sun cleaved their atoms
apart, reducing them into semi-liquid states without the mercy of death. People lucky to be just out of the sun could
only watch as those less fortunate disintegrated across the ground in unholy shrieking puddles. Never had such a normal day been thrown into
such terrifying chaos in so little time. Billions of voices cried out at once as the
sun changed in the sky up above them. Since the dawn of humanity, it had given us
everything. Light to bask in, warmth to keep us safe,
and the life of the plants and animals that kept us fed. It had been worshipped as a god by countless
cultures over thousands of years. One great mother to all of humanity. And now, that mother was drowning us in the
bathtub - And perhaps the most frightening part of all, it was for seemingly no reason. No reason at all. The SCP Foundation was forced to now break
their silence forever. The masquerade, the veil, it melted along
with so much of humanity. They took over every communications channel
in the world and did what they could to inform people on how to get out of harm’s way. Stay inside. Wrap yourself in sun-shielding clothing and
only move at night. Air travel is preferable, if possible. If you can, make your way to one of the SCP
Foundation’s secure sites, their only chance of preserving humanity and figuring out how
to reverse this new nightmare. Now more than ever, the SCP Foundation would
be humanity’s only hope. Until, of course, there was another terrifying
twist in the tale. While those who were melted into piles of
living flesh sludge were sadly assumed to be lost, even the Foundation didn’t expect
the transformed humans to become a threat in and of themselves. Just as their bodies were melted, so were
their minds. They became slaves, cultists of the glowing
tyrant hanging up above. Some would coagulate into huge, fleshy masses,
horrifying threats that would seek out victims, overpower them, and drag them out into the
light to be absorbed and transformed. Even those hiding inside Foundation containment
centers weren’t safe. These behemoths of melted flesh would find
their way in, using their many twisted voices to slowly break the minds of their victims,
then gather them up with great flesh tendrils and yank them out to their doom. Little by
little, the numbers of humanity dwindled. It looked like we had a bright future ahead
of us - And in this particular context, that’s far from a good thing. Survivors, for whatever time they have left,
would forever remember this waking nightmare. The Foundation dubbed it SCP-001, to reflect
its ultimacy, but to everyone else, it had a different name: When Day Breaks. In a world where anything but darkness will
kill you, is there anywhere left on earth that’s truly safe from the horrors of SCP-001? Five months into the never-ending horror of
the solar singularity, Alice spooned herself a bowl full of warm, Swedish meatballs. Delicious. She was part of an investigative detail from
a nearby community, deep within the bowels of the only truly safe place for human beings
on planet earth: SCP-3008, also known as the Infinite Ikea. No sun has ever shone in there. Only the lights, which fizz and flicker far
above. Everyone inside thinks of it as a prison - Little
do they know, what’s left of humanity out there would kill to be inside this sanctuary. Alice had a team of ten with her. Their mission was simple: Continue the mapping
effort of the area surrounding their community, and collect rations for the rest of the camp. It was dangerous work, especially as night
drew close, but there were certain rewards. When they reached a feeding station, they
were able to enjoy fresher food than anyone else. All they needed to do was wager their lives
for it. To Alice, it seemed like a fair trade. Her lieutenant, Darcy, kept watch to the north. He and several others wielded makeshift spears
made from curtain rods and clubs fashioned from bedposts. Knives, scavenged from the kitchen section,
hung from their belts in makeshift holsters. During the day, they were little more than
a precaution. At night, it could mean the difference between
life and death. Speaking of, Darcy kept a close watch on a
member of staff. It was a lanky, faceless monster in that garish
uniform, with a bulbous, oversized head, and long arms, hanging slack like pulled taffy,
dragging its knuckles along the ground as it stumbled along. Darcy thought it darkly funny, how stupid
they could look in the daytime. Like crash test dummies rejected from the
assembly line. Bear stood close by. He never gave any of them his real name, so
they took to calling him Bear, because he was big, hairy, and would probably tear you
to shreds if you got on his bad side. He wielded the largest club of all - A customized
creation, with sharp objects sticking out of it on all sides. It cleaved the heads of many staff members
off of their bodies. Bear seemed to relish the task of putting
those monsters down. For him, it was easy and fun. That’s why he was an essential asset on
these missions: A berserker. Most of the grunts shoveled as much food as
they could carry in Ikea-brand tupperware and coolers. The more they gathered, the longer it would
take for them to be forced out beyond the safe walls of the haven they’d built inside
this Swedish, flat-pack hell. They all made do with what they had in here. It was all they could really do. Two members of the team were unaccounted for:
Cyril and Joseph, what passed for reconnaissance experts down here. They seemed to have an innate sense of direction,
as though they were somehow in tune with the Ikea itself. They would be sent out on scouting missions. Searching for resources, food, other survivors,
and most prized of all: Potential escape routes. It was a dream, a fantasy, that someday one
of them would find the exit, and lead the rest of them to salvation through it. Alice had been trapped in the Infinite Ikea
for six years, going on seven now. She had long since given up on dreams of escape. All they could do was accept their situation,
get used to it, and just try to survive under these circumstances. But those circumstances were about to change. Everyone looked up when they heard panicked
breathing. It was Cyril. Just Cyril. The party clutched their weapons just that
little bit tighter, unsure of what had happened. Their rules were clear: Scouting duos must
never, ever separate, under any circumstances. Getting lost in the store, and being isolated
when the lights went out, would be a death sentence. So if Cyril was returning alone, frightened,
tears streaking down his face, then something truly awful had happened. He told Alice and the rest of the group that
something had attacked him and Joseph. When Alice told him that was impossible, that
the Staff wouldn’t show active aggression until lights out unless someone attacked them
first, Cyril shook his head and let out a heaving sob. He told them that the creature that attacked
them wasn’t a member of the Staff. It was something else entirely. Something he’d never seen inside the Ikea
before. A true monster. Whatever this creature was, it’d moved around
a corner incredibly fast. It spoke in a way that was almost human, but
something was off about it. Something that sent a chill down Cyril’s
spine, just thinking about it. He recalled that the creature was large and
blob-like. Flesh-colored, with long, grasping tendrils
that whipped and flailed unnaturally. These tendrils had wrapped around and grasped
Joseph. He hadn’t been quick enough. The two of them were too shocked by the sight
of it to react in time, and then, it was already too late. It grabbed Joseph and yanked him off into
an adjoining aisle. Cyril still remembered his haunting screams
getting quieter and quieter as he moved further out of sight. On some level, everyone hoped that Cyril was
lying. It was preferable to believe that he himself
had snapped and murdered Joseph for some unknown reason as opposed to some new, stronger, and
even more dangerous creature that was now inside the Ikea. Was this some kind of upgrade? As they acclimated to the environment, adapted,
gotten better at surviving here, had the Ikea, in turn, created deadlier countermeasures
to destroy them all? Just when you thought you had a handle on
things… But if Cyril was telling the truth, and there
was some kind of creature lurking in the store - or potentially more than just one - then
they could be in danger just standing here. They gathered up the group, along with any
supplies worth taking, and set off back to their community. They would need to deliver the bad news so
they could potentially prepare for the worst. It was just one of the many communities housed
within SCP-3008. Many have theorized over the years that the
Infinite Ikea acts as a kind of nexus point for Ikeas all across the multiverse, accounting
for the truly insane number of people who have gone missing without a trace into the
building over the years. There were children who had been born in the
Ikea, raised in the Ikea, known nothing but the Ikea. Nobody knew an exact number for sure, but
it was more than possible that the population of a small country resided within its walls. Sometimes, communities would fracture and
fall apart. Occasionally due to a lack of resources or
infighting. Other times, due to an overwhelming attack
from the Staff that physically destroyed the settlement, often leaving many of its members
dead in the process. Those who weren’t picked off while wandering
the store in the following days would likely integrate into other nearby communities as
refugees. Life was cruel in the Infinite Ikea. By the time Alice and her party returned to
their community, it was almost lights out. They spoke to the community leaders and informed
them of Joseph’s tragic disappearance, as well as this awful new creature that Cyril
claimed had taken him. They thought it best not to inform the rest
of the community tonight - It might hurt their focus and cause unnecessary panic. Alice agreed to join the watch that night. She could feel something wrong in the air. Even more so than usual, there was something
terrible in this anomalous Ikea… Alice stood atop the furniture wall with several
others rangers. As the lights flickered off, the distinctive
calls sounded across the store from the activated Staff members: “The store is now closed,
please exit the building.” It was almost soothing in its familiarity,
compared to the frightening thoughts that Cyril had left swimming through her mind. The Staff she could handle. It was at least the devil she knew, and there
were worse beasts than the devil out there. She knew it in her bones. They killed a few Staff members that happened
to wander towards the community and begin beating their deformed fists against the walls. All standard procedure. But as Alice’s eyes adjusted to the darkness,
she saw a huge shape in the distance. It looked like a mountain that breathed. A huge, wobbling mass of flesh, moving impossibly
fast for a “creature” of its size. It was so much vaster than the creature that
Cyril had described earlier. Was this a different one, or had it simply
gotten bigger? Either way, it was coming straight towards
them. The community came alive in sudden panic. Every able-bodied adult grabbed their weapons
and prepared for the fight of their lives behind the wall. Whatever this monster was, they needed to
kill it as quickly as possible, before it destroyed everything they built. Sadly for everyone inside the community, this
was one fight that none of them were prepared for. The beast crashed into the furniture wall,
crushing it inwards. People struck at the monster’s immense and
terrible flesh with their weapons, making awful wet slaps, but seeming to cause no lasting
impact. It just kept rolling in, grasping everyone
it could with its long, sinewy tendrils. But the horrors were only just beginning. With the wall destroyed, the Staff began to
pour in, chanting in monstrous unison. “The store is now closed, please exit the
building.” It was a massacre, perhaps one of the worst
that the inside of the Infinite Ikea had ever seen. While the community battled the giant flesh
beast, the forces of the Staff swarmed and overwhelmed them. Darcy was tangled in the nightmarish tentacles
of the beast. Bear was surrounded by a truly insurmountable
number of Staff members, each one balling their terrible fists and beating him to death. Somewhere, Cyril screamed, though his scream
was soon cut short. Alice watched in horror as everything she’d
known was destroyed. Alice realized that her friends were dead
and her community was in ruins. She grabbed her spear and did the only thing
she could: She ran. She ran from the lost cause that had once
been her life, tears running down her cheeks. What had even happened? What the hell had that great monster been? The Ikea’s trump card? She ran aimlessly for as long as she could,
then walked, and eventually limped. She went on for hours, getting lost, deeper
and deeper into unknown territory. She’d stop when she was dead. Why not? She had little left to live for. But like the holy grail, when she eventually,
truly gave up, and stopped looking for salvation, it found its way to her. As she turned a corner around a mysterious
aisle, she saw something that she hadn’t seen in years: Glass double-doors. She stifled a sob. Could it be? The way out of here, after all this time? And it was. The world. Escape. She’d lost everything, but regained this. Outside, dawn was breaking. After years, the great, red sun. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever
seen in her life. She took a deep breath, smiled, and stepped
into the light… Now go check out “How To Actually Beat SCP-3008
The Infinite Ikea” and “SCP-001 - When Day Breaks” for more insights into the nightmares
we’ve been experiencing in today’s episode of SCP Explained!
