From:
To:
CC:
Subject:
hank.lancaster@scp.site.170
karsyn.sloane@scp.site.170
none
Pertinent Anomalous Development
Sloane:
As the newly appointed Head Researcher for Site-170, having worked here for several years, you are undoubtedly familiar with that primal sense of terror we all feel during a containment breach. Fear is a natural reaction to perceived danger and its goal is to keep us safe from harm.
I like to think that humans were never meant to be exposed to the anomalous. That explains why, upon witnessing even the most innocuous bout of anomalous activity, we all feel that creeping dread at the back of our mind; that pang of malaise telling us to flee or defend ourselves. Distress is not a pleasant feeling. But it’s there for a rather sensible reason – a logical reaction to the illogical; an attempt to neutralise or evade that which we cannot understand or control.
Sometimes, the feeling of danger can be just as harmful as the supposed threat itself. It can cause us to act on an instinct or whim which we would not have done had the source of fear not been there. Lasting mental damage can occur as a result of high-intensity stress experienced in a short period – the unfortunate number of personnel with PTSD is a testament to that – their alarm in the moment may have saved their life but caused critical damage psychologically.
However dangerous feeling fear was before, however, is magnitudes less than what it is now.
My smaller research team here at Site-170 have been investigating three discreet but troubling anomalies that appear to be interconnected. I’d recommend you take a look at the SCP file yourself – we have special permission from the O5 Council. The implications are disturbing to say the least, especially for the Foundation.
Fear evolved to protect our humanity – to keep us alive.
That same humanity, it might just start taking away.
Frank Lancaster
Senior Researcher
Secure, Contain, Protect
▽ Close SCP-9511 Document
Item#: 9511
Level5
Containment Class:
keter
Secondary Class:
none
Disruption Class:
amida
Risk Class:
critical
SCP-9511-A intersecting with non-anomalous DNA.
Special Containment Procedures: Due to the nature of SCP-9511, short-term containment consists of reactive approaches to individual PREVAIL-Events and long-term containment focuses on research into excising SCP-9511-A from the human genome or isolating SCP-9511-B within the noosphere.
The Foundation's Paragenetics Division is working on a method to efficiently identify, isolate, and remove SCP-9511-A from humans on an industrial scale using paratechnologically-enhanced CRISPR-Cas9 molecular "scissors" or via alternative means. Whilst genetic edits of SCP-9511-A have been performed on individual human cells successfully, the process is lengthy, resource-intensive, and entirely infeasible to perform on whole individuals. Research into an effective process is to be continued consistently until the SCP-9511 crisis is resolved.
Foundation personnel from the Noospherics Division are developing a means to restrict the metaphysical growth of SCP-9511-B within the noosphere, reverse such proliferation, or completely isolate SCP-9511-B within the noosphere altogether. Due to the advanced conceptual size of SCP-9511-B and its "rooting" within NOO-1202 and other concepts, researchers fear the removal of SCP-9511-B may damage affected, non-anomalous noospheric components. Any exploration of SCP-9511-B for research and surveillance is to be done with significant caution.
Suspected reports of SCP-9511-C entities are to be responded to immediately; such instances are to be terminated at the soonest possible opportunity to avoid feedback loops that expedite threat to life, the Veil, and the increase of the possession of NOO-1202 by SCP-9511-B. MTF Epsilon-17 ("Fleshformers") has been established with various members at different points around the world, and are to handle encounters with SCP-9511-C entities.
SCP-9511-C entities are permitted for capture and long-term containment within Site-170 should their individual adaptations prove noteworthy or unexpected. Such entities are to be housed in Keter-Class containment chambers that have been fashioned with defences appropriate to the instance's anomalous capabilities or anatomy, such as acid sprinklers, reactive outer-layer armour, or devices capable of projecting universal memetic hazards.
Description: SCP-9511 describes three distinct but closely interconnected anomalies, designated SCP-9511-A through -C.
SCP-9511-A is an anomalous regulatory gene present in the DNA of all extant humans. Very few humans have ever had SCP-9511-A genetically expressed; until the early 1980s it was thought that SCP-9511-A was vestigial.
SCP-9511-B is an ideoparasitic memeplex residing in the noosphere, with NOO-1202 (“FEAR/TERROR”) acting as its host. SCP-9511-B appears to reside near the exact centre of NOO-1202, making it almost completely unreachable save for extreme cases of relevant noospheric activity.
SCP-9511-B acts as an anomalous epigenetic trigger for SCP-9511-A: whenever SCP-9511-B is stimulated by an individual’s noospheric activity to a sufficient degree that passes through the “threshold” of the outer region of NOO-1202, SCP-9511-A may become active in that person. This occurrence is termed a PREVAIL-Event – the chance of such an incident taking place per unit of time that a subject’s fear exceeds the threshold is proportional to its relative intensity.
PREVAIL-Events encompass SCP-9511-A becoming an active gene in every cell in the subject’s body. Immediately after SCP-9511-A becomes active in a cell, it will display biologically impossible behaviour by first acting as an enzyme to unwind the DNA of the cell, then rapidly rearranging and activating or deactivating other genes with no apparent method of locomotion to form mRNA. At first, the genes targeted by SCP-9511-A appear arbitrary and random, although this is not the case. It seems as though SCP-9511-A is being controlled by an external force, likely SCP-9511-B.
This process of gene rearrangement is anomalously quick, concluding after only several seconds. Subjects have reported numerous symptoms such as tingling, discomfort, and mild psychological symptoms such as malaise during this time. After SCP-9511-A finishes this operation, it once again displays impossible activity by breaking down existing proteins in the cell into their constituent amino acids at an extremely rapid pace and changing its own structure into something akin to a ribosome – from an external perspective, the subject will begin to deform and lose bodily cohesion. The resulting “ribosome” in each cell will draw in amino acids at an extremely high rate, forming new proteins that anomalously self-assemble and change the cell at a molecular level.
After these stages have concluded, having taken only about 10-15 seconds in total, the final phase of the PREVAIL-Event takes place over the course of an additional ten seconds: the reformation of tissues, organs, and organ systems to facilitate the transfiguration of the subject into an SCP-9511-C instance.
SCP-9511-C instances vary vastly in organ composition, biological structure, and appearance between iterations, but share the commonality of being a unique organism well-adapted to overcome the situation that incited the initial sense of fear. SCP-9511-C entities constantly experience brain activity aligned with NOO-1202, manifesting as the fight-or-flight response – instances will tend towards hostility or prioritise escape from perceived danger. Whether or not SCP-9511-C entities remain sapient is debated amongst researchers.
Additionally, at the conclusion of a PREVAIL-Event, SCP-9511-B appears to grow within the noosphere to encompass more of NOO-1202, thereby lowering the threshold required to activate future PREVAIL-Events. This would allow SCP-9511-B to propagate exponentially within the noosphere, causing a positive-feedback loop and potentially leading to an LK-Class Species Transmutation Scenario. Although unconfirmed, SCP-9511-B is also thought to put metaphysical “pressure” on NOO-1202, causing it to expand further into human thought and appear more frequently as a state of mind.
SCP-9511 is also a preternatural memetic infohazard – perceiving an SCP-9511-C instance may lead to the observer undergoing a PREVAIL-Event themselves due to the distress caused by the appearance of the entity or its proximity to the viewer.
Recently, SCP-9511-B has proliferated gradually but progressively to encompass 3.7% of NOO-1202, indicating that PREVAIL-Events become possible upon an individual experiencing fear or terror at 99.3% capacity. Projections estimate that an LK-Class Scenario will become almost unavoidable at 5%.
The aftermath resulting from the creation of an SCP-9511-C instance. As part of its transfiguration, the entity expelled a segment of its frontal lobe through its nasal cavity to protect against an unrelated cognitohazard.
Addendum 9511.1: Notable Historical SCP-9511-C Instances
The location where SCP-9511-C-1 was found preserved in ice.
Instance Identification: SCP-9511-C-1
Date of Transfiguration: ca. 3150 BCE
Location: Lienz, Austria
Inciting Situation: The individual is believed to have attempted a short trek around a mountain before encountering multiple wolves which proceeded to severely lacerate his left leg and irreversibly maim his right foot. A bronze sword was recovered near the location; analysis indicates wolf blood in the microstructure of the metal and damage consistent with bone collision, suggesting the subject used the weapon to injure the wolves in self-defence.
The individual then seems to have started crawling back to his original location before receiving significant trauma near the original neck structure – one of the wolves was apparently not killed during the melee and had returned to attack the subject. A PREVAIL-Event occurred at this time.
SCP-9511-C Description: The individual’s skull split open vertically to reveal a second “mouth” perpendicular to the subject’s original one, exhibiting a myriad of uniquely shaped teeth akin to those resulting from hyperdontia – wolf DNA was found within the cavity. An additional pair of yellowish eyes with abnormally small irises and no eyelids emerged on the sides of the entity’s head, providing extra vision. The limbs and digits of the entity extended slightly and synovial fluid within the lower joints desiccated, leaving them permanently rigid and locked in a crawling position.
The dermal layer became excessively taut, pale, and osseous tissue broke through the surface in some locations, apparently acting as a bodily “armour”. Recovered nearby was an organic pouch with trace amounts of hydrochloric acid – autopsy of the instance’s digestive system revealed the stomach was missing, having been apparently expelled with great force through the oesophagus to act as a caustic weapon. Analysis of the vocal cords indicated that their structure had been altered to produce a loud, high-pitched noise – reconstruction and simulated activation of a model produced a sound described by researchers as “harrowing”.
Aftermath: Forensic analysis of the location of discovery suggests that the SCP-9511-C entity proceeded to kill the remaining wolf before consuming a small portion of its body. Minute traces of cortisol and adrenaline were separated from the congealed blood of the instance and found to be in concentrations of roughly a magnitude higher than that which is typical for human patients experiencing severe distress. It is believed the entity expired from a stroke resulting from the abnormally high levels of stress hormones in its bloodstream.
Notes: This SCP-9511-C instance was the first known to the Foundation and remains the oldest recovered iteration and was discovered preserved in notably good condition via entombment in a layer of ice after a group of tourists reported their discovery of a mummified “demon” in a mountainous region. It has been posited that the entity’s death from the excessive action of the stress chemicals represents an “error” by SCP-9511-B.
Still frame from the excavation of the walled-off room hosting the remains of SCP-9511-C-4.
Instance Identification: SCP-9511-C-4
Date of Transfiguration: ca. 80 CE
Location: Rome, Italy
Inciting Situation: A Roman mining slave killed a guard whilst attempting to escape custody; preparations were made to execute the slave the next day through a crude, unique system involving the gradual submersion of the victim in a large vat of boiling water. Upon the day of the planned execution, the slave demonstrated extreme fear at their impending fate hours before the intended killing took place – it is believed this continued terror likely contributed to the slave’s eventual transfiguration even well before it occurred.
At midday the slave’s arms were tied with rope and they were slowly lowered towards the surface of the boiling water; steam burns began to form around their lower legs and onlookers noted that the surface of the victim’s skin appeared “warped” just as they contacted the water – this was believed to have been caused by the breaking down of proteins typical of the start of a PREVAIL-Event; the transfiguration became apparent seconds later.
SCP-9511-C Description: The flesh of the slave gradually “melted” away from their skeletal structure, sloughing off into the boiling water below. Muscle, adipose, and similar tissues quickly dissolved at an unnatural pace to form a living “soup” of cells suspended in the water – the brain and sensory organs remained perfectly undamaged by the high temperatures and remained suspended in what was now a primarily liquid-based organism.
The solid portion of the entity’s nervous system could communicate with the disassociated muscle cells to form temporary amorphous appendages, which it used to lift its own eyes out of the water to view the fleeing onlookers. The anomalous organism managed to tip the vat of water over, spilling its own “body” over the stone floor with significant force, enough to splash an official attempting to escape the vicinity. Various liquids such as blood, bile, and aqueous humour, began leaking from the orifices of the individual, and began slowly gravitating towards the main mass of the entity – the splashed portion of the instance had apparently entered the official’s pores, dispersing amongst his organ systems and assimilating fluids to collect more matter for the larger section.
Aftermath: The entity attempted to ambulate across the floor towards the escaping spectators, but its surface area to volume ratio became too high in the process, making it rapidly evaporate and leaving a layer of organic matter caked on the floor. The Roman official succumbed to various ailments as the result of the partial loss of his vital fluids – his body was stored in a walled-off room alongside a clay vase filled with the remains of the SCP-9511-C instance which had been scraped off the floor.
Notes: This instance of SCP-9511-C was recovered following reports from a Foundation agent embedded in a major archaeological institution of strange documents unearthed from a dig site detailing the above events. The agent was ordered to investigate further and initially believed the documents to be mythological in nature until discovering the walled-off room.
Inside was a vase containing a desiccated brain and a heavily decayed pair of eyeballs. Further examination yielded a mummified body and a separate collection of bones that, when reassembled, produced a full human skeleton.
Media depicting the moment soldiers from the trenches observed the PREVAIL-Event.
Instance Identification: SCP-9511-C-10
Date of Transfiguration: 02/01/1916
Location: Gallipoli Peninsula, Modern-Day Turkey
Inciting Situation: An Australian ANZAC soldier fighting in the Gallipoli Campaign volunteered to join a group of five others who planned to traverse the difficult terrain upwards slightly, enabling them to get more information on the status of the enemy. The expedition started well despite the steep, gravelly landscape – the team remained vigilant and observant of any potential hazards; having not seen any, they continue ascending the clifflike environment, using shrubs for cover as they went.
Whilst the group stopped to let one of their members have a drink, a detonation occurred in front of them, sending shrapnel flying into the soldiers, wounding them all and instantly killing the two closest to the blast. Having been spotted, the remaining three soldiers instantly proceeded down the landscape at a dangerously rapid pace – one of them was killed via gunfire from the Ottoman forces above. The remaining pair recognised a jut in the rock and hid behind it temporarily.
One of these soldiers began having a panic attack after the other noted a large volume of blood seeping from the back of his uniform. This panic worsened when a second explosion occurred near the temporary shelter, causing the hyperventilation of the soldier and the genesis of a PREVAIL-Event.
SCP-9511-C Description: A yellow-orange fluid began to flow from the soldier’s numerous wounds, purging the contaminated blood before quickly hardening to form a keratinous physical barrier over the injuries. The hardened substance was translucent and apparently porous, letting more liquid seep from its surface and rapidly increasing its coverage of the soldier. The fluid’s rate of emergence showed no signs of diminishing and continued to deposit further keratinous material over the soldier, encasing him after about a minute.
By this point the volume of the liquid should have exceeded the volume of the soldier’s body, yet continued to flow regardless and caused the organic mass to fuse with the rock face. The soldier inside the keratinous “shield” began to liquify and distort; epithelial, skeletal, and muscular tissue was dissolved and replaced with more of the yellowish material, leaving essential organ systems perfectly preserved but functional.
After several minutes had passed, the rate of expulsion of the fluid subsided – by this point, the top-down surface area of the mass had reached about 100 square metres, most of it downhill of the point of origin. The liquid was discovered to have slight corrosive properties when it reached the trenches.
Aftermath: The development of this SCP-9511-C instance immediately caused intense horror amongst both forces and due to the extreme distress resulting from it, multiple other SCP-9511-C entities emerged amidst the incident, which were killed by the soldiers. A previously considered evacuation was immediately put into place, although due to the remote nature of the location, took several days to fulfill.
During this time, the original SCP-9511-C instance was inspected by a group of soldiers – peering through the translucent keratinous shell covering its organs revealed its eyes following the team, leading it to secrete more of the yellow-orange liquid apparently out of fear. Upon Foundation precursor agents learning of the incident at Gallipoli, a specialised team analogous to a mobile task force was dispatched to the location, where they detonated the instance and removed all traces of its remains.
Notes: This SCP-9511-C entity demonstrated a unique approach to ensuring its survival: instead of adapting a new method of locomotion to enable it to escape danger quicker, for example, it permanently restricted its ability to move, forming a solid barrier around itself. This still demonstrated the “flight” aspect of the fight-or-flight response, making it difficult for the source of harm to damage the instance’s vital organs, except in a more general method of biological defence, rather than physically fleeing.
The hospital following the PREVAIL-Event.
Instance Identification: SCP-9511-C-27
Date of Transfiguration: 21/6/1982
Location: Fort Worth, USA
Inciting Situation: A member of the local populace, Isaiah Kramer, had been diagnosed with radiculopathy, a spinal condition involving excessive pressure on certain nerves, after reporting recurring pain and paraesthesia. After the symptoms continued for about a month and with other treatment options having failed, Kramer was scheduled for surgery in the upcoming weeks, which he reported feeling significantly uneasy about.
On the day of the operation, an anaesthesiologist new to the hospital was assigned to the patient but inexplicably forgot a crucial step in the delivery of the surgical drugs: the sedative. Kramer was temporarily paralysed and could not experience pain due to the effects of the other medicinal substances but was fully conscious of his spine being operated on; this caused him substantial distress and led to a PREVAIL-Event.
SCP-9511-C Description: As the initial incision along the skin covering the spine was made, the attending surgeons were shocked to note a writhing mass of pale, infinitesimal “strings” underneath the dermal layer – believing these to be an enigmatic species of tapeworm, the surgeons quickly attempted to draw the matter out. It soon became apparent that the wire-like substance was embedded deep in the nervous system of Kramer; attempts to extract the autonomous entities were abandoned when they began exiting through the incision themselves.
Dermal breaches soon began occurring at numerous other points on the skin until the main body was almost completely enveloped with the string-like shapes. At this point, the surgeons had evacuated the room after realising that the strange material wrapping around the body of the patient was, in defiance of biology, his nerves.
Aftermath: Now considered an SCP-9511-C entity, the sedated anomalous organism ambulated across the room by expanding and contracting its nerves in a manner akin to that of muscle tissue; the peripheral nervous system of the entity was apparently immune to the effects of the medicinal drugs used prior. The nerve fibres continued to stretch outwards and bonded with the inner surfaces of the room, eventually displacing a ceiling tile and hoisting the immobile body upwards into the crawlspace above. The power in the hospital went out at this time: later analysis revealed the nerves had interfaced with the circuitry of the building’s electrical components.
When Mobile Task Force Epsilon-17 arrived at the hospital twenty minutes later, the nervous system of the entity was distributed throughout the building’s HVAC and plumbing networks – members of the Mobile Task Force reported “spiderwebs” of tightly-woven nervous cells emerging from grates and vents in the hallways. The entity had apparently assimilated the nerves of several people in the hospital that were unable to evacuate in time and could control their bodies, using them as a means of combatting MTF Epsilon-17. The interior of the hospital was carefully incinerated and subsequently demolished.
Notes: Foundation researchers posit that the advanced “techniques” used by this SCP-9511-C entity in its survival are indicative of the steady proliferation of SCP-9511-B in the noosphere, enabling it to extend metaphysically probing “tendrils” to access other areas of human cognition outside of NOO-1202. If SCP-9511-B is capable of conscious thought, this would represent an increase in its “intellect” and problem-solving.
Addendum 9511.2: Analysis of SCP-9511-A and -B
Horizontal slice of NOO-1202 in ideatically-mapped noospace; SCP-9511-B is represented by the “X” shape to the centre-right.
As PREVAIL-Events began to grow in prevalence slowly but exponentially, the Foundation began a detailed investigation into the anomalous mechanics behind these events. Although well-preserved cadavers of SCP-9511-C instances were few in number at the time due to the biologically infeasible characteristics they possessed and the often-lengthy periods of time in between transfigurations, forensic analysis was conducted upon samples of material taken from accessible entity bodies.
Hundreds of new cell types, various previously unseen tissue structures, and a number of non-human organs were documented in the process – all contributed to the functioning of their respective biological scale within the entity and whilst anomalous in origin, most were non-anomalous in function and remained biologically possible, if unlikely or preternatural. Whilst the exact genetic material in individual instances obviously differed, Foundation pattern-recognition software was able to determine one key difference between baseline human DNA and that of the SCP-9511-C entities: a gene that would later be termed SCP-9511-A was missing in the latter.
The gene was carefully isolated and analysed – no obvious anomalies were observable with various mundane scientific techniques and even after an experiment was performed involving a small collection of human cells being exposed to varying levels of stress hormones, nothing happened to the gene. Progress came to a standstill after no activity was observed in the gene regardless of experimental setup or variables.
After several months with no observable results, researchers were beginning to suspect the SCP-9511 phenomenon was a less structured, more “intrinsic” anomaly that could happen to anyone experiencing sufficient levels of fear. Just as funding was about to be cut for the investigation, one researcher suggested a connection between SCP-9511 and the noosphere, a newly formed concept that was under scrutiny for its supposed lack of applicability to the anomalous.
By using a rudimentary noospheric probe configured to the brain of D-8823, who was subject to a specially designed sequence of stress-inducing chemicals and qualia, the metaphysical location of NOO-1202 within the sphere of human thought was established and an extremely small portion was mapped as D-8823 continued to experience progressively stronger levels of fear. This continued for some time until D-8823 made metaphysical contact with the “surface” of an anomaly later known as SCP-9511-B; readings from the probe indicated that the noospheric disruption as a thoughtform was composed of a unique "substance" unlike any seen previously.
Physical reactions from D-8823 escalated at this time; it became apparent that the noospheric anomaly was having some sort of effect on D-8823 and that a tangible anomaly could manifest within the body of the subject at a moment’s notice – the experiment was promptly aborted. D-8823 was then interviewed after being allowed to recollect himself as to glean information on the nature of the noospheric anomaly.
Addendum 9511.3: Interview With D-Class
Interviewee: D-8823
Interviewer: Senior Researcher Harold Langdon, Noospherics Division
Transcription Begins: 16:35
Langdon: Good afternoon, D-8823. Have you managed to recover from the test?
D-8823: Well… that’s certainly ten minutes of my life I’ll never forget.
Langdon: Right. Now, would you be able to describe your experiences with the SEANCE Device? Please start from the beginning.
D-8823: The what, sorry?
Langdon: The metal capsule you were placed in. The machine that made you scared.
D-8823: Oh sure. Well, when I saw the thing, I thought “it can’t be too bad, surely”? Even after you had told me what I would experience in there. It just looked like a big MRI machine. And everything was going fine – even as the guards strapped me down inside with those heavy restraints, I just closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. The guards left and everything was silent and dim for a minute or two. It was a bit like the feeling you get as you’re buckled into a rollercoaster, you know?
Langdon: Thank you, D-8823. What happened next, though?
D-8823: Ah right. Well then, the world inside that tube just… waned. It’s hard to describe; I could see everything surface within the chamber just fine, but I felt “somewhere else”. Like my vision was dark but normal at the same time. I think it was because of that round metal bar above my head.
Langdon: Ah yes – that would be the sensory aspect of SEANCE. Nothing permanent. Just eliminating external variables for the test.
D-8823: Good. Well, then it felt like… again, this is hard to describe… but it felt like someone had opened my head up and was slowly filling it with fear. The fear felt intrusive. Black. Uncomfortably warm. It obviously wasn’t coming from me. But it was empty: it wasn’t “about” anything, distressing as it was.
D-8823 pauses so Langdon can finish writing notes.
Langdon: Continue.
D-8823: Alright. Well, the fear was getting slowly worse every second until it spilled out of my head and into my body – blood was pumping through my chest like a sideways waterfall and my palms felt as though I’d just washed them with sweat. I’m sure you can imagine the terror I’ve been through already as a D-Class, so this feeling was unwelcome but not unfamiliar. It continued like this for a while. Eventually it got to a point where I was pushed past my limit with the fear. Then after that limit had been broken, the feeling of terror surpassed whatever previously unrecognised mental boundary I had. And so on, until I simply couldn’t bear it anymore. Then things… changed.
Langdon: Changed how?
D-8823 pauses for several seconds and stares at the wall behind Researcher Langdon.
D-8823: If going through that terror was sinking into a lukewarm tarpit, head submerged and unable to breathe, then this new feeling was hitting the bottom; a facet of some vast, partially visible object sunk into the depths. It was jelly-like – I began to sink through it as well, but its texture was different to the dark quagmire above.
Langdon’s eyelids widen slightly as he listens to D-8823.
Langdon: What happened next?
D-8823: As I slipped through the gelatinous mass, I began to sort of… feel it. Not physically of course, and I don’t think even mentally. It was sort of a new experience entirely; I think they call it a “quale”?
Langdon: Yes, that would be the correct term.
D-8823: Well that deep, desolate surface… as I became immersed in it, something inside me changed.
D-8823 pauses for several seconds.
Langdon: D-8823, if you are experiencing lingering distress from this encounter, we can stop the interview for now and resume later.
D-8823: I wasn’t talking about a mental change.
D-8823 pauses and looks Langdon directly in the eye.
D-8823: It’s a part of humanity, Harold.
Suddenly, D-8823 violently and rapidly begins expelling hundreds of marble-sized “eyes” from various orifices, attached by small optic nerves to the inside of his body. His skin becomes loose and slack as though the eyes were previously filling the inside of his body. The eyes are autonomous and ambulate around the interview table towards Langdon, who attempts to flee. Several of the eyes pop upon contact with the researcher, releasing a necrosis-inducing slurry that eats away at his flesh.
Langdon screams as the bone on his leg is exposed, viscera falling onto the floor around it. He then undergoes his own PREVAIL-Event involving his muscular system detaching from his skeletal system, the former using pieces of the latter as rudimentary weapons that detonate into bony shrapnel upon contact with the other entity.
Two guards quickly enter the interview room, although their firearms prove largely ineffective against the esoteric physiology of the two SCP-9511-C entities. The guards rapidly receive fatal injuries from the instances and the door to the interview room is closed and locked remotely to prevent the egress of the entities. Neurotoxins are shortly dispersed through the room’s ventilation system and are sufficient to neutralise the SCP-9511-C instances.
The autopsy of what remained of D-8823's body revealed that he had in fact gone through a PREVAIL-Event whilst in the SEANCE device, contrary to the previous notion that he had merely “contacted” SCP-9511-B. This event triggered an externally invisible change wherein D-8823's non-anomalous optic nerves pervaded the entirety of his body and generated clusters of small eyes, replacing internal organs and somehow maintaining his life functions.
The explosive bones of the entity formed from Dr. Langdon’s body were extracted from the interview chamber and remotely detonated. Examination of the remains revealed a hyper-complex organic explosive formed from modified ATP and simple nitrates. The detached muscular system twitched upon recovery, presumably due to latent stress, but was otherwise incinerated without incident.
Curiously, the non-anomalous eyes of D-8823 were never recovered and could not be accounted for by the viscera in the interview room. Site-170 staff are advised to exercise caution until the absence of the eyes is explained.
From:
To:
CC:
Subject:
karsyn.sloane@scp.site.170
hank.lancaster@scp.site.170
none
Re: Pertinent Anomalous Development
Thank you for your correspondence, Frank.
I had no idea this anomaly existed until now - I had a strange feeling something was amiss at this site; those secretive containment chambers at the very edge of the complex always rubbed me the wrong way. No-one really seemed to know what was in them. The fact that those things inside the chambers used to be human disturbs me.
And the eyes… for a while I've felt there was this unrealised sense of dread lingering amongst my (formerly) senior researchers; I guess those inexplicably missing organs explain it.
This whole situation is quite frankly terrifying. The threat to the Veil is bad enough if people keep turning into their own murder-monsters when sufficiently frightened. And of course, the LK potential: this thing is a pathogen of the mind; if even one SCP-9511-C instance remains uncontained out there, a runaway cycle of terror and transfiguration could persist until even we might find it infeasible to contain.
And yes, as you mentioned, this looks particularly nasty for us at the Foundation. With the number of anomalies rising daily, who knows when a breach in containment could result in an entire site being turned into a real-life body-horror film.
I've added a few more significant recent incidents I've confirmed are related to SCP-9511 from the files we have access to - it's evident that the memeplex is spreading in noospace.
We'd better liaison with Noospherics or Paragenetics soon - see if they have any ideas about cutting down the growth of this thing, metaphysically or genetically.
Keep up the good fight.
Karsyn Sloane
Site-170 Research Head
Secure, Contain, Protect
▽ Close Attachment
Addendum 9511.4: Notable Modern SCP-9511-C Instances
A collection of tissues taken from the remains of various "iterations" of SCP-9511-68.
Instance Identification: SCP-9511-C-68
Date of Transfiguration: 10/9/1999
Location: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Inciting Situation: A middle-aged woman was driving along a moderately busy freeway when she underwent a seizure; the woman had no history of this condition. The episode caused her muscles to stiffen and induced a partial loss of consciousness for several seconds, resulting in her car slowing and drifting out of its lane. Most other nearby vehicles took appropriate action and swerved to avoid collision but one particular driver could not move out the way due to them being surrounded by other vehicles.
This led to the two cars colliding and resulted in the woman's car rolling on its side, being crumpled by repeated impacts with the road. The partially intact car rapidly lost speed which caused other cars on the road to hit the wreckage. Miraculously, the woman had survived this incident, albeit with heavy degloving injuries across her left arm. With the woman in extreme shock, a PREVAIL-Event occurred shortly after.
SCP-9511-C Description: The remainder of the woman's skin began to slough off, and a tough, fibrous black substance was revealed underneath. The resulting entity displayed incredible strength and resilience to physical trauma - this became apparent when an additional car inadvertently crashed into the pile of wreckage and crumpled the instance. Seconds later, it forced its way out of the debris bearing fractures across its surface before fatally dismembering a nearby victim of the crash and consuming their arm. Subsequently, it rapidly regenerated the cracks in its body via the rapid extension of existing fibres.
Aftermath: Foundation agents were quick to arrive on scene due to their involvement in an unrelated nearby anomalous incident; their sidearms proved ineffective against the entity's mass and two agents were partially consumed by the entity while still alive, causing it to regenerate its damaged tissue. When a Foundation combat drone arrived in the airspace above the scene of the calamity, a missile was fired towards the instance, successfully obliterating the black matter. It quickly became visible that the destroyed substance was only a thin layer covering the remainder of the entity's body, a collection of pink adipose tissue capable of altering its shape - SCP-9511-C-68 used this property to form into a sphere to absorb subsequent blasts.
When MTF Epsilon-17 arrived to confront the entity with incendiary weaponry, the sphere melted to reveal a brown urchin-like construct beneath, capable of shooting neurotoxic spikes at high velocities. When the brittle layer of this entity was shattered, it revealed a large mass of pale green neural tissue vaguely resembling a human brain that possessed telepathic capabilities. The brain-like organ sent various memetic hazards to the members of Epsilon-17, causing three casualties.
When the brain was destroyed via rockets fired from an overhead helicopter, the following iterations were revealed underneath and subsequently terminated in order:
- A seemingly innocuous grey sphere that inflated to several metres in diameter in a fraction of a second upon being approached, crushing a member of Epsilon-17.
- An organic mass resembling the human small intestine but arranged in a "maze" shape, expelling a strong hallucinogenic vapour.
- A purple gaseous superorganism that dissipated into the air.
The entity was considered neutralised upon the dissolving of the gas in the atmosphere. However, individuals nearby to the gas as it dissipated have reported recurring intrusive thoughts regarding breathing, the colour purple, and fluids, and are to be monitored.
Notes: This instance of SCP-9511-C represents a substantial increase in complexity when compared to previous instances. Additionally, it is unknown if the "sublayers" were biologically generated upon the PREVAIL-Event or were created "upon demand".
The meat stall where SCP-9511-C-272 sought refuge.
Instance Identification: SCP-9511-C-272
Date of Transfiguration: 5/10/2015
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Inciting Situation: A tourist went for a night walk through a somewhat dangerous district of the city and encountered a local gang armed with various close-quarters weapons; the group demanded the tourist's wallet and this caused the man to flee. The tourist was cornered in an alleyway upon which the criminals pinned the man down and retrieved his wallet - the individual retaliated with force, causing the gang to respond by inflicting several nonlethal stab wounds and lacerations across the man's body.
One member of the group was later interrogated and admitted to jokingly commenting that the gang had "butchered" the man; this trigger phrase is believed to have influenced in part the resulting PREVAIL-Event.
SCP-9511-C Description: The PREVAIL-Event began with the man collapsing and slowly losing consciousness after his blood levels decreased from the injuries; this caused the gang to retreat in distress as they thought they had inadvertently killed the individual. Sometime later during the night, the flesh of the tourist broke into chunks of various sizes, each of which was capable of ambulating by itself and possessed minor control over its form. This left behind a skeleton lying in a pool of blood.
Security footage from a nearby market shows a collection of motile tissues and offal rolling into a meat stall before assembling themselves on hooks and trays, then changing their appearance to perfectly match the non-anomalous pre-existing meat. Foundation pattern-recognition software embedded in the security network flagged the recording as anomalous, and a team of agents was sent out during the night to secure the meat stand.
Aftermath: The operation was successful and all the products of the meat stand were taken into a nearby Foundation site for analysis; during its time in a containment chamber, the flesh displayed assimilation capabilities with the non-anomalous meat that had been brought in alongside it for fears of contamination. The resulting conglomerate attempted to force its way out of the containment chamber and when this was unsuccessful, changed its appearance to resemble a large collection of cooked meat - a portion of the gestalt entity calcified to form bony "dinner plates" upon which the fake meat rested.
This mimetic trap obviously did not result in an incident, although attending personnel did report that the sensory aspects of the faux food were unnaturally alluring; a potential compulsive hazard was suspected. A mouse was released into the chamber to test what interaction would occur - it began eating the flesh of the entity and hours later, underwent an identical PREVAIL-Event to the one that led to the creation of the meat in the first place, causing the SCP-9511-C instance to grow in size.
Notes: This is the first iteration of an SCP-9511-C entity displaying characteristics reminiscent of ambush predators, suggesting SCP-9511-B is "learning" from other portions of the noosphere to shape the behaviour of SCP-9511-A instances during a PREVAIL-Event.
Footage from MTF Epsilon-17's retrieval of SCP-9511-C-638.
Instance Identification: SCP-9511-C-638
Date of Transfiguration: 12/04/2022
Location: London, UK
Inciting Situation: The exact details of this PREVAIL-Event remain obscured due to the long period the resultant entity was uncontained for, nevertheless, a rough sequence of events has been established.
In the early morning, a pair of experienced thieves armed with handguns broke into a residence with the intention of stealing valuables. The criminals had been monitoring the activity of the house and had established that its two occupants would have drove to work together before dawn. On that day, the woman of the household had forgotten her work computer and returned home to retrieve it whilst her husband stayed at work.
Upon the woman arriving home and unlocking the front door, the thieves panicked and locked themselves in the bedroom, hoping that the woman would not notice their presence. The laptop was in the bedroom however, and the woman was confused upon realising she could not open the door. She somehow managed to carefully break the seal on the door, suggesting that the door to the bedroom locking by itself was an occasional occurrence.
By this point, the robbers had hidden themselves in the room; one in the closet and one behind the door. The woman did not immediately notice their presence but upon turning around she presumably came face-to-face with a gun pointed at her. This initiated the PREVAIL-Event.
SCP-9511-C Description: The woman's skin instantly changed composition, becoming grey, rubbery and slack. The instance's body shape became more contorted and exaggerated - all limbs of the entity extended to roughly twice their usual length and its digits extended by an even greater factor; additionally, two extra digits formed on each limb and all extremities ended in sharp, chitinous "claws".
Several alterations were made to the head and face - the entity's eyes turned completely black and large white "eyespots" appeared on the forehead. All of the instance's hair fell out. The jaw of SCP-9511-C-638 was then pulled out by the entity; its remaining upper teeth sharpened and elongated. The nose and ears of the entity also retreated into its skin.
SCP-9511-C-638 possessed the ability to move itself very quickly in an awkward, lanky fashion, although generally wandered around at a significantly slow pace when not occupied by another activity. Notably, this entity is believed to have had increased intellectual capabilities when compared to prior SCP-9511-C instances, evident in its basic speech. It was also capable of above-average problem-solving for an SCP-9511-C entity.
The most notable attribute of SCP-9511-C-638 was its effect on human perception, believed to be the result on an internal neurological organ emitting special telepathic signals - this effectively made the entity appear as the woman it originally was, apparent through all senses. This mimetic camouflage was not perfect, however, and those interacting with the instance occasionally caught "glimpses" of its true appearance in their peripheral vision at irregular intervals. This effect could also be applied selectively to distort human perception of nearby objects.
Aftermath: Instantly after the transfiguration, the entity fatally slashed both intruders with its appendages and spent several hours meandering the house. The husband of the woman returned home later that day, having attempted to call his wife and being distressed that she was not answering the phone. The man's suspicions were allayed upon witnessing what he believed to be his wife; a series of reassuring conversations were presumably held under the influence of the perception-affecting properties of SCP-9511-638, which also extended to concealing the corpses of the intruders.
The man continued to operate under the illusion that his wife was present for the next few days - the entity was even brought in the car to the shared workplace where coworkers steadily reported the behaviour of the supposed woman as "odd". The work building was shut down after human remains were reported in a bathroom stall, resulting from an attack on an employee by the entity.
Embedded Foundation agents seized control over the investigation after forensic analysis of the remains revealed an abnormal injury pattern; an SCP-9511-C instance was suspected but a sweep of the building revealed no anomalies. When the investigators could not contact the husband of the fake woman, another attack was suspected and a portion of MTF Epsilon-17 was sent to investigate the residence.
The husband in the relationship could not be located and the woman displayed unusual behaviour such as sniffing the air around the MTF members, using incorrect grammar, and manipulating her eyes in unusual ways. When a member saw the woman's true appearance in a mirror for a fraction of a second, he pointed his firearm at the entity, triggering a hostile reaction from the instance. SCP-9511-C-638 was successfully neutralised with no casualties, and upon its death, its human facade was removed and the corpses of the previous intruders and the partner of the woman was found.
Notes: This was the first known instance of an SCP-9511-C entity displaying long-term perception-altering properties. It has also been speculated that the unusually high problem-solving capacity of this instance was a result of a direct connection to SCP-9511-B; the noospheric entity may have been "guiding" the actions of the physical one.
Microscopic view of SCP-9511-C-2807 particles.
Instance Identification: SCP-9511-C-2807
Date of Transfiguration: 16/02/2026
Location: Sydney, Australia
Inciting Situation: The exact triggering circumstances remain unconfirmed for this SCP-9511-C instance, formed from a female university student - it is believed to have been related to their persistent body dysmorphia, although concerningly, the PREVAIL-Event is not believed to have been initiated by a single distressing event, rather a prolonged period of anxiety.
SCP-9511-C Description: The woman immediately underwent slight changes to her body that appeared to result in the dissolution of her feelings of distress; it is believed that she was anomalously incapable of recognising such changes as abnormal and instead experienced slight elation from her worries being solved. The changes to her body were believed to be somewhat antimemetic to others; her family and associates did not seem to notice the changes to her appearance.
Microscopic spore-like particles were constantly exhaled by the resulting entity and exuded from its skin - contact with each particle by another individual had a small chance of inducing a similar, arbitrary change to the event described above. The "infected" individual would then go on to generate their own particles after their transfiguration.
However, all those affected by SCP-9511-C-2807 did not experience a permanent change - rather, their new physical structure had to be constantly "maintained" by a network of the particles throughout their bloodstream. This system was not effective in the long-term and therefore victims of SCP-9511-C-2807 would inevitably revert to their initial appearance; unique deformities would also appear.
Aftermath: The existence of the original SCP-9511-C-2807 remained unknown for roughly two weeks - during this time, 64 individuals, including most of the immediate family of the woman, experienced their own transfigurations. After this period, it became apparent that an anomaly was present; numerous symptoms of infection by the particles included:
- Teeth falling out spontaneously.
- Significant hair overgrowth.
- Severe and obvious skin discolouration to a yellowish-hue.
- Atrophy of muscle tissue, causing a "wasted" bodily appearance.
- Fracturing of the nails.
During this time, the antimemetic effect also faded, leaving victims horrified to discover their new physical identity. A cure for SCP-9511-C-2807 "spores" was quickly developed and applied to those affected, although reversing their transfiguration proved impractical.
Notes: This iteration of SCP-9511-C was the first to display contagious properties. It is also one of the earliest PREVAIL-Events to develop a solution to a non-life-threatening problem; a scenario becoming increasingly more common as SCP-9511-B proliferates itself.
A CRITICAL CONTAINMENT BREACH OF SCP-9511 HAS OCCURRED AT SITE-170
ALL EXTANT PERSONNEL ARE TO ATTEMPT TO NEUTRALISE SCP-9511-C ENTITIES WHERE CIRCUMSTANCES ALLOW
PROLIFERATION OF SCP-9511-B WITHIN NOO-1202 HAS RECENTLY ESCALATED TO:
4.9%
▽ Close Recovered Automatic Transcript
Heavy breathing and keyboard clacking.
Silence.
A female voice whispers:
Sloane here - I've taken shelter in one of the observation rooms. The ones adjacent to the containment chambers.
We aren't really sure what happened just now, but it had something to do with that pair of eyes from a while back. They just jumped out of a vent and pushed themselves into the orbits of Researcher Johansson, bursting his normal eyes in the process. It was awful… he was conscious throughout the whole thing and screaming unintelligibly as who-knows-what the eyes were doing to his body.
The medical personnel carefully carried him to the operating room and began trying to take the eyes out - those things were keeping him awake somehow while the surgery took place; messing with his nervous system… I'll need amnestics after this.
Retching.
johansson_surgery.jpg
They eventually managed to take out the eyes, but what they found behind them was completely… alien. Like if someone who had never seen human anatomy tried to reassemble a body. Oh gosh… there were teeth in his muscles. Pools of green pus. And the eyes were growing into his flesh like grapes grow on vines. The worst part? It seemed like the mind-altering capabilities of SCP-9511 hadn't fully transpired within Johansson - he was a stranger in his own body, aware of everything but in control of nothing.
Then it all just burst out.
A pile of his skin and blood was left behind on the operating table. You could almost say the thing that exited his body was the "ultimate" SCP-9511-C entity: tendrils of flesh groping their way around the room, veins of bright-blue blood spilling out onto the floor, slivers of bones on the outside instead of the inside…
We all scrambled outside the operating theatre and someone sounded the breach alarm. Security personnel tried attacking that thing with everything they had: bullets, bombs, and fire - but that thing just kept regenerating its twisted flesh. It eventually caught some brave guard who was trying to force a grenade down its misshapen throat, but instead of killing him, its eyes retracted and these nerve bundles came out, going up through his nose in an instant.
It apparently had the capacity to artificially induce, or at least enhance PREVAIL-Events. The poor guard started shrieking as his flesh mummified and his fluids drained out onto the floor for whatever sick "survival mechanism" that SCP-9511-B had -
A low, gently reverberating inhuman exhale is heard.
Silence for several seconds.
Squelching noises, becoming quieter.
A female voice whispers at a very low volume:
Oh gosh… it just came past the door. Didn't see or hear me apparently.
What was I saying… well the entity formed from Johansson "merged" with the living mummy made from the guard's body. Fused together, becoming an even larger pile of flesh.
It went around terrorising other people, not even necessarily hurting them, but integrating them into itself by way of the PREVAIL-Events. It's currently a massive pile of tissues and organs just oozing through the corridors.
By this point about half the people onsite were gone, lost to this meat leviathan, and more starting their own PREVAIL-Events even without the help of this thing - just out of sheer horror. It grabbed them up first thing and added them to its collection of living viscera. I'm sure by this point, whoever's reading this has sent out an MTF or whatever - a typical response - but this isn't a typical breach. We could be looking at a weak Tiamat here if things get bad enough.
Wait crap, I haven't even thought to check the NOO-1202 monitors.
Shuffling and keyboard clacking.
Oh gosh.
Silence.
It's reached 5%. The Site-170 incident must have been the last straw.
Okay forget the MTF. Whoever's out there, get Noospherics going immediately. Cut dash-B out of human thought-space; I don't care if it irreversibly damages our interpretation of anything. We should've excised it from the noosphere when there wasn't an LK on the horizon.
I'm activating Site-170's nuclear warhead - I have the necessary permissions. Forget the Veil - if this creature gets to a nearby city or something, it will be the beginning of the end.
Rapid, quiet footsteps.
A door creaks open almost imperceptibly - a blaring alarm becomes obvious.
I'm in the corridor; heading to the control room.
Work-boots clatter on concrete flooring.
The clattering stops.
Crap.
An unintelligible, distorted sound emanates from nearby.
A low, droning exhale begins.
The exhale stops; a garbled whine rings out as if in a state of alarm.
Silence.
A female scream is heard - very fast footsteps and a gushing noise persist.
An overwhelming shriek is heard after a wet tearing sound.
The breach alarms stop; nothing is heard.
A raspy, distorted female voice cries out:
It's tearing at my skull. It's in my head. It's in my head!
A low, resounding groan of defeat rings out.
But I… I understand it now.
A pause, followed by a briefly lucid female voice.
It's trying to help us. Make us better. Force us to adapt and survive.
Heavy, rapid breathing mixed with groans and gasps.
Silence.
…
A barely intelligible, nonhuman voice is heard uttering the following:
"I am always going to be a part of us all."
Close Footnotes