Koji47

Item #: SCP-3744

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Currently, no procedures for the secure containment of SCP-3744 exist. What follows are measures to keep a currently identified instance of SCP-3744 present in one location for continued study. Since SCP-3744 seems to demonstrate no will or volition beyond its connection with the subject, it is a current working theory that SCP-3744 can be kept localised indefinitely.

This is accomplished by keeping in secure confinement a human subject who had already become aware by some means deliberate or accidental, of the existence of SCP-3744¹. This subject is kept bound in a standard human containment cell designed to prevent self-harm. The subject may require intravenous feeding and a permanent automated waste elimination solution.

This subject must be connected to a heart monitor and several other audible warning systems to alert of an impending or actual expiration of the subject. (Whilst full remote monitoring of vital signs is warranted, no audiovisual feed must be present; this is to prevent accidental auditory or visual communication of the details of SCP-3744's existence to be communicated to an individual monitoring such feeds.)

A Class D resource, with temperament and personality traits conducive to reliably following instructions, must be on permanent standby close to the subject's cell. In the event of expiration, actual or impending, the Class D must be introduced to the subject's cell, where they will follow the pre-given instruction to open the envelope on the small table provided.This envelope will contain the description of SCP-3744, hereafter known as instruction set 3744-0B.

Once this has been acquired, SCP-3744 will change its focus to the Class D resource, who will now become the new subject. Once this has happened, three Security personnel will carry out instruction set 3744-0C, 3744-0D, and 3744-0E respectively, which will essentially replace the expired restrained subject with the new one.²

Description: [REDACTED]

On the necessity of Cautionary Redaction Order CRO-3744.1

SCP-3744 is brought into existence solely via the familiar awareness of the existence of SCP-3744. Familiar awareness, in this context, is hereby defined as knowing not only that the entity in question exists, (this alone - along with being aware of its designation - is not harmful outside of normal security implications) but knowing about it's behaviour, appearance, and negative effects with any accuracy.

The test for familiar awareness is whether or not an individual can differentiate SCP-3744 from any other SCP. If no awareness of SCPs exist, then the test for familiar awareness is whether or not an individual can describe SCP-3744 with any accuracy.

If results of either test is positive, then familiar awareness has been acquired.³

In short, if an individual acquires familiar awareness of SCP-3744, then SCP-3744 initiates permanent focus on those individuals, causing the entity to manifest in our reality, and be bound to the individual who possesses the familiar awareness.

In 94% of officially recorded cases of SCP-3744 by the Foundation, the subjects have died either from heart or other vital organ failure brought on by prolonged periods of extreme adrenal stress (fear) states, or committed suicide in an effort to escape the former.

Under no circumstances or for any reason is familiar awareness of SCP-3744 to be acquired, or the acquisition thereof risked, by any member of the Foundation.

Under no circumstances is information regarding SCP-3744 beyond non-familiar awareness of its existence and designation, to be acquired by any human being, recorded via any medium, or transmitted verbally or otherwise to any human consciousness under any circumstances or for any reason. This should be enforced by the Foundation to the most extreme degree possible.

This current reader of this dossier should be aware of the above instructions in the most severe and immediate sense.

Experiment Log 3744-01: A Class D resource is introduced to the containment room housing a currently active subject, and given familiar awareness of SCP-3744.

Purpose of experiment: To determine the effects of the above scenario, and to extrapolate further theories regarding the pathology of SCP-3744.

Conditions: Currently active subject is in a secure chair, with active waste removal function and monitoring equipment as outlined. Light conditions in the room are minimal, with a single controlled light source illuminating only the currently active subject and his immediate vicinity. Opposite the upright containment unit, is a standard chair and a small table beside it. On the table is an envelope containing a copy of instruction set 3744-0B. This chair and table are bolted to the floor.

Log Block A

Researcher overseeing experiment: Agent William J. Kirkwise

Existing subject in contact with SCP-3744: Agent William J. Kirkwise (Hereafter SCP-3744-A)

Newly introduced subject: D-47831

<Log begins after initial introduction of the new subject to the containment room>

<Begin Log Block>

D-47831: Hello? Um… are you awake? Are you… alive?

SCP-3744-A: I'm alive. In a scientific sense.

D-47831: (jumps back) Oh my God. I, I'm sorry. You weren't moving. I wasn't sure if you were…

SCP-3744-A: So, you're the Class D they selected, based on my recommendations?

D-47831: I guess… Am I, am I not right for this… whatever this is?

SCP-3744-A: Nonsense. You'll do just fine. Please, take a seat. (D-47831 sits.) There's an envelope on the table beside you. Please, open it and read it.

D-47831: They, uh, they told me what to do. (D-47831 takes the letter from the table. Opens it.) Why is it so dark in here anyway?

SCP-3744-A: Controlled light levels are part of the experiment. Are you scared of the dark?

D-47831: I always found the dark comforting, kind of safe. Somewhere to hide. (Removes instruction set 3744-0B) Y'know, they said if I do this correctly, they're open to the possibility of letting me go. Is there any truth to that?

SCP-3744-A: My career has taught me that anything is possible.

D-47831: (laugh) I see. Well, need to stay positive, I guess. (Pause) SCP 3744…

SCP-3744-A: The very same. Please, read. There's no need to orate, or read aloud at all. Just read naturally, at your own pace.

D-47831: Okay…

(Approximately one minute passes.)

D-47831: (low voice, to himself) vaguely humanoid… (aloud) ████████, ███-████████, without the definition or detail of a ████ █████… Sir? With respect? This is some creepy-ass shit.

SCP-3744-A: You've no idea. Please, continue.

(Some minutes pass.)

D-47831: Damn… Okay. I'm done. Now what?

SCP-3744-A: Nothing, that's it.

D-47831: That's it? Do I… do I go?

SCP-3744-A: Not just yet. Why don't you hang around for a few minutes? Let it sink in. I uh, I don't get many visitors.

D-47831: I'm not surprised.

SCP-3744-A: Why? (Pause) Don't be shy.

D-47831: Well, um, no offense… but… you kinda look like Tetsuo. You know, the Iron Man?

SCP-3744-A: I get the reference. You're kinder than the last D-Class I dealt with. He said I looked like Stephen Hawking blew up a Radio Shack.

D-47831: Some people… speak without thinking.

SCP-3744-A: Well said, █████. You don't mind if I call you █████, do you?

D-47831: You trying to get me in trouble? You know we can't use our old names. And responding is using.

SCP-3744-A: That's okay. No-one will hear. Monitoring isn't possible in here. Can't be allowed.

D-47831: Why not?

SCP-3744-A: Let's just say that one of us might let something slip… Ruin the carefully planned structure of the experiment.

D-47831: Okay. Well, I guess you can call me whatever you like.

SCP-3744-A: You went to college, didn't you, █████?

D-47831: Yeah, I majored in Philosophy.

SCP-3744-A: Philosophy? Tell me about that.

D-47831: Well it's… kind of a big subject.

SCP-3744-A: Where did you study?

D-47831: University of █████████. But then you knew that, right?

SCP-3744-A: Yes. I know everything about you, more or less. Which is why I'm puzzled about you.

D-47831: Puzzled how?

SCP-3744-A: It's just that I gave very specific instructions for a very specific subject, and you're not it.

D-47831: Well, um, sorry? I just turned up like they told me to. They made some promises if I agreed to comply to the letter with every instruction. I didn't really have much of a choice.

SCP-3744-A: I know that the alternative they give is… not much of an alternative. But you're not an incorrect selection, █████, just different than I had requested. It shouldn't affect the test, not really. So, tell me something else. Something about what you studied.

D-47831: Okay. Well, my favourite thing I learnt, was Marcus Aurel-

(D-47831 (Hereafter know as SCP-3744-B) tries to jump back in the bolted chair. Failing this, he stands upright. Appears agitated and fearful. His gaze is focused in the north-east corner of the room, beyond SCP-3744-A. There is no light in this corner of the room.⁴)

SCP-3744-B: (Shouting, pointing) What is that? What the fuck is that?

SCP-3744-A: Tell me what you see.

SCP-3744-B: (Shouting) What do I see? What is that?

SCP-3744-A: Tell me what you see.

SCP-3744-B: (Shouting) It's staring at me, man. It's fucking staring at me!

SCP-3744-A: What are the eyes like?

SCP-3744-B: They're staring at me! They… fuck… man, why… why is its ████ bent back like that?

SCP-3744-A: Let the record show that subject D-47… uh, let's see… 8… 3… 1… has made contact with SCP 3744.

SCP-3744-B: (Shouting) SCP? What the… is this the thing that was in the envelope? That I just read about? (Physically responds, as though to a threat) It's coming towards me. Oh God… it's coming towards me… it's not even moving.

<End Log Block>

Log Block B

Log begins after SCP-3744-B has been in contact with SCP-3744 for a period of 28 minutes.

<Begin Log Block>
(SCP-3744-B is in a kneeling position at the edge of visible luminescence. He has his head bowed. He raises his head towards the north-east corner of the room.

SCP-3744-B: Oh God… It's still there.

SCP-3744-A: How that thought will become engraved on your mind… like claw-marks, scratched into a basement door… It's still there…

SCP-3744-B: (Head bowed again) Even when I close my eyes… I, I can…

SCP-3744-A: You can feel it… like it's moving about beneath your eyelids… like a tapeworm….

SCP-3744-B: Why you doin' this to me man?

SCP-3744-A: Because, that's what you're here for. You did some bad things, we need someone whose past crimes alleviate the guilt that we feel for having to sacrifice people like this, and so….

SCP-3744-B: And so that's it. You need someone to test your, your fuckin' mind warfare shit, your fucked-up torture shit to make people talk, and you tell yourself it's okay because I done some bad shit years ago.

SCP-3744-A: The last part is right, █████. But the motivation is wrong. You think this is an interrogation technique?

SCP-3744-B: You made me tell you my name, right?

SCP-3744-A: That was for my own curiosity. You see, as I said before, my initial requirements for a subject were very precise. I wanted someone caucasian, analytical, with a history of depression, an interest in art, and a strong history of the voluntary fostering of fear.

SCP-3744-B: Fostering of fear?

SCP-3744-A: Horror movies, █████. Scary stories. Someone who deliberately generated palpable fear for recreation. Someone who was unconsciously reliving some childhood trauma, locked in the basement, things shifting in the dark beyond the light under the door… That, in short, was not you, █████. Which puzzled me. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked you your name.

SCP-3744-B: So why me? (Shouts loudly, suddenly - a series of short, loud noises)

SCP-3744-A: Has it changed?

SCP-3744-B: It's closer, man… (Crying) Man I can't take the way it's looking at me… Why won't it do anything?

SCP-3744-A: To answer your question, █████ - uh, your previous question - I'm not sure why you. But I had a suspicion. █████ ████████. I remember that name. You were in all the █████████ papers, but that's not why I remember, exactly. █████ ████████ who went to the University of █████████ raped and killed a young college girl, ██████ █████████. Turned out, she was daughter of Senator ██████ █. █████████. The Senator was married to a man who, I think they said, was an accountant in some unimportant wing of the Federal Government.

SCP-3744-B: I didn't mean that, dude. I mean, yeah, I did it, but… it, things got outta hand man. (Crying) I never expected that shit to happen. Make this stop, man.

SCP-3744-A: That's what I was hoping to do, █████. I was hoping to end this. (Subject puts hands on head.) Not for you, however. For me. I thought, perhaps, that when you were… exposed, for want of a better word, that it would jump from me to you, like a tick bloated with parasitic blood would hop from one mongrel to the next. But it hasn't happened.

SCP-3744-B: What do you mean, man? You, you, you see this too?

SCP-3744-A: No. At least, not exactly. I see the same eyes… deep, and lifeless, abandoned mineshaft eyes, lost among the catacomb skulls and suddenly old music starts to play, notes carrying through the scrambling dark… (Silence for 20 seconds) But I see them in a different place… over there, far behind you.

SCP-3744-B: Then we're both fucked man… we're both fucked.

SCP-3744-A: Indeed. █████, we're both the victim of the same harsh logic. That husband, he was far more than just an accountant. And he worked for a group very different to the Federal Government. And I think… even though he couldn't know quite what what you were in for, he probably figured from my machinations that it was… suitable.

SCP-3744-B: What did you do, William?

SCP-3744-A: I forced a psychiatrist to tell me exactly what drove her patient to suicide. In great detail. She begged me not to. I was investigating… it. I had to break her arm to get her to tell me. I thought she was protecting her patient-doctor confidentiality… There's a wonderful irony in there somewhere.

SCP-3744-B: This doesn't wear off, does it?

SCP-3744-A: █████, I must apologize to you. You were not supposed to be here. You were brought here by intrigue and subversion, for the purposes, I presume, of personal revenge. It was beyond my knowledge or control, but yet, for that I am truly sorry.

SCP-3744-B: What'll happen to me, man? Will I, will I look like you? Hair gone white, like every night you get scared to death then shocked back to life?

SCP-3744-A: (Unintelligible)…fragments of a nightmare return, torn limbs raining from the sky…

(There is silence for 68 seconds, then the sounds of SCP-3744-B crying.)

SCP-3744-A: (Pressing a button) Guards, you can come in now. Please stress-test your SD equipment one more time, and then follow the instruction sets to the letter.

<End Log Block>

Addendum A:

Regarding "The Scream":

There has been a noted frequency of preoccupation by subjects with the quartet of world-famous artworks, known as "The Scream" (or originally "The Scream of Nature") by Edvard Munch. It has been speculated that a) ███ ███████ ██ █ █████████ ██ SCP-3744, ██ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ██ █████, or b) it is a representation of the mental state which SCP-3744 engenders in its subjects. While b) may be coincidentally and retroactively true, a) is unlikely, as Munch died in 1944, thirty-four years after the latest version of The Scream was created (1910) and lived a full life after this work which saw the creation of numerous other artworks on numerous themes. He died aged eighty, and from natural causes. These aspects are not consistent with subjects of SCP-3744.

Addendum B:

Instruction set 3744-0G:

To the esteemed members of the 05 Council:

My name is William J. Kirkwise and I am currently the single living individual who is known to be in contact with SCP-3744. Please take the following with the utmost seriousness and extreme caution, and note that under no circumstances or for any reason is any member of the council to investigate into the pathology or otherwise of SCP-3744. To become aware of any aspect of the pathology of this SCP, is to initiate certain inevitable death in a most unpleasant and prolonged manner, and to risk the spread of this "infection" (for want of a better phrase) to other council members and beyond.

Please consider this case as a high-level cognitohazard where awareness itself is the single active contaminant.

Over the last two years, I have conducted any and all research into this SCP, and I have devised ways of conducting research, utilizing the assistance of Foundation resources (including Foundation personnel and Class D resources), in such a manner as Foundation personnel would conduct research and experiments without ever knowing what they are studying, and in many cases will not be aware that they are researching or gathering data at all. In addition, in the likely event of my death, my role as solitary, qualified researcher will need to be replaced.

Yet, the Council has repeatedly decided to grant me continued full control and significant leeway in regards to SCP-3744, based on, by its nature, no other viable evidence. For this unusual and significant courtesy, I am sincerely and deeply thankful.

However, I hereby propose that the extreme difficulty and risk inherent in the above-mentioned continued study, and the fact that in my expert opinion, any resulting research would be unlikely to result in a procedure or method of safe separation between SCP-3744 and its 'host', requires that an alternative be employed: that any and all information regarding the SCP in question, and any and all individuals with knowledge of the SCP, regardless of status, employment or impact - including Foundation personnel of even the highest rank - be destroyed.

This stands as my unbiased expert recommendation.

Yours in Continued Service,

William J. Kirkwise

Addendum C:

On the Execution of instruction set 3744-0G (A Response from the Council):

(Excerpt)

"The only thing that should interfere with the current recommendation in instruction set 3744-0G - hereafter known as the Kirkwise Protocol - is the fact that it is unknown how the initial "contact" was made with SCP-3744. How was the initial familiar awareness acquired? Until this is known, instruction set 3744-0G should not be followed, as this does not guarantee neutralization, or secure containment, of SCP-3744, and this does not satisfy the requirements that guide the Foundation in its actions."

Footnotes

1. This is analogous to a moth kept present on the glowing white plane of a Lepidopterists's light trap middle of a nighttime rainforest… a white monolith teeming with tiny, unfeeling insect eyes… …the same blank eyes… inured to the constant murder in the pitch beyond…

2. Without replacement of expired subject, it is impossible to say what behaviour SCP-3744 exhibits. Current theory suggests it may leave our reality after a period of time; hence the immediate replacement of a subject, and the assumption that the new subject will be encountering the same instance of SCP-3744.

3. The exact threshold of familiar awareness for contact to be initiated is unknown, but may vary between individuals, and may be rudimentary.

4. Monitoring equipment examined after the experiment showed no anomalous readings in this corner of the room.