The Blood Chapel

Item #: SCP-XXXX

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Given SCP-XXXX's remote location and inaccessibility, little is required in the way of containment. Currently the Foundation owns all land around SCP-XXXX to a distance of half a kilometre, and has a small rotating staff on site disguised as the local equivalent of park rangers- not to warn people away (which would attract attention) but to ensure that the few traversable pathways leading to SCP-XXXX remain sufficiently camouflaged not to draw eyes in the first place. The entrance to SCP-XXXX is barricaded by a large mock boulder concealing a remotely operated door accessed by a randomly generated code given only to Class B personnel or higher. Due to uncertainty as to the safety of the human race should SCP-XXXX/1 enter the wider population, all personnel active on site must treat SCP-XXXX as a permanent hot zone of biocontainment level 4, with all the attendant procedures followed to the letter. No samples of SCP-XXXX/1 are to be removed from the site, and all biological experimentation is to be conducted within SCP-XXXX itself.

Description: SCP-XXXX is a cave located roughly ██ m above sea level in the Bohemian Forest mountain range between Germany and Czechia, roughly █████ █████████ of the Šumava National Park. The cave is approximately ten metres long, eight metres across at its widest, and five metres tall. It is not composed of limestone, and does not appear to have formed by erosion, though whether it is artificial has yet to be conclusively determined.

The cave is filled to a depth of roughly 15 cm with a constantly flowing mass of human blood. Said depth remains constant regardless of any added material. The blood, designated SCP-XXXX/1, moves across every surface, including the walls and ceiling, in an overall counter-clockwise direction, completing one circuit every 78 seconds. As it moves, it takes on a range of forms and shapes collectively resembling the inside of a church or similar place of worship, with the various expected accoutrements, such as pews, altars, candlesticks or holy symbols, composed entirely of flowing blood. Attempting to disrupt these formations, by, say, cutting through them with your hand, only causes SCP-XXXX/1 to flow around the obstruction and reform itself again. Since being discovered by the Foundation, SCP-XXXX/1 has assumed the form of seven separate religious sites- five churches, a synagogue, and a mosque, and currently has the form of a small Pentecostal church located in the town of █████, █████████, United States.

SCP-XXXX/1 displays many properties of a superfluid; it appears completely immune to friction and will not stop moving. It does not coagulate, even if removed from its location and exposed to the outside, and samples must be kept in sealed fiberglass containers when required for experimentation. For reasons as yet unknown, the smaller the sample of SCP-XXXX/1, the more rapid and violent its movement. Even if reduced to aerosol-sized droplets, SCP-XXXX/1 retains its active behaviour, as well as a constant temperature of roughly 35 degrees Celsius, or slightly below human body temperature. This has rendered SCP-XXXX essentially impossible to contain offsite.

Studies of SCP-XXXX/1 have revealed the DNA of at least 700 distinct individuals, and it is likely that only time and resources prevent the Foundation from identifying more. Genetic analysis has revealed several alleles not present in the current human population, suggesting that they may be several hundred thousand years old. SCP-XXXX/1 appears to be entirely of human origin; no other animal or plant DNA has been detected to date. Animals deliberately or accidentally trapped in SCP-XXXX eventually die and decompose, but their remains disappear into the flow of SCP-XXX/1, and have never been relocated.

Microbial life, however, has been found in abundance, with SCP-XXXX/1 serving as the vector for nearly every known human pathogen, from the common cold and influenza to typhus, smallpox and plague. Several microbes isolated from SCP-XXXX/1 are unknown outside the Foundation, but are believed to be ancient strains of diseases no longer present elsewhere. These pathogens cannot be rendered inert by any known process, and remain viable even after being autoclaved or exposed to radiation. Accidental infection of class D subjects by even micro-quantities of SCP-XXXX/1 has led to rapid onset of multiple symptoms, including fever, lesions and haemorrhaging, culminating in death within 72 hours. So far the mortality rate is 100 percent, though that may be an artefact of sample size.

Every form assumed by SCP-XXXX/1 has featured two distinct areas also present in SCP-XXXX itself; a raised platform at the far end called "the lectern", reached by a small flight of natural steps, and a three-metre depression in the left-side wall called "the choir stalls". These features appear in all variations, whether the actual holy site they are mimicking possesses them or not.

Anyone standing within the choir stalls will suddenly hear a soft, undulating sussuration, sometimes compared to the murmur of an audience at the start of a play, or the respectful clientele of an upscale restaurant. This sound, known as "the chorus", has been partially deconstructed and, while not by any definition musical, it is composed entirely of human voices. The chorus follows a set pattern that lasts for 11,047 seconds before repeating. Isolating individual voices has proven difficult, though not impossible, and the small fraction of identified speech has revealed a seemingly random corpus of phrases no more than four words in length. Typical examples, translated into English, include: "I said that…" "The man stood…" "the torch in the…" and "my tax return". The voices are believed to be those of previous explorers of SCP-XXXX, and thus the corpus comprises a disproportionate number of curse words, as well as, as one Foundation staff member put it, the most statistically valid sample of human screams in existence.

Most of the identified phrases in the chorus are in languages known to be spoken in this region of Central Europe: Czech, Slovak, Low and High German, Hungarian, Polish, Italian, and, less commonly, French. Unsurprisingly, a sizeable portion is in Latin. But linguists have also extracted samples of several extinct languages no longer actively spoken: Old High German, Old Saxon, Old Czech, Old Church Slavonic, Gothic, Ancient Greek, Phoenician, Etruscan, and several languages known only from reconstructions, such as Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic, Gaulish and Proto-Indo-European. SCP-XXXX is the only known source for the pronunciation of many ancient words. The Foundation's linguistics staff views the chorus with a combination of reverence and frustration, with one member describing it as like peering through the door at the Library of Alexandria without being allowed inside.

Most of the chorus's recorded material is unintelligible, believed to comprise entirely prehistoric languages with no known descendants or analogues. The chorus is generally accepted to unfold chronologically, with the earliest languages at the start, and staff members who have attempted to isolate those earliest sounds have reported unusual and unnerving experiences, often questioning whether what they heard could be described as human.

The focal point of SCP-XXXX, and its most immediately dangerous component, is the lectern. Should any individual begin to ascend the natural steps at the back of the SCP, he or she will trigger an immediate response from SCP-XXXX/1. Its flow speed will double, and it will begin to reshape and reform its constructions, giving them the appearance of shivering. SCP-XXXX/1 will flow up the climber's body, seeking any ingress, from the mouth, to eye ducts, to skin pores. Those without protective gear will be completely subsumed by SCP-XXXX/1 by the time they reach the lectern itself, barely distinguishable from the other sanguine constructions. Only the eyes and mouth will remain visible.

Once the subject reaches the lectern, SCP-XXXX/1 will form into a book, scroll, or other text format appropriate to the holy place currently being imitated. Upon said book or scroll will be a simple image both familiar and meaningful to the person looking at it. It is usually a religious symbol, though if the victim is not religious, it can take the form of a powerful emotional trigger within his or her own mind, such as a painful memory. Those already overwhelmed by by SCP-XXXX/1 will be compelled to acknowledge the image in some appropriate way, such as speaking a holy phrase or audibly reliving the memory. The moment this happens, the victim will collapse into a stream of SCP-XXXX/1, with no other trace of his or her physical being remaining, be it clothing, bone or hair. SCP-XXXX/1 will then reform to mimic a holy space familiar to the latest victim, and a snatch of the victim's own voice, taken from the time spent within SCP-XXXX, will be added to the end of the chorus.

ADDENDUM:

Case study of Dr. █████ █████████, late of the Foundation's Department of Linguistics.

Date: [DATA EXPUNGED]

Much credit to my underlings for their recent work decoding the Chorus. As of today we now possess the largest single corpus of Boian Eastern Celtic in existence. Shame we can't tell anyone. But I suppose we could always mock up a Rosetta stone or two for some very lucky archaeologist to find. I'll ask ████; he's game for anything even if the higher ups aren't. Another milestone: Ill Bill assures me that we now have translated every fragment from a historically attested language, though I think it's more likely to be "a historically attested language he can identify." Over 400 separate languages! And that's only a twentieth of the whole!

Date: [DATA EXPUNGED - 3 WEEKS LATER]

Mackey assures me that, with the now-complete dataset, he's calculated a formula based on rising and falling human populations, the likelihood of wandering into SCP-XXXX, and the increasing speed of travel, that allows him to track the voices through time. The Black Death and the First and Second World Wars have been particularly useful in fixing the dates, as they both show marked decreases in the number of voices within the Chorus. From it he extrapolates that the Chorus comprises voices from as far back as 200,000 years ago, or the very dawn of humanity itself. Incidentally, the Chorus also provides the first corroborative evidence that humanity did indeed nearly go extinct 75,000 years ago. [Sidenote in margin] Must tell Mackey that if he's going to keep singing Christmas carols in Proto-Indo-European, he has to stop referring to it as "Aryan". Even the Foundation has some cultural sensitivity.

Date: [DATA EXPUNGED - 1 WEEK LATER]

Thanks to Mackey's work, I believe I have isolated the entirety of the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal corpus from the Palaeolithic section of the Chorus. We will likely never be able to translate any of it, but we might be able to track how they evolved through time. Also, it is amusing to hear the high-pitched squawk of the Neanderthal voice, another theory confirmed by the Chorus.

Date: [DATA EXPUNGED - TEN DAYS LATER]

Most of the languages in the chorus have been identified, if not translated. All that remains are the earliest voices. The call primordial. 83 seconds of… What? Screams? Laughter? The roar of a mindless animal? It is virtually impossible even to separate them. I find myself listening to them again and again, hoping to feel an emotion in response, even fear or revulsion. But instead all I feel is… cold.