The cell must be built with an adjacent observation room, which must be staffed with 5 Level 3 personnel at all times.
My personal rule is that for numbers ten and below, I write them out as words. That rule works pretty well in traditional prose, and is less ubiquitous in SCP articles, but it's worth trying to see if it looks better to you. "…which must be staffed with five Level 3 personnel at all times."
Under no circumstances are any members of personnel allowed inside SCP-XXXX's Containment Zone while the Event is active, and Site-██ is to be placed in quarantine for the duration of the Event.
I'd reword this. "For the duration of a Shachath event, Site-XX is to be placed under quarantine and no personnel are permitted inside the perimeter of SCP-XXXX's containment zone." Or something like that.
must conduct a blessing of the Containment Zone in accordance with the appropriate religious ceremony.
This is extremely vague. I've seen priests bless babies as well as tennis shoes. I get that you may be building up some narrative tension, but the containment procedures are at the top because if something goes wrong, the Foundation needs to know what to do beyond, "Find a priest and tell him to bless that area over there." Some specifics may give you a way to develop the hook a bit.
bearing distinctive burn marks in the face and on its back.
What kind of burns? Acid burns look very different from fire burns or even other chemical burns. Might be worth being a bit more descriptive if you want to call these burns "distinctive."
It appears to be wearing a black top hat, although analysis has shown that it is actually a chitin growing out of the entity's scull.
First, while I'm not really a "hat guy", I would call the hat in that picture a "bowler's hat", not a top hat. Second, I've never heard of chitin referred to with an article like that. It's just chitin. Or, "a substance with a structure similar to chitin." It's a sustance, like "moss" or "cloth."
SCP-XXXX does not have any constant anomalous effects.
"When not engaged in a Shachath event, SCP-XXXX does not display any noticably anomalous effects, and spends its time doing blah blah blah." Or something. You have a lot talking about the Shachath effect, but don't spend much time developing this humanoid entity as anyone in particular, despite just a second ago telling us that its hat is growing from its head.
While the Event is active, SCP-XXXX will gain a number of dangerous anomalous effects.
I'm not sure this sentence needs to be here, as we're hopefully about to learn those effects, and it's implied that these affects only happen during an Event, as stated by the previous sentences.
with subjects in large groups being a preferred target of SCP-XXXX.
How large? Remember that this is the Foundation trying to figure out containment. They'll want to know what the hard lines are if they can find them.
Upon detailed interrogations, subjects will report that they have remembered a questionable act they had commited in the past, and that they feel that the time has come for them to be punished.
Questionable? According to whom? The Foundation? SCP-XXXX? The individuals themselves? If we're going to be talking about an Avenging Angel SCP, then we want to know whose morality it's using to judge.
Reports on the way they "will be punished" greatly vary between subjects
I think most of the places you're using quotation marks is unnecessary.
with Christian subjects reporting that God will punish them,
Just Christians? There are a lot of people who believe in a singular god. You might just say something regarding religious individuals attributing their punishment to their respective deity.
One hour after the Event's activation
So we haven't actually decided yet what constitutes the beginning of an Event. You've said that during an event, SCP-XXXX gains dangerous properties, and then people start compaining of guilty. What is the first thing that the Foundation uses to mark the beginning of an event, so we know what this "hour after" refers to?
If successful, it will start heading towards one of the previously affected subjects,
The closest? The biggest group?
surpassing all natural obstacles on its way to them.
So is it displaying any intelligence in this process, or is it just leaving XXXX-shaped holes in the walls as it marches forward? I know that seems nitpicky, but the difference between crashing through a wall like Juggernaut or tearing it to pieces with its bare fingers seems like the bare minimum level of detail we'd expect the Foundation to care about. Remember, we're discussing here how this thing escapes containment. That's not a subject the Foundation would gloss over.
reporting that their previously mentioned feelings of guilt have escalated
and attributing this to SCP-XXXX, which they describe as the one who will punish them.
So just to paint this out as I'm seeing it, we have XXXX tear his way into a room full of anxious people. Anxious people respond to said destruction and Harbinger of Doom with nervousness and blaming the Harbinger for being nervous. That seems like an underwhelming reaction, unless we're suggesting a cognito-effect of making people totally okay with Kool-Aid Man Entrances and only somewhat apprehensive of a scarred, suited man being the one to do it.
The subjects will eventually come to the conclusion that they "will not be the one to die", and they will start fighting, using any tools and weapons at their disposal in order to do so.
So are we suggesting that this XXXX thing is communicating some sort of deathmatch rules to the affected individuals? Because until this point, I thought everyone involved believed they were about to be punished, and not that they had any way to avoid it. Why would they assume the could avoid their punishment by killing everyone else?
SCP-XXXX will then collect the bodies, and it will proceed to bury them at the place of their death, using a shovel which always seems to be present at the location (see Addendum A), being able to dig through any element, including reinforced concrete, or it will shake the survivor's hand, before returning to its natural habitat (in this case, Site-██.
First off, if there was no shovel in the room, and then there was, then unless we're suggesting real-time reality bending that we can actually see happening, the shovel is manifested. It didn't "always seem to be present" if we can state with certainty that it wasn't always present.
Second, this is the hardest part of the article for me to swallow. You seem to have a lot of symbology here that is either a red herring or some implied mythology I'm not getting (the burns, the chitinous hat, etc), and I can accept a bit of that. But if he's going to dig through solid concrete with a shovel he magicks into existence, I want to have a better idea of why, because it doesn't make this scarier, it doesn't make it more intriguing, and it's just a silly visual. Is there a big clue I'm missing that justifies this?
A lead-lined Foundation mobile command unit fitted with surveillance equipment is stationed nearby, connected to special cameras that are placed in the testing site.
A lot of this doesn't need to be spelled out. What's special about these cameras? I assume that a mobile command unit fitted with surveillance equipment will probably have cameras monitoring the site.
Security personnel have been instructed to allow SCP-XXXX to escape unharmed.
So, offnote: have we established that this thing can be hurt? It's admittedly something that not every humanoid will undergo, but dangeorus ones? Sure, they'll want to know how to stop it, and if this thing can break through "any" natural substance to get where it needs to go, it probably needs to be relatively indestructible, at least against blunt physical trauma.
as expected, towards the testing site
I'd go with "target location" or something similar, since you already used site. I'm also in a fair amount of disbelief that any testing procedure with an SCP believed to be responsible for human deaths involves allowing a breach that exposes it to the outside world. There are a million and one things that can go wrong here, and if this thing can break through solid concrete, it would be very bad if the plan went wrong.
A follow-up squad amnesticizes all witnesses.
So this SCP is traveling down a highway, and a squad is able to amnestize everyone involved? Every car that sped past at 70mph? That seems unlikely. I'm not saying that there is a solution to this specific problem, but that it's precisely because of problems like this that the Foundation would not be voluntarily releasing an SCP into the wider world.
+14:00 D-1409 contacts Command and the following is heard:
So I'll say that as I read through this trying to understand the time situation, I thought that maybe it's a better idea for you to give us just straight time indicators instead of "minutes passed" indicators. For a while, I was reading "14:00" as 1400 hours, or 2:00PM. Which made it confusing later on as we would skip around. I'd just begin at, say, 2114, and then adjust the time as you go, but that's me.
D-1409: Um…. command? Is there anything wrong… any shit going on?
I'd capitalize "Command", as well as any terms of address.
Command: Like…?
I'd suggest "Such as?"
D-1409: I dunno, any SPC object on the loose? I feel weird and that's not a good sighn.
This seems a little strange. Does XXXX let it's subjects know it's loose? Why would the D-class assume this was even a possibility? This is where the vagueness of your XXXX's actual communicative abilities is starting to hinder the narrative.
Command: Please elaborate on your feeling.
This is more what I was looking for, though I'd say, "Please elaborate about what you're feeling" or something like that.
D-1409: Jeez man, what do you want me to tell ya? It's… strange, I am thinking of that buddy of mine Jai, and you know, I like left him once, and he got to prison because I didn't…. hell, why are you asking?
So authors have a strong tendency to differentiate D-class from Foundation people by use of slang. And it's not necessarily a wrong way to go, as D-class are generally accepted to be pulled from the lower-class of society. That being said, deliberately trying to induce this always feels a bit contrived, and there's something to be said about making some attempt to subvert this. A D-class is asking why the researchers are interested in what their test subjects are feeling? They have enough knowledge to know that SCPs exist, that they can break containment, but not understand why "I feel weird" is insufficient?
Situations like this are where I'd read this out loud and see how it sounds to you. How would you realistically react if you were having haunting memories of a terrible guilt you feel, and then you're asked to describe it? How would your resistance look? Would you partially describe what you're saying, and then get angry? Would you just stay quiet and not mention that you're feeling weird? Would you protest your innocence? Would the researcher need to pull it out of you slowly? Reading out loud can help you decide whether your dialogue sounds real or not. Hell, if you have a willing person in your life to act this out with, it may be a little silly, but it'll probably give you a closer idea of what a "real" conversation would sound like, since it's being thought up on the spot. That's what this is missing; a feeling of spontaneity in the responses.
D-1409: Yeah… I mean I wasn't supposed to wait for him, right? The place was full of cops, there were more and more arriving, and he just wanted to take another jewel and then another… I mean, I think I can't really blame him of when he left me too…and I ended up here…
See, this just feels like his telling us exactly what you need for us to know. Just off the top of my head, a more realistic way to tell this story might be that he says he's having bad memories or guilty feelings, then Command, having an idea of how XXXX works, starts prodding the D-class with details of their robbery in an attempt to draw out the D-class' feelings. That way, you have an excuse to detail the guilt without making the D-class do it themselves. Get some back and forth in there. Real conversations aren't blocks of text that relay information perfectly.
Command: D-1452, please elaborate on your feeling.
Sounds a little robotic, since command just used this phrase a second ago.
D-1452: Yeah, I remembered something too. My girlfriend used to be a babysitter, ya know? And one day she like asked me to take care of a baby, she had to go somewhere, I dunno. And I got bored, eventually, you know, it's not easy taking care of a small tiny thingy that keeps crying all the time!
See, this would be a more believable piece of dialogue should 52 have heard the process it took to get 09 on-board. You can differentiate them a bit by their willingness to comply, but everyone shouting things they feel super-guilty about feels too convenient.
D-1409: Yeah, that reminds me of-
Command: Do not interrupt him. D-1452, please continue.
Yeah, I get that you probably did this to break up the wall of text, which is in my advice, but again, it might be more believable if it's due to a back-and-forth with Command rather than random interjections. It'll make your log physically longer, but it should have a much cleaner flow.
D-4480: (non responsive)
I'd just put this in italics: (D-4480 is non-reponsive). And possibly describe what he's doing instead of responding, since you did point out there were cameras watching this.
D-1452: Um… Command, dude's crying and… are ya praying man?
See, stuff like "ya" in the transcription doesn't make much sense to me. This is a conversation that was recorded and being written out by some Foundation desk jockey. They're not going to adopt slang interpretations in writing words. Literally nobody I've ever met has enunciated "peanut butter and jelly", but rarely is it a good idea to write "peanut butter n' jelly" just because that's the way it was said.
Command:D-4480 answer the question. Is there anything wrong?
You're missing a space here. Also, if the guy is praying and the Foundation is well aware why, they'd probably state this more definitively: "D-4480, please answer the question. What are you feeling?"
D-4480: (sobs) No…. it's just that I remembered Sarah…. hasn't I been punished long enough? Wasn't that enough for me? God, please….
See, this all makes more sense to me as a dialogue. People really aren't going to want to announce to the world what they're most guilty about. Also, any time you're dealing with an action stated in parenthesis, it usually helps the formatting to italicize it.
D-1456: Dude, can you shut the fuck up? I dunno about your homie, but the guy is… really he is Tach! He looks like Tach! He…. must remember… No, it's the baby's father! God, I remember him! He is!… no….
So I'm not going to address it further, but again, try reading this aloud. Try to really get in the headspace of your character and write out what you would say if you're in that exact situation. Then modify it as needed to suit your character. You can be remarkably artistic by implying things and trusting the readers a bit, because if you state everything clearly for us, it feels like you, the Author, are telling us this stuff, not the characters.
Please do not call in again except if physically threatened.
Hmm. So the Foundation isn't interested in what these subjects want to talk about while under the effects of an SCP they're specifically testing? I'd think they'd go in the opposite direction.
D-4480 stands up and pulls out his radio, and proceeds to break it.
Overwritten. "D-4480 smashes his radio on the concrete." Or whatever.
Command: (through D-1456's radio) D-4480,what the hell is going on there? D-1456, hold him!
I mean, Command is well aware of what is going on, right? They had to track this XXXX somehow, and finding a bunch of bodies violently bludgeoned with other people's DNA on their knuckles would give them a pretty big clue as to what these D-class are about to deal with. Is there some reason we're to assume that this elaborate and extremely dangerous outdoor public testing is going on and they don't feel pretty confident they know what's going to happen?
The three D-class are seen discussing nervously
First, "subjects" would probably be better here.
SCP-XXXX is still not moving from its position.
Perhaps "has not moved".
He immediately picks up a stone from the ground and throws it toward D-4480, but misses.
I feel like our scenery is changing a bit. Wasn't this supposed to be a specially-prepared site with reinforced concrete on the bottom? Where did a large stone come from? Where did the stick? The dirt? The tree? Is the concrete just there to make him try to dig through it?
while maintaining a directone of sight to the fight.
Line of sight?
+31:56 D-1409 impales D-1456 with his standard issue combat knife.
Nope. D-class do not have a standard issue anything, except perhaps a uniform. They were not mentioned to have been given knives. They didn't reach for their knives earlier. The Foundation would not give a bunch of prisoners in an outdoor testing site combat knives. I don't buy that.
both D-1409 and D-4480 refuse to do so, and then proceed to continue their fight.
They refuse, or they ignore him? Two different pictures.
SCP-XXXX makes a move for the first time
He already moved to start drawing in the dirt. Just say that he stood and approached the subject.
+40:58 D-4480 collapses to the floor (later research shows that he suffered a fatal heart attack). D-1409 seems confused. SCP-XXXX makes a move for the first time, standing up and approaching D-1409. D-1409 does not seem scared, and he stays in his position while SCP-XXXX shakes his hand. SCP-XXXX then picks up a shovel (although no such item was previously present in the testing site) and starts digging the concrete floor. D-1409 does not seem to find this strange, and helps SCP-XXXX carry the two bodies inside the holes. SCP-XXXX then proceeds to cover the "graves" with pieces of concrete. After it finishes this, security personnel are mobilized and they successfully re-contain both SCP-XXXX and D-1409.
So first, I don't really get the hand-shaking thing. What exactly is this entity wanting to happen? It's convincing these people that it's there to "punish" them for abhorrent sins, but then congratulates the one who commits the most violence to avoid blame? Is it simply lying about wanting to judge people? If it just wants to turn guilty people into gladiators, I think there's probably a more direct way of doing so than telling them that they're guilty, and they should feel guilty, and that apparently they can avoid being punished by committing even greater sins. Mysterious motivations are different than contradictory ones, and I think this leans toward the latter.
Also, I'll say for the last time that I'm not really sold on what the burying of the bodies, especially through solid concrete/sheet metal/whatever might be in his way. Along the same lines as above, I can understand if this were a mysterious motivation, but right now it seems contradictory. It's willing to go to extreme lengths to bury bodies of people it tormented? Why? If it's going to congratulate the person who shed the most blood to escape punishment, then how does that mesh with the apparent reverence it takes in disposing of bodies?
, due to [REDACTED].
Since you follow up right after this, I wouldn't even put in the "due to [REDACTED]" part. Just say the O5's stopped research on it. The researchers would likely have no idea why.
I refused - after all, Foundation protocol demands that no Overseer should come in contact with those demons.
First off, demons? That word might be taken too literally in a Foundation context. Also, I doubt this researcher "refused" the O5. Not only would that be a bad idea to refuse your boss in such an authoritarian structure as the Foundation, but even if this scientist had refused, that would likely not be reflected in a report, because it's pretty unflattering. I'd say that the researcher protested in favor of the O5's safety, or something like that.
"I don't know if the Black Moon indeed howls, but I know for sure that one day it will. And when this day comes, that buddy over there in the cell will be the one to turn it back to the sun."
So this bothers me a bit. If these guys were amnestized by the RRH, then I'm guessing it's because they wanted nothing about that conversation to leave that room. And then the O5, despite having these individuals amnestized, decides to answer their questions and give them a creepy insight into why this XXXX matters, despite the amnestization obstensibly occuring to prevent them from knowing exactly that.
And then, the researcher writes down exactly what happened, despite being amnestized to forget it, so that everyone else who reads this file will also know exactly what the RRH really didn't want anyone knowing.
See the issue? Either O5-1 wants this little bit of poetry to be associated with XXXX, or it's the opposite, and this Dush individual is suicidal by not only avoiding the amnestization's full effects, but by recording exactly what O5-1 didn't want anyone knowing.
