SCP-6881 - SCP Foundation

SCP-6881

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SCP-6881	Project: SERAPIS
Document ‘ALFA’

WELCOME, EDITOR.

YOU ARE VIEWING DRAFT [4] OF [4]

► Play

(The click of a person's tape recorder being turned off.)

GALLIO: Come in.

(The door opens. There are footsteps on carpet)

???: Good evening, Agent Gallio.

GALLIO: I’m a researcher. I’m not an agent any more.

???: As of forty minutes ago, that is no longer true.

GALLIO: I’m being reactivated?

???: I am empowered to speak on behalf of the O5 Council. They have been very appreciative of your sterling work here as a researcher and wish to utilise both those skills, and your experience in the field. You’re already familiar with the case of SCP-6881. Did anything strike you as unusual about it? Other than the obvious, of course.

GALLIO: Yeah. The background. The Foundation became interested in Shibbet’s Vale and the lake because of ‘anomalous activity’ in the area. But there’s nothing in the mission records about what those anomalies were. Kind of strange given that anomalies are what we do.

???: Very perceptive, Agent Gallio. The O5 Council would like those blanks filled in, too. The data we have suggests Shibbet’s Vale has a long history of very strange things but the details appear to have been lost to a computing error. Before we can fully contain SCP-6881, the Foundation needs the whole picture. Your assignment is to report back to the O5 Council on all anomalous events associated with Shibbet’s Vale. Go back as far as you can.

GALLIO: Am I answering to O5 on this?

???: You will be reporting to either me, or to another individual empowered to speak on behalf of the O5 Council.

GALLIO: I guess that’s as close as anyone gets.

???: The data you find will be Level 5 Classified and collated under the codename ‘Project Serapis’. Access to other Foundation sites and personnel will be granted to you if the O5 Council deems it necessary. You may have to deal with interests outside the Foundation. Discretion is expected.

GALLIO: I get it. Do it alone, do it quiet, leave no trace. Just like old times.

???: The world has changed since you were last out there, but some things will always be the same. Strange things will happen, the Foundation will contain them, and the people who owe us everything will never know.

GALLIO: And men like me don’t get a choice in the part we play.

???: The Council will be waiting on your results. Sleep tight.

(Foootsteps as the individual leaves)

GALLIO: Aren’t you going to wish me good luck?

???: If you’re relying on luck, agent, you’re in the wrong job.

■ Stop

SHOW FILES

SHOW — initial_draft_6881_Gallio.pdf

CREDENTIALS ACCEPTED

SCP-6881

Provisional Item Number: SCP-6881
Provisional Object Class: Keter

Level 5/SERAPIS
Classified

Emerald_Lake%2C_Gallatin_County%2C_Montana-1.jpg

Lake Apesawa, with the headwaters of the Whitetail River in foreground.

This is a pre-containment report into the anomaly hereafter referred to as SCP-6881, in anticipation of subsequent containment or neutralisation efforts to be informed by this report.

Should an effort to contain SCP-6881 ensue, the containment area required will be 200 by 15 by 12 metres, and constructed of steel reinforced concrete. Any additional containment procedures depend on further observation of SCP-6881. It may be preferable to contain it on-site and build the containment vessel around it, rather than attempt to bring SCP-6881 to an existing facility.

The investigation into SCP-6881 was precipitated by a report on anomalous events in an area of southern Montana known as Shibbet’s Vale. This forested area is to the south of the Mourning Cloak Mountain Range and includes the Whitetail River, which feeds into and drains from Lake Apesawa. The location has seen some previous use including a campground and skiing resort, but is currently uninhabited. These anomalies were believed to emanate from Lake Apesawa. Mobile Task Force Iota-28, "Screaming Seabees", was dispatched to perform field engineering duties under the cover story of a geological survey team looking for natural gas fields. The members of Iota-28 were accompanied by twelve C-Class personnel, several pieces of earth moving equipment, and a small cache of explosives.

A channel was dug connecting points of the Whitetail River upstream and downstream of the lake. This caused the lake to be bypassed and gradually drain. MTF Iota-28 remained on station during this process to monitor any further anomalous activity, but reported none. The remains of a six-berth boat were noted when the lake was around seventy percent drained, along with a wrecked pickup truck and large amounts of cut logs from the region’s past logging activities.

Nineteen days after the draining began, an opening was spotted just above the surface, leading to a cave system under the ground eastwards of the lake. Three days later the water level was low enough to permit entry into the cave system. MTF Iota-28, comprising four members trained in combat engineering, entered the cave. They were: I-28 Alpha — Urbanek, ranking officer; I-28 Beta— Lynch; I-28 Delta — Abbot; and I-28 Gamma — Weiss. They were accompanied by a C-Class, Lopez, who was trained in caving safety.

The data transmitted from Iota-28 Delta’s field recording device was recovered. Being transmitted from underground, this data was partial and had to be reconstructed, and no other team member’s recordings could be recovered.

SHOW — Iota-28 Audio Log [CLASSIFIED 5/SERAPIS]

– CLOSE

Portions of the transcript in bold are narrated by DR. GALLIO.

(The ambient sound of a cave. Water drips somewhere in the back)

ABBOT: OK, this is I-28 Delta, Abbot. Testing, testing. Good, levels are green.

URBANEK: We all good?

LYNCH: Recording. Doubt we’ll get a signal out, though.

URBANEK:: Weiss?

WEISS: Sure, the recording’s on. Hope control gets off on two hours of footsteps.

URBANEK: Don’t start, we haven’t even got our feet wet. Lopez, how’s it looking?

LOPEZ: I’d rather have the gear to rig up lights as we go. Put in some permanent guide lines.

URBANEK: We don’t have the time. We’re here to find whatever’s down here, not map the place out.

LOPEZ: The rock looks good but if the system goes much lower it’ll be underwater. No way are we equipped for that.

URBANEK: Then we’ll turn back. Until then, we are a go. I want weapons stowed and safetys on, down here you’re more likely to kill one of us with a ricochet than hit anything.

WEISS: I thought we were looking for something spooky?

URBANEK And if we have to shoot it then I’ll give the order. Until then, fingers off triggers.

WEISS: Jesus Christ.

LYNCH: Remind me why we even bring you?

WEISS: Because I’m the explosives guy and you couldn’t tell plastique from Play-Doh.

URBANEK: We looking good, Abbot?

ABBOT: We’re negative for radiation and toxins. Good to go.

LOPEZ: You think we’re gonna run into radiation down here?

ABBOT: We assume we’re gonna run into everything.

URBANEK: Move out. Stick close. Lopez, lead the way.

(The team moves into the cave system. I-28 Delta’s recording system was both audio and visual, but no video data could be reconstructed. The team moves slowly and with difficulty, with C-Class Lopez directing them through narrow and partially flooded passageways. They encounter several dead ends. Signal triangulation puts them approximately three hundred metres east of Lake Apesawa and fifteen to thirty metres underground. The cave system descends gradually, prompting concerns the way ahead will be flooded.)

LYNCH: A lot of tree roots down here. Is that normal?

LOPEZ: Through solid rock? No.

WEISS: Oh great, we gotta cut our way through. Not enough we’re underground, we have to be in a bloody jungle too.

URBANEK: Lynch, you’re the muscle. Get this crap out of our way.

(I-28 Beta presumably pulls out a machete and, from audio, standard issue Containment Handsaw, and begins to cut through the tree roots.)

WEISS: I should just blast a sodding path for us.

LOPEZ: And bring the whole place down on our heads?

WEISS: Looks solid enough to me.

LOPEZ: Then the pressure wave will kill us instead. That’s progress.

LYNCH: We’re through. Shit, my arm’s all cut to hell though. What is this stuff?

ABBOT: Hey, it opens up just ahead. See? It’s a cavern. Got stalactites and stuff.

WEISS: Stalagmites.

ABBOT: Which is which again?

LOPEZ: Hey, he’s right. This is one beautiful gallery. We got… we got plants down here. That’s not right. You get animals, bugs and bats, but not plants. There’s no sun.

URBANEK: So it’s weird?

LOPEZ: It’s weird.

WEISS: Stalagmites come down from the ceiling. Stalactites are on the ground. Didn’t you go to school?

ABBOT: Nah, I think it’s the other way around. Lynch, which is it? Lynch?

LYNCH: Guys, I don’t… I ain’t doing so great.

(Various medical sounds: muscle tearing, bone cracking. There is the sound of creaking wood. I-28 Beta cries out.)

URBANEK: Lynch! Lynch, what’s wrong?

LYNCH: Something inside me. In my chest. Under the ribs.

URBANEK: Abbot, get the med stuff out!

LOPEZ: Oh Jesus, I can see it moving.

LYNCH: You gotta cut it out. It’s growing.

URBANEK: Do it, Abbot.

ABBOT: OK. Keep as still as you can.

(I-28 Delta takes the Containment Handsaw and presumably begins emergency field surgery techniques. I-28 Beta cries out again)

LYNCH: Get it out! Get it out!

ABBOT: It’s like… a fibrous growth. Real tough. It’s tangled around the ribs.

WEISS: Bloody hell, it’s got my arm!

(A biological ripping sound as I-28 Gamma rips the "fibrous growth". I-28 Beta cries out a third time)

ABBOT: The lungs are full of it. Lynch? Lynch, you still with us?

(I-28 Beta produces ragged breathing.)

URBANEK: That’s not survivable. Stand down, Abbot.

ABBOT: We can’t just…

URBANEK: We can and we will. We got a biological threat and I got standing orders not to mess with that kind of shit. Leave Lynch and keep going.

WEISS: Aw, hell. The roots are blocking the way back. It would take a bulldozer to open it up. We gotta keep going deeper.

URBANEK: Then that’s what we do. Lopez?

LOPEZ: The cave goes further in. Can’t tell its full extent. I guess we… we keep in sight of each other and don’t get separated.

URBANEK: Then move out. Abbot, pack up your gear.

ABBOT: Bye, Lynch.

(The team continues moving through the large gallery. Lopez finds an opening leading further westwards and the team are again navigating narrow and partially-flooded passageways.)

LOPEZ: We gonna talk about that?

ABBOT: About what?

LOPEZ: We just left someone behind.

ABBOT: Urbanek was right. It didn’t look survivable.

LOPEZ: But Lynch might still be alive.

ABBOT: Not for long. You saw it too, right? Half the chest cavity was full of that stuff. Wood or roots, or whatever.

LOPEZ: I thought you guys were soldiers? Never leave one behind, all that stuff?

ABBOT: That’s regular military. Most of us trained that way but when you get assigned to an MTF, you learn fast how the rules change. The kind of things the Foundation sends us against, sometimes it’s better not to be saved. Plus if we bring a critically wounded soldier or a body back with us, God knows what it might be infected with. Not saying you gotta like it but that’s the way it is. We got priorities more important than lives. Even our own people’s.

LOPEZ: I’m glad I’m a C-Class.

WEISS: Hate to break it to you, but you’re kind of in the same situation as the rest of us down here.

LOPEZ: Would you leave me behind?

WEISS: I’d watch you die for a piece of chicken.

LOPEZ: Screw you.

ABBOT: What the hell, Weiss.

WEISS: Gallows humour, buddy. We all gotta deal somehow.

LOPEZ: What about those roots, or whatever they are? You seen that before?

ABBOT: Nope. But then that’s what we work with, right? Stuff no one’s seen before?

URBANEK: Hold up. We got more of those plants up ahead. They ones with the fruit or the seed pods. Lopez, you got any ideas what they are?

LOPEZ: Never seen anything like that growing underground. You get a few mushrooms and fungi, nothing like these.

URBANEK: Gonna grab one as a sample.

(I-28 Alpha attempts to remove a seed pod from one of the plants, but it bursts and emits a cloud of spores. I-28 Alpha breathes in these spores before getting clear.)

WEISS: Oh shit.

(The sound of I-28 Alpha coughing through a protective mask.)

(The recording becomes distorted and audio data cannot be reconstructed for the next portion of the mission. I-28 Delta’s location is estimated at five hundred metres west of Lake Apesawa and between thirty and forty metres underground. The next recoverable audio occurs twenty-seven minutes later.)

(There is the sound of a large animal growling, wetly, and of wood creaking. They get fainter and fainter until they are no longer audible.)

ABBOT: It didn’t see us.

LOPEZ: What the hell is it?

ABBOT: I…think it used to be Urbanek. He breathed in the spores.

LOPEZ: Did you see what it did to Weiss? God, the whole face was gone…

ABBOT: Hey, you haven’t been here before, but I have. You think too much about what you just saw and you’ll freeze up. Put it aside and keep going. You can lose your shit over it later, once we’re out.

LOPEZ: We’re underground, man! There’s no magic rule that says there even is a way out!

ABBOT: Doesn’t matter. We keep moving until we find an exit or we die. ‘Cause the other option is to curl up and wait for whatever that thing is to find us and I’m not about that.

LOPEZ: I don’t know if I can do this.

ABBOT: Just follow me. Here, take my sidearm.

(The soft clack of a handgun being pulled out and handed over.)

LOPEZ: What am I supposed to do with this?

ABBOT: Shoot the bad guy. Okay, we move. Try not to breathe in the spores.

LOPEZ: Try not to breathe. Great.

(The remaining two members of the underground team move through the passageways, attempting to do so quietly. The sound of something large moving and breathing in the distance can occasionally be heard. Voice stress and breathing pattern analysis indicate distress, exhaustion and shock.)

LOPEZ: Wait. This passage is flooded. We gotta go back.

ABBOT: I don’t think there is a ‘back’ any more.

LOPEZ: Well it’s either that or grow gills.

ABBOT: Looks wide enough to swim through.

LOPEZ: No way. No, no way. Even with a full diving team I’d think twice.

ABBOT: I think… I think it turns upwards again. Can’t tell how far. Twenty metres, maybe.

LOPEZ: You can’t judge anything underwater. I know guys who died thinking they could.

(Nearby snuffling sounds and growling, likely from the Urbanek-creature.)

LOPEZ: Oh man, you’re shitting me.

(Rock breaking as the Urbanek-creature crashes into the chamber)

LOPEZ: I’m not dying here! I’m not dying here!

(Three gunshots. The Urbanek-creature roars. C-Class Lopez screams. There is the sound of teeth crunching into flesh.)

ABBOT: Ah, what the hell.

(A splash.)

(Rushing water from beneath. Abbot groans as he attempts to hold his breath. There is a moment of silence. A splash. Abbot gasps and sputters)

ABBOT: Holy… holy shit. Lopez? Lopez?

(I-28 Delta continues walking for the next thirty-one minutes.)

ABBOT: Okay. This is I-28 Delta, Abbot. I don’t know how long I have to go before I find a way out and I don’t even know if there is one. Urbanek, Weiss and Lynch are gone, and I guess Lopez, too. If anyone is receiving this, I’m turning off recording to save the battery. If I find anything, I’ll transmit again. If not, I’m dead. Sayonara, guys.

(No further data is received for approximately nineteen hours. The C-Class engineering support crew carried out a preliminary investigation of the cave entrance but were under orders not to enter the cave without MTF support. They found evidence the MTF had entered the cave but none that anyone had exited. After this period of silence, Iota-28 Delta begins transmitting again.)

ABBOT: This is Iota-28 Delta Abbot. I’m down to the lowest light mode on my flashlight and I have one flare left. I haven’t found an exit, obviously. I think I’m a lot lower than I started out but other than that I got no idea where I am. Caver wisdom is probably to stay put but I know you’re not going to send anyone to find me, even if someone does hear this.

ABBOT: We weren’t the first people down here. I found a skeleton a ways back. It looked like it’s been down here for decades. It was in dark green fatigues. Looked military. There was a name label on the chest that read ‘Stenforth’. I don’t think it’s a good omen. Maybe they got lost down here, too. I kind of hope so. Is that weird? I’d rather starve here than run into whatever else might have killed the guy.

ABBOT: There’s a big cave ahead. I don’t know how deep it goes. There are plants everywhere. The ones with the seed pods, and others like huge ferns. Bugs like maggots the size of my forearm and these beetles in all bright colours. It’s humid and close. Way too warm. If there’s anything toxic like those spores from before then I’ve already got lungfuls of it. And there’s a pulse, like something huge breathing. I can’t hear it. It’s more of a feeling, in my head.

ABBOT: Well, here goes.

(A flare lights.)

(The audio distorts.)

ABBOT: It’s… oh my god.

ABBOT: It’s a worm.

ABBOT: It’s the size of the goddamn Red October. It has so many eyes… so many eyes…

(There is a deep rumbling; just the beginning of a large organism moving.)

ABBOT: Its mouth is opening…

(The rumble intensifies)

ABBOT: Who the hell are you?

(The audio distorts)

(The transmission is cut off, and does not resume.)