SCP-8227 immediately after use
Special Containment Procedures: By mutual agreement, the Manna Charitable Foundation is to receive custody of SCP-8227 for six months of every year (January 1 - June 31, with handoff to occur at an MCF front-office during the final business day of the term.) To prevent breaching of the Veil, the MCF is contractually required to present SCP-8227-1 to participants as the consciously mock-ceremonial culmination of a research-tested course of therapy. To ensure cover-story plausibility, the “course of therapy” may not be completed in fewer than three days.
While in SCP Foundation custody, SCP-8227 is to rotate between sites as necessary, with every accessible SCP site with permanent dedicated staff gaining custody of SCP-8227 for at least one day every five years. Though SCP sites without natural bodies of water nearby, such as sites located within the Taklamakan or Sahara Deserts, are necessarily excluded from this rotation, staff members assigned to these sites have the right to demand a fully-paid trip to another site once every five years to participate in the SCP-8227-1 ritual, without using PTO.
Site-rotation scheduling, as well as external relations with the Manna Charitable Foundation for SCP-8227-related purposes, are to be led by Dr. Eulaylia Tsiolis, based out of Site-19. The Foundation considers testing and research of the effects of SCP-8227 to have been satisfactorily completed; however, one junior researcher is to be tasked, at 5% dedication, with brainstorming potentially productive avenues for future research and discussing them, if any, with Dr. Tsiolis once every two years. Currently, the junior researcher with part-time assignment to SCP-8227 is Dr. Yuriko Harada, based out of Site-48.
Description: SCP-8227 is a non-deific source of absolution. Through performance of the SCP-8227-1 ritual, SCP-8227 is capable of purging all sin and ensuring redemption.
While SCP-8227 does not retroactively undo sinful acts, it removes any accreted sin from the soul of the participant linked to the past commission of sinful acts, and simultaneously induces a sincere desire to repent for them.
SCP-8227 is formed from the halved left leg bone of an unidentified mid-sized mammal, and is similar in structure to an oil lamp. A small depression approximately one inch in diameter is carved into the far edge. On the left side of the depression, a small hole has been drilled into the hollow interior of the bone, which has been drained of marrow and carved into a crude flute. On either side of the depression, several horizontal lines have been etched into the surface of the bone, as though meant to depict fins or wings. SCP-8227 is aesthetically consistent with Late Dorset sculpted objects, although it was discovered approximately 1500 kilometers from the southernmost region ever known to have been inhabited by the Dorset people.
The SCP-8227-1 ritual can be enacted, using the following steps, beside any natural body of water greater than ~500 square meters.
- SCP-8227 should be positioned not less than three feet from the edge of the water, with the flute pointing toward the water.
- A bucket or other container should be filled from the body of water and slowly poured into the depression, so that the water comes out from the flute, forming a thin stream.
- Ritual participants should touch their fingers to the stream as it issues from the flute, and kiss them.
- When the first drops of the stream emanating from the flute reach the water, all participants will be redeemed.1
Discovery: On January 18, 2021, an in-house psychiatrist at Site-19 reported that several of her patients had reported dreaming the previous night of an empty shore with several islands off its coast.
A survey of Site-19 Foundation staff was subsequently conducted; on the survey, 428 people indicated that they had a similar dream on the night of January 17. Over 95% of those who reported having the dream indicated that, upon waking up, they felt calm and rested. After a series of follow-up interviews, primarily about the shape of the coast, the vegetation found upon it, and the layout of the islands, the shore in the dream was identified as the eastern side of Basket Island in Yarmouth, Maine.
SCP-8227 was found among the rocks on the eastern shore by an MTF team on January 19, 2021. As of July 15, 2024, it has granted absolution to approximately 68,000 people.
Addendum 1: Over the duration of SCP-8227's utilization, all transcripts from biannual meetings are to be appended below. To date, one such meeting has occurred; a transcript is attached.
Transcript of Interview (August 3, 2023)
HARADA: Pleasure to meet you. Yuriko Harada.TSIOLIS (smiling): Yeah. I know you. You’re the one who looks gift horses in the mouth.
HARADA: That's me, all right.
TSIOLIS: So how much of a box-checking is this going to be?
HARADA: You know, I assumed this would be pretty cursory, but on the flight over, I sort of—I realized that there’s a lot of questions that I don’t have answers to.
TSIOLIS: Such as?
HARADA: How do we know this ritual, anyway? And who implanted the dream? Forgive me for saying so, but how sure are we that this is non-deific?
TSIOLIS: Occam’s Razor, right? Dream implantation is a pretty straightforward secondary effect of numerous non-deific, even non-conscious anomalies.
HARADA: The fact that it only hit Foundation people is weird, though.
TSIOLIS: Sure, but it wouldn’t be weird if it hit everyone within a certain geographic radius. It wasn’t selecting for employment. It just hit everyone within a short distance from an epicenter that, fortunately for us, happened to be within a Foundation installation. We also don’t even know if it was that specific. Millions of civilians might have had the dream and never realized that it was a shared experience. Frankly, the Foundation will never know who dreamed what on January 17.
HARADA: Okay. I see where you’re coming from, and I know what you’re going to say about the ritual: dropping ritual knowledge might have been a minor secondary effect, worth documenting if confirmed, but not something that fundamentally changes our understanding of an anomaly that we already know reorders people’s minds. But let’s talk about how it appeared, right? This did not apparate in 2021. At some point—long ago, based on the art style—this was carved. We’re not the first hands to hold this. Somebody left this for us to find, and, by all appearances, waited a long time to do so.
TSIOLIS: Why would it make it, carve it, and then wait for eons?
HARADA: I don’t know. That’s why I’m wondering if we should track it down and ask it.
TSIOLIS: We have a different theory at -19. Dream insertion is very obviously nowhere near as impressive as making this would be. Neither is carving this; anyone can carve. I mean, I can’t, but you get my point. We don’t think it’s one person at all.
HARADA: Explain.
TSIOLIS: Imagine if this thing was older than time. An age such that tracing its origin is pointless.
HARADA: Can’t we date it?
TSIOLIS: The bone, sure, but not its current form. You’ve heard that that bone is about 300,000 years old, right?
HARADA: That wasn't in the information shared. So no, I hadn't heard that.
TSIOLIS: Now you have. So then it got found by a society that discovered its anomalous properties. They made the lamp, carved the lamp. Then it was lost to the ages, and now something found it again and decided to give it to us.
HARADA: So three beings, separated across time. The gifter, the carver, the creator.
TSIOLIS: Or the gifter, the carver, the owner of the bone. The bone itself might have been fashioned into its current form by the carver. The anomalous nature of the bone might flow from the anomalous nature of the being that it came from.
HARADA: That would still feel deific. The lamb of God. Neanderthal-Christ.
TSIOLIS: We can’t call something deific just because it seems like there should be a god involved. That’s cargo-cult behavior. Why not a god behind SCP-173? Why not a god behind… I suppose, if sin is a thing that we can commodify and do away with, what separates this from any physical anomaly? If we’re comfortable with inexplicable physical reactions and inexplicable mental effects being nondeific, why not an inexplicable reaction that changes the ledger of sin?
HARADA: Because sin is an attribute that exclusively attaches to discrete living beings. That’s meaningfully distinct from "oh, this affects living brains." You have to have a whole ontology. A way of saying, ah, these Siamese twins are two individuals. This person, cloven in two and not quite dead, is one. How do you not see a conscious being at work there? And if there is, how sure are we that it’s a being we want to work with?
TSIOLIS: First of all, it is completely possible that it was a nondeific anomaly of raw, undirected power, harnessed by some long-dead sculptor for the purpose of erasing sin. Second of all, our blindness of the dimension of sin is nearly total. We don’t know how the mechanism works in nearly enough detail to start in with the thought experiments. Thirdly, even if you’re right, we’re still going to use it. We’ve got a lot of work that needs doing. No sense letting paranoia take away our toolkit.
HARADA: I don’t appreciate being called a paranoiac.
TSIOLIS: If you don’t mind my asking, when were you last redeemed?
HARADA: Never, actually.
TSIOLIS: Would you like to? It’s on site. Get some hands-on exposure to the anomaly.
HARADA: I think I’m all right. But that brings me to my last couple points. These are reasonable questions, right?
TSIOLIS: I think I’ve made clear that we here consider ourselves to be under vastly less risk from SCP-8227 than you suggest.
HARADA: I didn’t ask if you thought I was wrong. I asked if you thought I was unreasonable.
TSIOLIS: Well, no. I’m certainly not in the business of calling my colleagues unreasonable. I hope that you’re not taking any of this personally.
HARADA: And you’ve had several dozen people attached to the SCP-8227 project at some point, right?
TSIOLIS: Sure. Implementing the ritual, overseeing the Manna partnership, figuring out site rotations. It’s a big job.
HARADA: I’m sure it is. But with so much unanswered, and so many people in the room… do you see where I’m going with this?
TSIOLIS: Can’t say I do.
HARADA: It doesn’t strike you as strange that literally nobody appears to have asked these questions before?
TSIOLIS: Can't say it does.
HARADA: That nobody’s ever wanted to know where this thing came from? What’s fueling it?
TSIOLIS: There are some tests from the first few days post-discovery.
HARADA: I’ve seen them. And the tests die out right after SCP-8227 begins being utilized.
TSIOLIS: You have the causality backwards. More likely, the utilization didn’t begin until all anticipated testing had ended.
HARADA: Normally, testing lasts longer than two to three days. All I see is the team doing the ritual, maybe as a lark, and then abruptly, almost instantly, declaring an end to testing and a mass increase in SCP-8227 utilization. Not only that, but the outreach to Manna begins immediately, right? Which is rare for us. Unusually public. And you could not design a better way to expose as many people to SCP-8227 as possible.
TSIOLIS: It’s a simple object. A few days of testing might be all they had planned. Also, if you’re going to let Manna use it, and I stand by our partnership, then Manna’s going to try its damnedest to maximize public exposure. That doesn’t prove anything. In any case, why would there be a mind-affecting impact? What illicit gain would anyone possibly reap from us using this thing the way that we’ve been using it?
HARADA: I don’t know. But I know that these are questions that should already have been asked.
TSIOLIS: Were these questions precleared with your superiors?
HARADA: That wouldn’t be typical.
TSIOLIS: You should run them by them. I’m sure they’ll say there’s nothing to worry about.
HARADA: Maybe. But they—they’ve used it.
TSIOLIS: Okay.
(Tsiolis smiles, as though about to laugh.)
TSIOLIS: I’ve got a meeting to set out to. Good afternoon, Dr. Harada.
HARADA: Good afternoon.
TSIOLIS: And hey, if you change your mind… it’s always there. It’s waiting for you.
Addendum 2: On March 8, 2024, Site-308 Task Force Omega-1442 member ██ ███ passed away from natural causes. Due to the isolated nature of Site-308 and the technical fact that the members of the task force it houses are not officially classed as “permanent dedicated staff,” Site-308 had been excluded from prior SCP-8227 rotations, and ██ ███ had never participated in the SCP-8227-1 ritual.
Approximately 72 hours later on March 11, a failsafe designed to provide emergency egress from the capsule housed within SCP-1844 was tripped externally, leading to the breach of the SCP-1844 capsule, the death of the five members of Omega-144 within it, and the subsequent surfacing of multiple demonic entities. MTF units were scrambled and successfully stabilized the site until a secondary capsule could be deployed.
A retrospective investigation of the March 11 incident concluded that the failsafe could only have been tripped externally by a group with knowledge of capsule security codes and Omega-144 internal passphrases. Prior to March 8, the only individuals thought to have access to this knowledge were the members of Omega-144 themselves. ██ ███ is believed to have been remanded to the SCP-1844 afterlife after his death due to unexpectedly high levels of sin, and to have subsequently revealed critical Foundation information to SCP-1844-dwelling demonic entities, almost certainly under duress. This information was instrumental in enabling the breach.
To prevent the further acquisition of sensitive Foundation data by afterlife-dwelling factions antagonistic to our interests, participation in the SCP-8227-1 ritual every five years has been rendered mandatory for all Foundation employees as of March 14, 2024.