Sulfur. Cinder. Powder.
Image of SCP-8564-1 drop, recovered from outskirts of Las Vegas. Photographer unknown.
Item #: SCP-8564
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: The remains of SCP-8564-1 must be kept within water-filled concrete casks in Site-08.
All drop sites are to be scoured for SCP-8564-2 by ITF Upsilon-7 (“The Quick and The Dead”) platoons. Troopers should carry standard cleanup gear and wear 221V-Hathorne lock-suits.
SCP-8564-2 are to be killed as quickly as possible, and similar cleanup gear is to be worn by any staff member entering a drop site for any reason.
Description: SCP-8564-1 refers to any of 32 explosive devices that were dropped on major cities worldwide on 29 January, 1964. SCP-8564-1’s technology has not been identified, though it bears resemblance to the Foundation’s own former nuclear initiative, Project AEDile. Despite resembling modern weaponry, SCP-8564-1’s payload is paranormal and cannot be recreated, but releases heavy levels of radiation along with its other effects. Drop sites continue to emit radiation in quantities up to one sievert.
While they are believed to all come from the same source, SCP-8564-1’s country of origin has not been identified.
SCP-8564-2 refers to the animated remains of all organic life destroyed on 29 January. SCP-8564-2 commonly resembles piles of dusty grey-brown carbonate slurry, which move by undulating and clinging to surfaces, and hunt opportunistically while camouflaged.
However, SCP-8564-2 is highly polymorphic, which it incorporates into its hunting. Typically, SCP-8564-2 will spend most of its time roving ruins and consuming any remaining biomass. When encountering prey, SCP-8564-2 will commonly wait for the prey to stand near it, surround and encase it within, and either smother or irradiate them.
Water is the most effective tool for dispersing and de-animating these anomalies, especially when fired out at high pressure. Once SCP-8564-2 has a mass-to-water ratio of over 4:3, it will de-animate.
SCP-8564-2 do not seem to communicate with each other, and have fortunately not yet been observed acting intelligently.
Addendum-01: Outset of Bombing Event
Numerous Foundation facilities and sites were crippled after 29 January, greatly deconsolidating power. The majority of the unscathed sites were in North America and Europe, as foreign sites were often set up in major cities, which would later be bombed.
Visits to destroyed sites showed no signs of any of the anomalies contained within. The O5 Congress is unsure of whether or not SCP-8564-1 could harm certain objects, but is not currently willing to utilize SCP-8564-1’s remains for crosstesting.
Soon after the bombing, the Foundation created Directed (now International) Task Force Upsilon-7, initially for the purposes of securing drop sites. This would lead to the discovery of SCP-8564-2 and many casualties. It would take nearly six months before the areas in Burma and Egypt that would become Site-40 and Site-119 could be fully secured. At the time of writing (October 1967), it is believed that 6% of contaminated land area has been reclaimed by Foundation efforts.
Addendum-02: Video Recording
The following is a video recording, made using proprietary, cutting-edge Foundation audiovisual technology.
8 DECEMBER, 1967
04:28: Near what was once the intersection of 108th and Van Doren Street, several instances of SCP-8564-2 slither along the side of a ruined legal office. The instances rove aimlessly around the visible area, occasionally nearing the fortified doors of the entrance passage to Site-08's F Wing.
04:31: Four security officers exit the doors and begin spraying water to kill the instances. The instances respond with agitation and make aggressive maneuvers, but are repelled.
SCP-8564-2 instances begin to cluster along the edge of the sidewalk, joining into a larger, far more solid mass.
04:32: SCP-8564-2 resumes offensive action, its maneuvers becoming far more effective through the formation of fissures in its mass. Security officers respond negatively to this, their ranks growing messier as they attempt to keep SCP-8564-2 away.
SCP-8564-2, its mass growing more syrupy from water induction, lifts Officer Cooper’s water tank and slams it into her rib cage, crushing her lungs. The other three officers begin fleeing, but are prevented from reaching the doors by SCP-8564-2, which violently infiltrates the officers’ respiratory systems, suffocating them.
04:33: SCP-8564-2 comes to rest on top of the bodies and drags them away with unusual care.
Addendum-03: Local Report
Greater New York DECEMBER Survey
- Flora Integrity: 72%
- Fauna Remnants: 46%
- Water Contamination: 1.9%
- 8564-2 Dispersion: Potissimi
- Non-Foundation Human Population: ~1,006,230
- Cancer Rates: 84%
Currently, among all other homesteads and hamlets in the NJ-PA area, the largest human settlement is the Brunswick Consolidation, with a population of ~240,070. A majority of those that survived the drop fled west, since transit routes were mostly destroyed. Tenuous farms have been established on the edge of the city, as preexisting food surpluses have been exhausted. Local governance seems to be based in what was once Rutgers University. Very few nonessential industries have survived the drop.
The Brunswick Consolidation seems to have been afflicted with similar problems to other rebuilding communities worldwide, in that its remaining groundwater stores and fertile soil cannot last when the settlement is assailed by SCP-8564-2. The fact that these organisms are radioactive means that they poison the land they roam. Even though a relatively large chunk of the area’s populace survived, this pattern of population diasporas slowly falling to onslaughts of SCP-8564-2 seems to be one which cannot be meaningfully circumvented.
Overwatch Congress has vetoed suggestions to directly aid or administer over this municipality, but will provide indirect assistance by exterminating large contaminations of SCP-8564-2. Local Upsilon-7 troopers with surviving family in Brunswick should be transferred.
-Dr. Shunt
Addendum-04: New York Memorial Transcript
"IN MEMORIAM"
ON THIS SPOT, ON JANUARY TWENTY-NINE MCMLXIV, A BOMB WAS DROPPED
TWENTY MILLION SOULS WERE LOST
AND TWO BILLION WERE LOST WORLDWIDE
WE, THE SCP FOUNDATION, WILL NOT FORGET THEM
WE WILL DIE IN THE DARK SO THE CHILDREN OF THE FUTURE MAY LIVE IN THE LIGHT
SULPHURIS - CINERIS - PULVERIS
