I look into the fire and I hope, by God I hope, for an ending.
When I was a child, my father once told me that "hell is other people". I didn't know what he meant, but some of the sense, the weight of it, settled its way upon me. He wasn't looking at me when he said it; he was drinking whisky, blinds half-drawn against the sun, staring at the wall amidst the whining of flies. He enjoyed saying things like that to me. He prided himself on not being the kind of man who'd beat a child.
When we lowered him into the earth, I remembered something else - sitting in his hideout, watching him do the work. The gleam in his eye and in his teeth, a bone-white tombstone smile as he convinced himself that he was doing the right thing, that it was all necessary. The sun a black orange on the horizon, taking with it certainty as it melted into the mountains and brought with it the death of the night. His gaze so sharply pressed, his mouth so opened wide. I could have reached out and watched that sunset melt inside my arms.
I wonder, now, if the flies are still whining, crawling on his face beneath the broken flesh of the earth.
—The Administrator
SCP-001-108
Item #: SCP-001-108
Object Class: Keter-potissimi
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-001-108 is uncontained. The fire surrounding SCP-001-108 has thus far proven extremely resilient to circumscription. Due to this, containment efforts are to primarily focus on reducing the spread of the flames.
As the threat posed by the anomaly to Site-01 is severe (and thus, by proxy, the Foundation as a whole), its containment is deemed an extremely high priority to the Overseer Council. Efforts to prevent the fire's spread and eventually contain SCP-001-108 are being headed by Site Director Takehiko Kanazawa.
Description: SCP-001-108 is the corpse of O5-3, hanging within its office at Site-01, engulfed by a perpetually burning fire. The fire has thus far spread across the entire office and a large section of the administrative wing of Site-01, and continuously incinerates all matter within an expanding radius around SCP-001-108.
The expansion of the fire is erratic and cannot be predicted. On average, it has expanded approximately four meters per day when undisturbed.
Maybe hell is a place on earth. Our actions cause it, after all; we are trapped within them, in cycles of karma or depravity, hoping for an exit we cannot attain.
I did not know my mother, but she used to paint. A wall in our home was a great fresco, one she had made, of a soft and green country. The brush flecked blue and spotted white on the wall, and the light shone through thin gauze curtains. I would lean up to touch it, feel the chips of paint and think of faces after faces, framed in golden stars.
My brother came home one day, out of his mind, and took a knife to it. I watched, horrified, as he slashed and slashed and scratched at it, screaming, letting it out – all he had taken, from the war, from death upon death. The light shone through still, illuminating every imperfection, magnifying them; on, and on, and on, the pattern destroyed.
—The Administrator
The fire that exudes from SCP-001-108 burns perpetually. Although the objects the fire attaches to may decay or wither, they will remain largely intact and continue to serve as an endless fuel source. Once an object is engulfed by the fire, it cannot be extinguished, even if it is moved outside of the afflicted radius surrounding SCP-001-108. Anything that touches an object burning as a result of SCP-001-108 will in of itself become a new point of ignition — as such, it is recommended that any burning object or person be moved back within the boundaries of SCP-001-108 to avoid unnecessarily spreading the flames.
Living creatures immolated by SCP-001-108's fire will not die, regardless of how severely they are burned. Attempts to extinguish them directly often lead to additional casualties through exposure. These individuals can, however, be killed through other means — a consequence that is often necessitated (or in some cases requested) by persons afflicted by SCP-001-108. It is unknown if termination is sufficient to alleviate their suffering.
Direct observation of SCP-001-108 is complicated by the severity of the fire in its immediate proximity. Initial images taken of SCP-001-108 seem to indicate the origin of the inferno was the corpse's open mouth and (now-empty) eye sockets. This is currently impossible to verify.
Perhaps hell is a state, a condition. I have read the words of theologians, moderns, clutching their rosaries and staring up into their Divine, their hopes and wishes, begging God for mercy. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
I met a monk from Salamanca, praying in the Tabernas. I was young, then, and full of arrogance. I was tracking a thing of light and shade, and I succeeded. The monk did not understand it, its vastness; its looming claws, its jagged tooth. He quavered, and his words spilled out like liquid, no matter what I tried.
I saw the looks on his brothers’ faces as I threw his body on their doorstep. They were trying to understand how the tangle of meat and limbs was their friend, their quiet companion. I felt, irrationally, a superiority; my flesh and my blood was not bread and wine. I had felt the sweat of light, the frost of shade. I knew things there were no words for.
—The Administrator
Discovery: SCP-001-108 was discovered directly following O5-3's suicide.
Immediately following termination of life signs, The Administrator was automatically alerted to the failure of Procedure Rashōmon. Mobile Task Force Alpha-1 ("Red Right Hand") were deployed to O5-3's office, where the corpse was discovered hanging from the roof, beginning to burn.
Initial attempts to fight the fire emanating from the corpse only led to the spread of SCP-001-108's flames, including to the now-inaccessible Administrative Wing Infirmary. A majority of the individuals who initially attempted to contain SCP-001-108's fire remain within the infirmary, unable to move, inaccessible to personnel or equipment that would be capable of terminating them. Based on the number of voices that were able to be identified, it is believed there are twenty-six persons perpetually burning within the infirmary.
A Buddhist hell is a temporary place, a place you dwell in until your past life’s sins are purged. But that’s not the hell I was raised with. The image before my eyes emerges from a wooden church, its beams and whitewashed cloth narrowed to the point of the preacher’s spittle and raised book. A Calvinist hell, a frozen place of burnt fire, torment unending.
What a relief, is all I think. At last, you are ended; every aspiration, every hope, every misery, useless and fruitless in the face of pain. Hell is a mercy, in the end; no more thought is required, no more striving, no more guilt or fascination. There is just you, and the pain. That, I could wrap my arms around. That, I could grapple with.
I look into the fire and I hope, by God I hope, for an ending.
—The Administrator
Addendum: Persons exposed to the fires of SCP-001-108 invariably become affected by hallucinations and visions as they begin to burn. These hallucinations seemingly follow several narratives. While the visions remain consistent across exposures, ascertaining the entire scope of the narrative has been difficult due to affected persons becoming overwhelmed by the fires, and no longer being able or willing to communicate what they are seeing to staff researchers.
In spite of this, enough of these hallucinations have been documented to construct three distinct narratives.
The Administrator is a fool. He doesn’t know hell at all.
He couldn’t if he tried.
—O5-3, suicide note.
