SCP-3004

Due to the intimate nature of this subject (i.e. all who read this will surely [Christ willing] know me and I them) and its current neutralized state, I'm going to keep the academic hot air to a minimum. I have no desire or need to impress any of you. You're my colleagues, and I think we all understand that there's no need to hide what this is beneath jargon and posturing.

3004-1 is a deity, if you wish to define a thing as such. A deity is a creature of law, ritual, and belief. Certainly, its existence doesn't shake my faith. Nothing has, and I doubt a curious thought form attracted to cicadas and greenery will shake it yet. It is not infinite, and it is not all-knowing. Quite the opposite. Its limits are apparent. Cut off from a few rituals and direct believers, 3004-1 ceased all activity. There have been no resurgence events. Nary a peep.

Truthfully, what little we have left of the history of the Cétlaidí (the Singers in the vulgar English) is quite interesting. Based around the Cicadetta luculenta and its apparent rebirth and what have you, it wasn't just a fringe Druidic sect. This was nationwide. They were respected members of society. There are signs of them in Wales and Scotland. So, of course, before the inevitable violence, the Catholic church, in its ever ineffable wisdom (may the Lord my God forgive me for blaspheming His one true church on this earth, of course, etc. etc.) did attempt to bring them into the fold. Before the complete eradication of the Cétlaidí from the face of history in an unprecedented act of violence and usage of anomalous objects that many would see as foolhardy, maybe even horribly unwise (may the O5 Council forgive me for this slight against the forefather of the Foundation, of course, etc. etc.), the parishes in certain rural areas of Ireland seemed more Singer than Christian.

This is all we know. This is all that is left. The eradication of their rituals, of their culture, of their impact on Ireland and the world at large was snuffed out with an alarming thoroughness. Not unprecedented, certainly, but consider the fact that this happened in the late 1700s. This was the desperate act of an early incarnation of what we all became. Foolhardy and harsh, yes, but I truly cannot say that we would not have done the same, given what little we know of 3004-1's effects on our material plane. Of course, given the English view of the Irish at the time, it is not overly cynical to imagine that the Royal Society relished the chance to destroy the culture and the impact of the Cétlaidí.

So total was their destruction that the extinction of the Cicadetta luculenta, charmingly known as the “stained glass cicada,” became an opportunity to even wipe their sacred animal from the memory of man. The deforestation of Ireland, certainly, led to the death of their species, but one must wonder if their extinction came from a more direct source. This, of course, is all merely speculation. Maybe the sacred animal merely followed their deity. Certainly, it speaks to the fear they felt if the Royal Society and the Congregation would enact the destruction of an entire animal species. A harmless creature, cousin to the New Forest cicada. Perhaps they feared that cut off from ritual, 3004-1 would manifest through them. The idea, certainly, is not ridiculous. There is a strong connection between belief and fact. Perhaps, their fear would have even made it so.

Given the fact that Cétlaidí were upright members of society, one can imagine that the resonance within their rituals that 3004-1 felt were mere happenstance. In my opinion, there is no reason to assume that this entity is at all related to the Cétlaidí and their beliefs. Something in them, I hypothesize, spoke to this thing, and it acclimated itself to their belief system. Think of it as something floating in a place close to ours, maybe layered above or beneath. Perhaps there are many creatures like it there. I doubt that an entity like this would exist alone, although I have no proof of this besides the certitude of my gut. Through these repetitions of behavior, through these beliefs, it was able to act on our plane. And it became what it was molded by.

There is also no reason to assume 3004-1 to be malevolent. It is disingenuous to think of such an entity in terms of good and evil. Given the focus the Cétlaidí had on life and death, along with the imagery of Christ the Savior's death on the cross, it stands to reason that the 3004-1 manifestations would be violent. It spoke the only language it knew, the language of blood, wood, glass, and sacrifice. Perhaps the brutality of its manifestations, of the events associated with the 3004 rituals, could have been the 3004-1 entity interpreting the very real subjugation of the Irish people at the time. There is no reason to assume that the lives of its followers would not be just as important to the entity as their rituals. Certainly, the language of death and rebirth of the cicada, of the scourging at the pillar, present in the rites of Roman Catholicism (especially in the era of its neutralization) and what is theorized to have been the rituals of the Cétlaidí could have lent to all of the violence, to the harshness of it all.

Faced with their god, a terrifying thing that sowed discord, there is no record of their reaction. There is only record of their destruction. One would imagine them to have been horrified, yet to have necessitated their destruction, they very well may have followed the entity's whims, however alien. No proof has been found to point toward either hypothesis.

But again, this is all conjecture. We simply do not know enough to take any approach to this object other than making sure it never comes back. I do not believe we will be unable to deal with something such as this, given the current technologies available to us, but it is best to not awaken a sleeping giant, as it were. Given what we have here, I can offer no other advice. Whenever we rarely find something that our predecessors missed, we will catalog it, learn what we can about what we destroyed, and move on to other things.

An instance of SCP-3004-2.

Item #: SCP-3004

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: All communities that could possibly support an SCP-3004 event are to be monitored for uncharacteristic rises in death rate and attendance at places of worship. If a community is shown to have been the host of an SCP-3004 event or events, all afflicted civilians are to be amnesticized. Any injuries or deaths that occur because of these events are to be given applicable cover stories. At no point is an individual known to be involved in an SCP-3004 event to be considered for Foundation employment, D-Class or otherwise.

MTF Y-99 “Altar Boys” is tasked with responding to SCP-3004 events in progress, where possible, and stopping them by any means necessary.

All sightings of SCP-3004-2 are to be reported to the Theology Department. Images of SCP-3004-2 are to be dismissed as hoaxes or deleted as necessary. All instances of SCP-3004-2 found in the wild are to be destroyed to avoid future SCP-3004 events. As of Project SIGHTSEE-LUX, there are to be no attempts to track SCP-3004-2 instances. Any attempt is to be made to destroy them before their disappearance.

There is to be no further attempt at contacting SCP-3004-1. SCP-3004-1 will be contained through the clean-up of SCP-3004 events and the destruction of SCP-3004-2 instances.

Currently, all containment is focused upon reducing the effects of SCP-3004 events which have already occurred. If SCP-3004-1's entrance into the material plane is unavoidable and inevitable, Protocol Damnatio ad Bestias is to be enacted.

Description: SCP-3004 refers to a series of anomalous events that occur in Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic, Anglican, and Episcopalian communities. SCP-3004 events occur without any patterns connected to population or demographics other than religion. While SCP-3004 events are varied and have few similarities to unite them, the presence of SCP-3004-2 at each event proves a connection.

SCP-3004 events are rituals carried out by otherwise non-anomalous individuals in their place of worship. Despite showing a great divergence from Christian norms of worship, individuals involved in an SCP-3004 event show great hesitation to stop engaging in the ritual, even those that involve self-harm. All individuals attending the place of worship for that purpose will not stop the rituals involved, even if their actions go against previously held morals. Individuals who normally exhibit entomophobia exhibit no fear of the SCP-3004-2 instances involved in the ritual. Deaths that occur as a result of SCP-3004 rituals will be categorized as death by natural causes, regardless of what was done to the individual. Those who witness an SCP-3004 ritual express a renewed interest in their chosen faith and seek to convince friends and family to accompany them to their place of worship.

SCP-3004-2 instances resemble the extinct Cicadetta luculenta, albeit with a much more colorful wing pattern than what has been described. Despite appearing in every way alive, SCP-3004-2 instances are primarily of wood and glass. It is unclear, currently, if SCP-3004-2 instances are the cause of SCP-3004 events or vice-versa. During an SCP-3004 event, SCP-3004-2 instances are observed in prominent parts of the ritual. After a ritual, SCP-3004-2 instances exit the church and disappear after flying at least six hundred meters away. This disappearance is hypothesized to be the SCP-3004-2 instances returning to SCP-3004-1, either to feed it or perhaps be given further orders.

It is believed that SCP-3004-2 is the mechanism by which SCP-3004-1 collects “belief” or “faith” in order to consume. It is unclear as to why SCP-3004-1 in its former incarnation did not seem to require the SCP-3004-2 instances. As of Project SIGHTSEE-LUX, it is now known that SCP-3004-1 created the instances of SCP-3004-2 as a “replacement” for the Cicadetta luculenta.

SCP-3004-1 is the entity that controls SCP-3004-2 instances and is believed to be fed by the SCP-3004 rituals. SCP-3004-1 is a Level-6 Pistiphage Entity that exists in a dimension that exists partially within baseline reality but primarily "above" it. From within this dimension, it is currently unable to directly manifest itself into the plane of existence. However, if given enough “belief” from the SCP-3004-2 instances, SCP-3004-1 will be able to enter the current baseline reality, which would cause an XK-class end of the world scenario due to the brutality of SCP-3004 events.

SCP-3004-1 views itself as the deity worshiped under the umbrella of Christianity. Due to this, it is theorized that the beliefs of Christianity-based religions, especially Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism, melded with the beliefs of the Cétlaidí in such a way that their destruction caused SCP-3004-1 to feed on the beliefs of the only remaining familiar group.

If SCP-3004-1 enters the baseline reality, Protocol Damnatio ad Bestias will be enacted. This will involve the usage of Thaumiel objects and mass amnestics which will serve to erase Christianity from the historical record. Cut off from its “food supply,” this is theorized to be an act that would fully neutralize SCP-3004-1.

Addendum: It has been noted that SCP-2852 has ceased its appearances after the first recorded SCP-3004 event. Due to the similarities of their manifestations, this is hypothesized to be related. Currently, all personnel assigned to SCP-2852 have been reassigned to SCP-3004.

For the record, my name is Agent Timothy Luttermann. I'm a member of Mobile Task Force Sigma-25. We've always called ourselves “Ghostbusters.” To be honest, I don't understand why. If anything, we become ghosts.

Sorry, rambling. I'm just coming down from all the stuff we pump ourselves with to be able to get outside. Still seeing trails, you know? Still kinda freaked out from all that shit. For official record, MTF S-25 is the result of Project SIGHTSEE, which was a project to, basically, use astral projection in order to better, uh, contain troublesome scips. That kinda deal. You know, things no human or drone could ever go, which happens more often in our business than you'd guess.

Project SIGHTSEE-LUX was utilizing SIGHTSEE technology and esoterica to, well, check out the big bug.

So before I went in, I read the report on 3004. Fucked up stuff. The kinda stuff that gets your stomach in a knot just to imagine. You don't understand fear until you're a disembodied soul floating around and within and above and below a monstrosity beyond your reckoning.

The method was easy enough. I don't know how they did it, but they captured a 3004-2. All they did was let it out, and I latched onto it. Like, well, a soul bug. Not, you know, bug as in those things, but bug as in listening in to things you shouldn't.

Inside? Where it lives? It's empty. There's only it, and there's the bugs. Except they're not the bugs as you see them. They're the bugs as it sees them. And they're so many colors, they just kind of look like some Jackson Pollock nightmare smearing all over the darkness.

But, it's not darkness. It's nothing. This thing is within nothing. I can't describe it, but there's nothing else but it and the bugs. And me, I guess. I'd say it was cold, but cold is a feeling. Sure, cold is a lack of heat, but this is a lack of anything.

It's hard to look at it, at 3004-1. It's too big. It's just waking up. I realized that when I saw it. You know when you half wake-up and lay in bed for a few hours before getting up? I dunno, maybe I'm just a depressive. But that's what this thing is. All of this is idle. The 3004 events are it hitting the snooze button and staring at the ceiling. I don't want it to wake. That's all I'm thinking, and then it sees me.

It's a big bug, and it's an old man. And it's a cicada on the cross, and then it's stained glass and wood stretching infinite. It's too many things to try to pick out at once. It's like if someone played all the slides in a slideshow at once. Overlapping. It hurts so bad to look at it. And then it talks, and it all hurts worse.

A thing you need to realize is that it's impossible to speak to these things with words. You don't hold a conversation. They beam thoughts, concepts, worlds at you, and you gotta sift through the shit to get to something meaningful. I've met some talkative ones, but this was something else. This was too much.

It think it's God. Not a god. But God God. It was so happy to see me. But that joy was nothing I wanted to be a part of. It was all blood and teeth. It sees what we have. It sees what we believe. I think it thinks it's giving us what we want. It, it doesn't understand metaphor. It doesn't understand that we don't resurrect.

It asked me if I missed it. I don't think we ever neutralized it. Shit, maybe we did. But when it went to sleep, I think it thought it was a hibernation, or like, a birth. Like it laid an egg and made itself. Maybe it got to thinking it was even more of a cicada than before. And when it came back, it gave us our bugs back. It basically said you're welcome.

It's not exactly protocol, I guess, to talk back to these things, especially something like this. But I tried to tell it that we didn't want them, that it all hurts us. I don't think it heard it. It didn't want to hear it. I feel like it smiled? And that was when its mouth opened. It's hard to explain the sight of it. Like a rainbow opening up and out, and inside there's colors you haven't ever seen. And you'd shit yourself if you were a body. And then I was a communion host, falling through its maw. I was the wine, too. It took of me, and it ate.

I fell through it, and it was endless. Lots of, uh, pain? But not the kind you'd be able to understand. A pain of the soul. It was prodding, searching me for new things. I don't think it gets too much from where it is. Like looking at a TV with bad reception. It was so happy to read me. I felt its feelers all over my first girlfriend. I felt its teeth digging into my tenth birthday. It lapped up my every memory of every mass I've ever went to. And I went to a lot. Theology major, you know. Probably why they picked me.

I don't know why it's alone. Father Clark's report said this creature would be one of many. But there wasn't anything else. It was too big for there to be anything else. It was all space and all time.

I think all I did was feed it. I think it got more ammo from me. I don't know. All I can say is that we shouldn't send anyone else there. You can't argue with something like that. And we know enough. Don't go back. We don't want this thing to learn anymore than it has. And it has so much history already.

The thing I'm most scared of? If this isn't God, I think it might become. It's confident. And, well, it's all there is. I looked. And it was all there was.

While working on the Ethics Committee, I have always sought to live up to the morals instilled in me through the catechisms of Roman Catholicism. And it is a very hard thing to be a Roman Catholic, in the Foundation and outside. This isn't due to any complicated tenets. Nor harshness. But it is trying to believe in something that you know has caused undue harm. It gnaws at you.

Protocol Damnatio ad Bestias, then, will allow for a cleaner slate. Judaism will remain untouched. Islam will only lose one of its prophets, nothing too damning. But Christianity, and all it has done, all it has caused, will be gone. I don't relish this. I wish it could be any other way, but the 3004 events are becoming more common. The big bug sticks its head through the topsoil, and we will cut it out at the root.

It is impossible to say for certain what will happen. We don't know if we will be undone, or if there will simply be a deletion. We don't know if something will fill the void or if there will be a world with a great gap. Even then, it is better than the world that will come into being if we stay.

The cicada god is coming, and it doesn't know the difference between life and death. Metaphor and simile don't translate well where it is. Part of me relishes what we're doing to it in a kind of petty way. There is a nonzero chance that the thing devoured my Lord. Of course, if the Lord God could be devoured, he would not be my Lord and God. But still, the humanity in me cries out for the blood of that which killed Him. We will starve it.

The preliminary tests have been concluded. Protocol Damnatio ad Bestias will be enacted as soon as possible.

And to stave off this devourer of God, we will throw one of our own to the Lions, to be torn asunder and to tear asunder. To be damned and to damn. To act as a perpetual lock on humanity, to stave off all belief even close to what the cicada can eat.

To use less poetic terms, a suitable candidate has been contacted. A Roman Catholic reality bender. Ethics would not allow us to put someone into this situation without their choice, without their understanding of what will happen to them. And he took the mantle.

They say the Lions are beautiful. Twelve machines, each the peak of techno-eschatology. And they really do look hungry and prone, black carbon and shining metal with lights that are prismatic no-colors that dazzle. And he will go in between them. They will open his brain, his mind. All Christianity, all that he knows and doesn't, will be obliterated.

The Lord God sent Jesus Christ, his only son, to suffer and die on the cross. And we, the Foundation, will throw one of our own to the Lions for all eternity to undo all Christ died for. An eternity of suffering to erase a sacrifice. It isn't a fair price, but nothing is.

The Holy Father, as you may well know, recently allowed for another road to sainthood. This is, of course, dying to save others. This isn't martyrdom, which is merely dying for the faith. But this is eternally dying for all of humanity, all that there ever will be and has been. This will be the last and greatest saint of Christianity, and he will not be remembered.

Before the eternal Lions feed upon him, remember, for as long you can, the eternal life of St. Jude the Damned, Bulwark Against Darkness. Hopefully, this next world will be better.

May God forgive me. If this is a sin, I will burn along with the last saint.

- Bridget Callaghan, Child of God