SCP-3591

Pre-Mission Report: Four-person team comprised of three members of MTF Chi-9 ("All-Purpose Exploration"), and one member of MTF Sigma-3 ("Bibliographers"). Team members referred to as Green (Team Lead), Red, Gold, and Blue. Transcript has been edited.

[BEGIN LOG]

Green: Mic check. Green here.

Gold: Gold Leader, standing by.

Red: Red Leader, standing by.

Blue: Blue here. Resident Sigma-3 member. I hear you.

Red: C'mon, Blue, you gotta do the thing.

Blue: Fine, fine. Blue Leader, standing by.

Red: Yesss.

Green: Command, how's your equipment check?

Command: Everything looks good on our end, Green. Proceed to entry point. Confirm when you have visual contact.

Green: Confirmed.

Team approaches SCP-3591.

Red: So, I've got a question, we're sure this thing is really dead?

Gold: Yep. One of those creepy motherfuckers from Psi-8 took a look at it. Was here for eleven hours. Didn't say a single word the entire time.

Red: What's Psi-8?

Blue: The Silencers. They deal with reanimation. No one likes to talk about them.

Red: Reanimation? Like zombies?

Blue: No. They're an esoteric task force, like Sigma-3. They deal with people or not-people talking from graves. And things that were never supposed to be alive. And things trying to come back to life.

Red: So, like zombies.

Blue: (Audible sigh.)

SCP-3591 appears on visual feed. Heavy camera distortion present. Outline of humanoid form visible: head, arm, and partial chest. Typical visual variance present.

Gold: You see that?

Red: Yeah. Jesus.

Green: Command, confirming visual contact with SCP-3591.

Command: Acknowledged. We see it too.

Gold: Let's get these helmets on.

Team stops. Gold takes four prototype RPD (Remote Perceptual Display) helmets from pack. Group members don helmets, and bring them online. Audiovisual feeds for Green, Gold, Red, and Blue display successfully at Command location.

Green: Command, confirming RPD devices ready to go. Ready for systems check.

Red: So these things show you what we're seeing? Like, what's inside our heads?

Command: Yes, Agent, that is correct, assuming all goes well.

Gold: What are you, stating it for the record?

Red: Dude.

Command: All of you, tell us what you're currently seeing. Red, you first.

Red: I see… A giant face. And a giant arm. Can't make out the rest of it. Jesus, you know, I didn't expect it to be so big.

Audiovisual feed for Red confirms this imagery.

Command: What is the appearance of the face?

Red: Like a giant that Jack killed. Looks like a human, but… not quite. I can't put my finger on the difference, but it's definitely, definitely there. Like it might have bug eyes and feelers at any moment. I know it's very still, like corpse still. Which I guess makes sense, but damn.

Command: Check. Gold?

Gold: I see a starship. Not sure how else to put it. Not like a real space shuttle, like a starship from an old sci-fi novel, or maybe Star Trek. Big sweeping curves. From our perspective, it looks like it's got a curved wing closest to us. Probably equivalent to the arm that Red's seeing. I can see the front further up, where Jack thinks the head is — reminds me of where I'd expect a command center to be. (Pause) Honestly, it's kind of breathtaking.

Audiovisual feed for Gold confirms this imagery.

Command: Check. Green?

Green: I'm seeing a roughly humanoid form, which looks like it's superimposed over a fallen tower. I recall this imagery from the report we read. The fallen tower has an aesthetic that reminds me of a medieval castle, but… ah, futuristic, in a way. Or perhaps alien.

Audiovisual feed for Green confirms this imagery.

Command: Check. Blue?

Blue: It's hard for me to pin down what I'm seeing. Seems like it's shifting. My impressions start with a moving city made from crystal and brightly colored, enchanted stones. I'm also getting a void in reality, a snowy forest, and a… huge, infinite pit with a glass pathway over it. (Pause) The pathway seems present across all of my impressions. I'll pay attention to it. I also get the strong feeling that this is only a small fraction of the entity, like we can only see the tip of the iceberg. And I get the impression that it would be moving around a lot more if it wasn't dead. (Pause) That's all for now.

Audiovisual feed for Blue confirms this imagery, shifting and blurring between described images.

Red: Dang, I wish my shit was as complicated as all that. (Pause) No, wait. No I don't.

Command: Check. Thank you. Go ahead and proceed, Team.

Team proceeds to previously located entrance into SCP-3591. Team stops to unpack drone equipment and take readings on entrance.

Command: Team, go ahead and give us another imagery confirmation. What do you see?

Red: Ugh. Looks like a gaping wound. Would be bloodier if it wasn't dead.

Green: I see a kind of incision, but also a stone doorway. Stone doorway is crumbling, damaged, but should be safe to enter for now.

Gold: I just see the damaged spaceship entrance now. I still have the vague impression of the humanoid form, but it's like it's faded out. The spaceship looks pretty cool. (Pause) I feel a little guilty I'm not seeing anything worse.

Blue: I'm seeing the pathway entering here. Crystal archway around it, or a gap in trees, or… a tunnel into a cavern, or… just the void on all sides.

Audiovisual feeds confirm imagery.

Red: What happens if you fall off?

Blue: I'd rather not find out.

Command: Thank you. Let us know when you're ready to proceed into the anomaly.

Green and Gold have finished setting up drone systems. Drones are scanning areas around SCP-3591 entrance.

Green: Command, ready to enter anomaly.

Command: Go ahead, Green. Be cautious, please. We don't want to lose any of you in there.

Team proceeds into SCP-3591 entrance. On the main feed, camera distortion increases until visibility is extremely low. All feeds except Blue's show a tunnel or hallway (though physical dimensions vary greatly across the feeds). Red's shows dull red, shriveled organic material, with slow seepage of dark red and black fluid. Green's shows a high cracked tunnel of carved stone with scattered rocks on the ground. Gold's shows a dimly-lit metal hallway, with open circuits on the walls hinting at futuristic technology. Blue's imagery flickers too quickly to resolve.

Red: Gross. I hope this stuff isn't real.

Gold: How bad is it?

Red: It's just… leaking.

Command: Blue, I'm not sure our connection is stable.

Blue: Having trouble focusing, Command. I think it's my extrasensory perception training. Something about this entity is really lighting up my brain. It won't… resolve.

Command: Anything you can do about that?

Blue: Not sure. I don't know if this is some kind of defense mechanism, of if what I'm seeing is… more accurate in some way than what everyone else is seeing.

Green: Any ideas on what we're literally seeing?

Blue: Sorry. I'm not even sure what kind of anomaly this is. I don't think it's magical, at least, in the traditional sense. If it's even of our reality, it's doing a good job hiding it.

Gold uses the drones to advance along the hallway, trying to scan and verify actual physical dimensions of the interior space.

Red: What's it mean if it's not of our reality?

Blue: If it's from our reality, at least local reality, we should have some way of comprehending it. Even if it's with Serpent's Hand style magic, or what they used to call "esoteric techniques". The Foundation's gathered quite a lot of these things, and Sigma-3's been allowed to play with a lot of them over the last few years. We should be able to figure something out. But if it's not from our reality…

Red: What? We go mad from the knowledge?

Blue: Not necessarily. Does an ant go mad if it sees a human?

Audiovisual feeds display spike of interference, showing distortion that blots out most audio and video for approximately fifty-one seconds. When the feeds resume, the team is still in the same location, but the drones have advanced along the hallway, reaching a bend in the corridor. Team members are staring at each other, with expressions of surprise visible behind their helmets.

Gold: It's gone.

Command: We lost you for almost a minute there. Did something happen?

Green: We felt an unusual feeling. The sensory input was unclear. We all perceived what might have been a noise.

Red: Kind of like… an echo. Had that feeling to it.

Green: We can't be certain what happened.

Command: Understood. Do you want to abort early?

Feed shows team shaking heads at each other.

Green: Not yet, Command.

Gold: We're still running tests. (Pause) I'm not getting anything consistent from these drones, though. They're certain there's physical matter here, but they're constantly giving me different readings. As if it's changing, but the drones aren't detecting any expansions or contractions. They're just returning errors and then updating —

Audiovisual feeds display another spike of interference. Distortion blots out most audio and video for approximately sixty-three seconds. Feed resumes. The team is still in the same location.

Command: Can you hear us?

Green: Yes. We just experienced the same phenomena as the first time.

Red: Guys? Is it just me, or is this place getting… smaller?

Audiovisual feeds do not immediately display signs of the environment becoming smaller, though post-mission feed analysis verifies that this had indeed been occurring since the second interference spike.

Gold: Drones aren't catching anything like that, but they're pretty useless right now.

Blue: I feel it too. Wait — look.

Blue walks to the bend in the corridor and looks around the bend. The others follow.

Blue: See?

Red: Oh, fuck.

Blue's feed shows a glass path slowly fracturing, pieces falling into a void / a forest collapsing in on itself / crystal dissolving into a white void. Green's feed shows a cave-in, with rocks slowly tumbling forward, advancing. Gold's feed shows a rip in the spaceship's hull, open to outer space (an unfamiliar star system). Red's feed shows the tunnel shrinking down to a single point. This single point has a rapidly growing scab-like material.

Gold: Hey, you hear that?

Audiovisual feeds display another spike of interference. Distortion blots out most audio and video for approximately eleven minutes and thirteen seconds.

Visual feed resumes. No audio. The team appears to be running and shouting in the vacuum of space. No details are visible in the landscape, only blackness. An unseen, unknown light source illuminates the team dimly — their features can be barely made out. However, they are clearly still running on solid ground. Feeds are lost again.

Thirty-six minutes and forty-three seconds pass.

Feeds resume as team emerges from SCP-3591, panting from exertion. Most of their equipment has been left behind, except the perceptual helmets.

[END LOG]

Post-Mission Report: All team members recovered well after medical attention. No team member was able to recall or report what occurred after Gold's question "Hey, you hear that?". No team member was able to recall what prompted Gold's question. Audio feed picked up no unusual noises.

Examining team equipment, it was discovered that the team collected a sample from SCP-3591 while their feeds were offline. Sample appears to be the corpse of a non-carbon-based life form, similar to life forms identified in extra-universal travel via anomalous means. Creature is the size of a small dog, possesses thirteen legs, and a chitinous exoskeleton. No head appears to be present. Context of the creature is unknown. Correlations with existing SCP & anomalous objects have been found, and analysis is underway.

Around two days post-mission, entrance into SCP-3591's limb was discovered to be closed.

Pre-Mission Report: Same four-person team as initial mission. (Volunteer basis despite offer of reassignment.) Test aimed to explore known entrance into SCP-3591's apparent body cavity.

Mission control communication with team was largely impossible due to severe feed connectivity problems. Partial audiovisual feed was still collected and transcribed below.

[BEGIN LOG]

Team enters SCP-3591. No audio, except where noted. Remote perceptual devices show similar imagery as the prior mission, except the interior area of SCP-3591 is consistently many times larger.

Feed lost.

Feed resumes. Team is in a large area with no visible walls in any version of personal imagery (only floor disappearing into the horizon or darkness). Team is walking through what appears to be an assortment of dead bodies.

Gold: — more of these things, jesus.

Blue: I can't make sense of them. What killed them? Why can't I get any magical info out of them? They can't all be —

Feed lost.

Feed resumes. Team is examining a large, complex floating device of many moving metallic parts. One side of the device is heavily charred and partially melted. Unlike surrounding area, device appearance is consistent across all four visual feeds.

Team eventually moves on, after taking samples. They walk forward, with no apparent landmarks to guide them.

Feed lost.

Feed resumes. Team is standing at the edge of a massive drop-off. Across all feeds, there is no visible bottom to the drop. On Red's view, rivers of blood flow off the fleshy edge. On Gold's view, torn metal exposes glowing engines venting into space. On Green's view, a cracked stone cliff. On Blue's view, the view shifts too quickly to make sense of the visual, except that in the center of the apparent void, stretching vertically across the entire view, is a glowing thin object. ('Thin' relative to the void, but massive compared to team members.)

Scattered around the team, up to the edge of the drop-off, are numerous unidentifiable objects that appear to be devices or items of alien nature. These are consistent in appearance across all feeds.

Blue is talking animatedly.

Blue: — spear. It's the first time I've seen anything I can understand this whole [AUDIO LOST]

Red: You mean… symbolism?

Blue: Maybe something's trying [AUDIO LOST] that will even let my mind latch onto it. (Pause) Hang on. Do you [AUDIO LOST]

Red: [AUDIO LOST] Oh God.

Green: I don't hear… (Pause) Wait.

Audio picks up what seems to be a distorted, low roar.

Feed lost.

Feed resumes. All four team members are laughing and talking to unseen entities. Team members do not appear to be speaking words in any known language, and speech appears to either be nonsense or indecipherable. No audio. Heavy visual distortion. Feed lost.

Feed resumes. All four team members lie on the ground. No signs of life. Feed is intermittent for approximately twelve and a half hours before being lost again.

Feed resumes after three hours. Team exits SCP-3591, alive. While shaken, they seem to be uninjured, and are collected after decontamination for examination.

[END LOG]

Post-Mission Report: Team members recall little of what occurred inside SCP-3591, including events recorded via feed. Integrity verification techniques determine that these are in fact the original team members, and that they did in fact die for between thirteen and sixteen hours, before returning to life by unknown means.

Team members universally report (A) going through an event which had such a drastic mental effect that it killed them (but which they cannot recall the details of), (B) recalling living entities inside SCP-3591, some potentially dangerous, (C) having spent approximately a week inside SCP-3591 (despite only 23 hours having passed outside) and (D) feeling a strong personal drive to revisit SCP-3591, Blue citing anomalous ritualistic reasons as justification for the request being granted.

After mandatory three-month leave, request for final mission granted.

Pre-Mission Report: Same four-person team as prior missions. Per request from Blue, test aimed to explore known entrance into SCP-3591's apparent head.

As with prior mission, communication with team was largely impossible. Equipment barely functioned at all in the SCP-3591 area. Only one part of the mission was successfully recorded, and is transcribed below.

[BEGIN LOG]

Video only. Team has just walked through an entry-way into a network of small "rooms". Nothing can be seen through the entry-way on any feed except distortion and static.

Red's feed shows many organ-like chambers, much redder with blood than other areas of SCP-3591. Green's feed shows an ornate medieval castle hall with non-Euclidean physically impossible geometries. Gold's feed shows something like a spaceship command deck, complete with empty captain's chair. Blue's feed shows a grove of trees in a snowy forest, many fallen to the ground, focusing on whorls of knotted wood / a spiraling glass path over a black void, with the end off-camera / rooms full of devices of multi-colored crystal.

All feeds show numerous examples of alien devices with unknown function. While many of the appearances are are strange and functions not apparent, they all appear consistent and relatively mundane compared to SCP-3591 onscreen elements.

As the team proceeds, they encounter living organisms. None seem hostile. None attempt to communicate with the team. Team seems be used to encountering them at this stage. Organisms appear consistent across all feeds.

Blue suddenly seems surprised, and gesticulates at her team members. She leads team members to a side "room" with a table-like structure on it.

A living human being is comatose underneath the table. Human is naked, and has no significant identifying features.

After a short discussion, the team lifts and carries the human out of the area. Feed lost.

Three days pass. Feed resumes. Team members Green, Red, and Gold emerge from SCP-3591, still carrying the comatose human. Red is severely injured, exhibiting slashing cuts across her torso and left arm. Team members are taken in, decontaminated, and given medical attention.

[END LOG]

Post-Mission Report: As before, team members recall little, despite bringing many samples. Red claimed that Blue sacrificed her life to save Red, even though Red was "supposed to die". Team members remember almost nothing else, including the portion recorded on the feed, except the fact of having recovered a comatose human, and the death of Blue.

After one month and three days passed, team member Blue emerged from SCP-3591, with severe but healed injuries similar to Red's. Blue similarly remembered little, but claims to have [DATA EXPUNGED]. (See Interviews.)