SCP-4140
rating: +188+x
Cave-entrance.jpg

Entrance to the cave system where SCP-4140 was discovered.

Item #: SCP-4140

Object Class: Euclid1

Special Containment Procedures: An exclusion zone should be maintained around the underwater entrance to the cave system containing SCP-4140. Members of MTF Omicron-2 "Skippers with Flippers"2 must be kept on standby to guide the transport of personnel into and out of the cave complex. Containment efforts inside the caves are to focus on preventing the further spread of SCP-4140-2. Existing volumes of SCP-4140-2 should be blocked off from the rest of the caves.

Description: SCP-4140 is a topologically disconnected volume of space located in the central cave chamber of a partially flooded cave complex.4 No matter is capable of passing through the boundary to this volume of space. All forms of energy (kinetic, electromagnetic, etc.) are completely absorbed by the boundary upon contact and never re-emitted. Due to its nature, no information about the interior of SCP-4140 can be gleaned. Its exterior appears to the naked eye as a nonreflective hemisphere with a radius of approximately 6 meters.

Most of the surface area of the central cavern's walls is covered in living biological material, belonging to a single unidentified human male of Eastern European descent. Drilling has revealed that this substance is layered: The outer layer of fat, muscle tissue and blood vessels covers an underlying layer of sinew and cartilage which grows spontaneously from the rock walls. Samples of the walls themselves contain bone marrow and spinal fluid. In certain places, the surface of the outer layer has grown patches of various body parts and organs, such as skin, eyes and teeth. While this material is biologically alive and responds to basic stimuli, it is not believed to be sentient. The entirety of this material is designated SCP-4140-1.

SCP-4140-2.jpg

A cave chamber where part of the wall has been displaced by SCP-4140-2.

If at any time there are no string or woodwind instruments being played in the central cavern, volumes of space similar in appearance to SCP-4140 will begin to manifest within the cave system.5 These volumes are collectively designated SCP-4140-2. While similar in appearance, they exhibit several deviations from the characteristics of SCP-4140: Their boundary is diffuse, and all forms of matter and energy can pass into them without resistance. All such matter and/or energy is to be considered irretrievably lost. Nothing has ever exited or been emitted from SCP-4140-2. Objects partially inserted into a volume of SCP-4140-2 and then removed behave as if the inserted portion has ceased to exist. It is hypothesised that SCP-4140-2 constitutes a form of localised reality failure.

The total volume covered by SCP-4140-2 will grow continuously as long as the Auseuil protocol is not resumed. There is no known upper limit to this expansion: The volume of space converted to SCP-4140-2 has never been observed to decrease. When any number of musicians resume the Auseuil protocol, the growth of SCP-4140-2 will begin to slow until it halts entirely. The time this takes is directly proportional to the amount of performing musicians.

It has also become clear that the insertion of living biological matter into volumes of SCP-4140-2 will temporarily halt its spread altogether. This effect lasts longer the more matter is lost, and is further amplified if the organic tissue belongs to a sapient lifeform. Nevertheless, this method of containment is extremely inefficient and may only be considered in emergencies.

Personnel that are assigned to the Auseuil protocol for extended periods (in the order of several weeks) will start to display symptoms of declining mental health and, eventually, anomalous physical alteration. Affected personnel undergo a progression of symptoms, which can be roughly divided into three stages:

First stage:

  • Onset of irrational and obsessive behaviour, accompanied by an overall drop in compliance with Foundation personnel
  • Reluctance to cease performance as part of the Auseuil protocol, to the point of ignoring basic needs
  • Reacting aggressively when removed from the proximity of SCP-4140

Second stage:

  • Claiming that the music performed as part of the Auseuil protocol sounds "unnatural" or otherwise distorted, as well as insisting that the music can be heard throughout the entire cave system
  • Vivid hallucinations involving SCP-4140
  • Personification of SCP-4140-1
  • Deification of SCP-4140

Third stage:

  • Displaying controlled alteration of their physique, including but not limited to: contortion of the skin, musculature and skeletal structure as well as rearrangement of internal organs6
  • Anomalous levels of physical resilience, allowing them to survive the morphological alterations mentioned above
  • Open hostility towards anyone attempting to disrupt their participation in the Auseuil protocol

In most cases where the affected person is removed from the cave complex while in the first stage, these effects have been observed to fade over time. If they do not fade, the use of amnestics is authorized. All personnel in the second stage are to be redesignated E-class and should be considered permanently unfit for containment duties outside the Auseuil protocol. All personnel that have reached the third stage should be considered lost.

Since it is highly inadvisable to interrupt their musical performance, persons in the third stage will eventually expire due to dehydration, starvation or sleep deprivation. Affected personnel that expire in this fashion have been observed to keep playing, although their bodies will still decompose.

Addendum — Recovered documents: The following journal was recovered from an obstructed section of the central cave, presumably damaged during seismic activity. This side-chamber contained a set of scrolls in the Old Adytite7 language, as well as a withered portion of SCP-4140-1. The scrolls serve as a record of the author's efforts to spread Sarkicism by freeing settlements from the Daevite empire. This makes it one of the only known Sarkic texts recorded before 1200 BCE.

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