Eridian Empress' Sandbox

Artgun

Idea Forum Thread: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-13078252/what-is-art-baby-don-t-hurt-me

SCP-XXXX upon recovery.

Item #: SCP-XXXX

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX is to be stored in a standard item locker in Site-██'s Safe-Class Storage Wing, with the trigger mechanism removed and stored separately. On a biannual basis, SCP-XXXX is to be removed for maintenance by a weapons-certified staff member of clearance level 2 or higher, with any material deterioration reported to the Site-██'s Safe-Class Supervisor. The trigger mechanism may only be reinstalled in SCP-XXXX immediately prior to testing, and must be removed upon completion of testing. After a test, the nature of the subject's injury is to be evaluated, and the test supervisor is to determine whether the subject is to receive medical treatment or to be terminated. Due to the high risk of personnel loss involved in testing SCP-XXXX, combined with little to no expected value in further tests, as of ██-██-20 a moratorium has been placed on further experimentation with SCP-XXXX. All proposed tests must be submitted, with justification for continued testing, to the Site Director¹ for approval. As SCP-XXXX is of primarily historical interest, current containment efforts largely centre around locating and confiscating additional records relating to the object.

Description: SCP-XXXX is a weathered Gewehr 98 infantry service rifle, of the type regularly used by the German Army from 1898 to 1935. The serial number on SCP-XXXX indicates that the weapon was manufactured in 1914, during the mobilisation of the Prussian Army prior to World War I. When SCP-XXXX is fired by a human sapient being human²(henceforth known as the subject), a portion of the subject’s biomass, cylindrical in shape and roughly 8.2 cm³ in volume, will demanifest from the subject’s body and subsequently be propelled from SCP-XXXX’s barrel at a velocity of approximately 800 m/s. The projectile does not possess any anomalous attributes after being fired, and as such is usually ineffective as a weapon. This will occur regardless of whether ammunition is loaded into SCP-XXXX, and any ammunition that is loaded will not be consumed. The biomass is drawn from what testing has determined to be a random³ location within the subject’s body, with results highly dependent on the region of the body affected.⁴

Addendum: Selected relevant historical documents. Personnel with Level 2 clearance and higher may request the full collection of documents from the Archivist's Office.

+ Excerpt from the journal of Gefr. ███ ███, September 1916, translated from German

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03. September
I have not had the time to write much in the past weeks, as we have been spending a great deal of effort shoring up our defences against constant Allied attacks. We are now in a French town called Guillemont, apparently the enemy is looking to take this place, so we're here to stop them.
We've had many more troops coming in to reinforce us, and word from command is that we are expecting a major Allied offensive in the next day or two. I know we've got what it takes for us to win, every proud German knows that, but that doesn't mean that me and most of my men (At this point, even I'm in a position over other soldiers, unbelievable) aren't scared of what awaits us tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. You'd think that at this point, two years into what I guess we're calling the World War, we'd be used to the constant fighting and death and violence, that we'd be numbed to it, immune, something like that. But no, we're not so lucky as to have it work that way. Each morning you wake up and the weight of all the anguish and fear and exhaustion and despair is waiting by your side for you to shoulder it for another day, just as heavy as the day before, though you're not as strong as the day before. Just when you think that you've reached capacity on all the negativity weighing on you, you find out that you can get more added on, and even though you might not be able to handle it, you still have to. I guess that's all for today, they're serving food now and then I've gotta try to get what sleep I can before what'll more likely than not be the battle tomorrow. I've stopped praying for victory, but here's hoping He's still willing to keep us alive.

05. September
I don't have much to say today, I barely have it in me to write in my diary anymore. ███, ███, ███, ███, ███, ███, and ███ are gone, all taken by that God-damned British artillery. Their machinegun fire got ███, ███, ███, and ███, as well as ███ and ███, who are still holding onto life, just barely, but nobody seems to think they're gonna make it to next week. If those Allied bastards don't kill me too, then when this is all over, I'm gonna try to find their families, if any of them would want to have anything to do with me or the Army they died for. We're going back out again tomorrow. May God have mercy on us who remain.

12. September
This week I killed five more people, they were all wearing ragged muddy uniforms and old metal helmets, you could scarcely tell they were the enemy if not for the fact that they were shooting at us. I've been counting how many people I've killed so far, just so I can hold on to that part of myself that knows that this isn't normal. I've stabbed two people with my bayonet, shot 34 with my rifle, and relayed the locations of at least two dozen men who got blown up by an artillery barrage not long after. I've been thinking a lot about my rifle a lot lately. If it could talk, well, I wouldn't ask it what stories it would tell, because I've been by its side the whole time, and its stories would be my stories. Rather, if it could talk, what would it say? How would it say it?

+ Selected excerpts from the journal of Gefr. ███ ███ (Ret.), 1924, translated from German

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18. Mai
I was returning from the apothecary today when I noticed that somebody had finally moved into that storefront, over on Altermann Lane. I went to check it out, and wouldn't you know it, it was an artist's store! The owner's a bright young man named ███, and I told him about my desire to get into making art, and we had a really nice conversation. I plan on making stopping by here a regular occurrence, if I can.

09. Juli
I was showing ███ some of my latest compositions today, and he told me about some new art collective that's apparently been making waves in the art community lately. I can't remember what the name was exactly, but their acronym was SWSC. ███'s a member, and he asked me to come in tomorrow, he could show me one of the pieces he made with their help.

10. Juli
I went down to ███'s store again, like I promised, to see what piece he had to show me that was so different from what we've shown each other before. I'm still not entirely sure how to describe what happened, because what the art quite literally defied explanation. It didn't look like all that much, it was a necklace with a chunk of soapstone carved into the shape of a seashell, but when I put it on I found myself on a gorgeous paradisaical beach, like the ones I've seen on postcards from France or the USA. It was like I was actually there, I could feel the warm sun on my face, the gentle seabreeze in my hair, the sand between my toes, and at that point I realised that I didn't have shoes, and in fact was wearing swimwear. There was nobody in sight, the beach was entirely mine, and I spent a while wading knee-deep in the clear blue waters, taking in what was undoubtedly one of the most amazing experiences I'd ever had. For every horrible thing I've lived through, every trial and tribulation I'd endured, this was as amazing as they all were bad. I realised in that second that this must be what Heaven was like, and I knew that everyone I'd lost in the War, they were gonna be okay, that they were okay. I took off the necklace, and all of a sudden I was back in the shop, standing in front of ███, seemingly only a moment after I put the necklace on. I could tell he recognised the look in my eyes as though he'd seen it many times before, and he told me about what SWSC does, that they make art that does the impossible, what most people dismiss as fantasy, what I thought was the stuff of magic or miracles. Maybe, for all I know, it is magic and miracles. I've got a lot to think about and digest tonight, but I know for sure that I'm gonna see if ███ can let me meet some of these people, I need to know more.

14. Juli

+ creatorgun

‡ Licensing / Citation

SCP Sandbox III

Sandbox III: Revenge of the Sandbox