NoodleArms

Draft

Item #: SCP-XXXX

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX is currently stored in a Class 2 Anomalous Object Container in Site-15. All testing of SCP-XXXX has been suspended indefinitely. Consequently, SCP-XXXX is not to be removed from its Anomalous Object Container under any circumstances. Personnel that believe further testing has merit may submit an appeal to the Ethics Committee.

Description: SCP-XXXX is a ██████-brand rangefinder camera. Testing and historical documentation both suggest that the anomaly was originally manufactured in the early 1960s, though it is unknown if SCP-XXXX was always anomalous, or if its unique qualities manifested later.

Addendum:

Notes

Camera that vanishes people.

Original idea: When a human's picture is taken, they disappear for a split second. This is only noticeable later upon viewing the picture, when the shutter functionality makes it appear a horizontal strip is missing from the person.

Where does this idea lead?

• Where do you go?
  • Does the camera lead to a wholly new location (e.g. 093) or is it trying to build a world with things from pictures?
    • This would require the camera to vanish objects as well, maybe there is a world of objects the camera "wants" to populate
    • Is the camera sentient or sapient?
• Do you come back?
  • Is the victim gone to the new place forever?
    • Are they replaced by something else in our world?
  • Does the victim perceive time differently and feel like they've been gone longer than a split second?
    • This would reveal immediately the object is anomalous; is there something antimemetic about the other place?
  • Maybe the camera does not take you immediately, but instead you disappear when film is developed. Then the subject can return to our world when the developed picture fades.
    • This process could be best facilitated by putting the photograph in a hot, humid, and bright room.
    • Is this amount of fading even possible?
• Ultimately, I'd like to include some exploration logs of the "other place," then suspend testing when it is either well understood or deemed too dangerous.

Concepts round one

Idea 1:

There is timefuckery involved. When the picture is taken, the subject is gone for a fraction of a second in our reality, but they experience it to be much longer. Something about the experience is antimemetic, preventing the subject from having a breakdown when they return to our reality.
Pros, Cons, and other avenues to explore:

• Perhaps the experience is not actually antimemetic, but cognitohazardous. Subjects remember their time in the other place, but the cognitohazard prompts them to reassimilate into our world before eventually revealing that they are compromised.
  • The obvious course of action for compromised individuals would be killing sprees, but there is lots to explore here. Are they mindless berserkers? Or are they craftier, staging containment breaches? Perhaps they make an effort to photograph as many people as possible, or attempt something more sinister than just murder.
• Con: researchers cannot communicate in real-time with explorers. I'd rather be able to take communication away and restore it at will, not have it blocked off completely.
• Pro: I really like the idea that the only way to know they're gone is the behavior of the shutter. I think this is the most unique idea of the whole concept.
• Con: Requires the article to explain how a camera shutter works.

Idea 2:

The subject does not disappear upon taking the picture, but upon developing it. Affected individuals can be brought back by fading the picture sufficiently.
Pros, Cons, and other avenues to explore:

• This gives the researchers some degree of control over how long explorers are gone, but not complete control. Seems like a good way to add tension.
  • Is it even possible for a print to fade to white under any conditions? How long would it take under ideal fading conditions?
  • What do the photographs look like before they fade? Do they change over time or in regard to what is happening to the pictured subject?
  • What happens if the photographs are destroyed before fading?
• Pro: Does not require the additional factors of cognitohazards, antimemes, or time manipulation.
• Con: Depending on implementation, may alleviate sense of danger by allowing researchers to pull the explorer out at will.

Determining what the camera's ulterior dimension is like will likely hinge to some degree on how it works in our world, so I'm not exploring that at this moment.