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Item #: SCP-XXXX
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: Foundation personnel, assumed to be infected by SCP-XXXX are to undergo psychological checkup by their local medical team.
If SCP-XXXX is diagnosed, the patient is to be transferred to monitored containment under psychiatric treatment for the duration of ongoing symptoms. Should the symptoms not abate after two weeks, the affected patient is to be terminated.
In the rare case of a CAO-class Transformation Event, MTF Mu-13 ("Ghostbusters") is to engage in the termination of all manifestations of SCP-XXXX-1, should an attempt by on-site security guards fail.
Description: SCP-XXXX is a mental phenomenon, moreover classified as an occupational disease of anomalous nature with a current record of 27 affected Foundation workers, specifically senior employees who were exposed to increased amounts of anomalies and classified informations during their tenure. Observed symptoms include increased stress, frequent anxiety and paranoia, in prolonged cases also existential angst and depression.
Furthermore as subjects experience increased emotional distress, environmental anomalies including slight changes in the material composition, temperature and arrangement of substances and objects within a small radius [~2-3.5 m] will begin to occur.
All affected individuals share a common theme in expressing their skepticism towards their own perceived reality and often begin to regard to their ongoing lives as more dream- and surreal-like. At an advanced stage, setting in after one month of untreated exposure to SCP-XXXXs effects, the subject runs the risk of undergoing a CAO-class Transformation Event during which changes to the surrounding area vastly increase, thereby forming a matter-based vortex, obfuscating the subject and turning it into an entity of variably anomalous nature, herein referred to as SCP-XXXX-1.
An interview aimed at researching core motives of SCP-XXXX's existence was conducted with a senior reseracher and trusted Foundation employee of 24 years inside a standard humanoid containment-cell on Site-17.
Interviewed: Senior Reseracher █████ S███
Interviewer: Dr. Harmon Pier
Foreword: Researcher S███ was brought to psychiatric care after a dispute with Site Director Alfred R███ whereupon several requests were issued for S. to undergo medical screening. In addition, S. was reported to perform his work highly stressed and uneasy, particularly during tests, sometimes uneager to cooperate with other staff members.
S. was supervised for 34 days by Psychologist Dr. Harmon Pier as his mental condition perpetually worsened.<Begin Log, [12.04.███]>
Dr. Pier: Mr. S███. How are you today?
Senior Reseracher S███: Hey doc… I don't even know. I couldn't sleep for much of the night.
Dr. Pier: Were it these thoughts again?
Senior Reseracher S███: Yes… I constantly try in distracing myself but nothing seems to work. As if they run themselves automatically… without me even wanting to… (pauses) You get me, right?
Dr. Pier: I will try my best today as we have plenty of time to talk during this interview. So let's get started.
For the sake of this interview can you recall when you first made note of this condition and what signs you could primparily indicate for yourself?Senior Reseracher S███: Hmm… It was probably like a month ago as I was finishing my recent report on [REDACTED] when a question came through my head:
How come we… as in the Foundation and maybe humanity too were able to prevail for so many years? I mean I was thinking like… records of humanity go back beyond centuries… (pauses)Dr. Pier: Go on…
Senior Reseracher S███: You know as your superior it's normally forbidden for me to disclose my knowledge about the whereabouts of certain-
Dr. Pier: I can assure you that I'm well-informed regarding the clearance system. Provided this interview is aimed at research, access remains denied to low-clearance personnel and that my work is subject to medical confidentiality you are most likely to disclose your work-related concerns under a reasonable cause.
Senior Reseracher S███: Very well then.
So during my time at the Foundation I've seen many things, and heard of even more. Let me tell you that even just reading into some of the more classified Foundation documents will be more than enough to sometimes even make you question your own willingness to work here. But this questioning was never as strong for me as it seems to be now.Dr. Pier: You know, there is a thing about all the Foundation members here that sought my council, from researchers and scholars up to agents and task forces, most notably the ones who came to me in need of mental support after being witness of some grotesque horror during their tenure. There is something they all have in common. In fact that we have all in common.
Senior Reseracher S███: Umm…
Dr. Pier: The driving force of all that work here. That unites them under the… you know. (taps at the Foundation-Logo sewn into his lab coat)
Senior Reseracher S███: S.. C- of course! Yes, yes. Secure, contain, protect. Our mission as Foundation members to keep humanity safe from anomalous forces.
Dr. Pier: Exactly. This is something that I like to ask my patients frequently when I see mentally straning conditions like these sucking their life force out of them. Usually it encourages them to get back up and face the challenges that their working positions pose.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but as a senior you didn't really seem to catch up as quickly as I expected. And yet you seem competent enough to not be considered memetically influenced or the alike so it seems like a more personal issue I assume, really unlike how this condition seems to be treated by other doctors who like to attribute a little too much to the anomalous in my humble opinion. More than is needed. But anyways, I'm getting off-topic here.
Tell me, do you feel conflicted about your purpose here?Senior Reseracher S███: I mean… (pauses). I honestly don't know how to answer this question. I wished… I really wished this to not be the case (buries head into arms). I can't… I don't think this is right.
Dr. Pier: Could you elaborate? What do you feel isn't right?
Senior Reseracher S███: It's just… Everything here. The expendables, the expenses, the losses.
Dr. Pier: To feel this way is a normal thing. Inner moral discrepancies are common amongst workers here as you can probably imagine, especially our novices. The mission of this Foundation however also addresses it's concerns about the greater good. In this case it's preserving the human race, us. Organizations like ours might be the only reason as to why we still exist. And for this cause we're united as Foundation members to fend of humanity of the great unknown.
Senior Reseracher S███: You're not getting it, are you? Never in my life did I ever hear the universe tell me that humans ever remotely matter in any universal context whatsoever. And the Foundation provided me with enough evidence to actually believe this. The more destructive the anomaly, the more convinced I became about it…
(Reseracher S███ abruptly turned silent. Light air streams began to form, picking up dust and forming a weak vortex around him.)
Dr. Pier: Reseracher S███, please remain calm.
Senior Reseracher S███: It should've been clear to me all along. How easy it is just to be indoctrinated with the idea that chaos, absent to this degree is natural. Indoctrinated by no other than who we currently represent.
There wasn't ever any clarity in this work to me. There was just distortion and we've created it, because we decided to lock things up and study it for eternity in the idea that we'll be better off anyhow. But the more we looked into anomalies the more we decided to lock up. It's really a question of when, rather than if, that the perpetual balance between order and chaos will act out it's duty once again and when a ZK-class End-of-reality event will wipe us all out if you ask me, ending a world of order protected by the Foundation as we know it just to ensue chaos once again.
We currently contain reality benders, info-hazards, anti-memetics, and so many more mind-altering objects and entities. Furthermore we're apparently quite good in the administration of amnestics too, generously applying it where it seems necessary. And in the meantime you have researchers thinking that they possess even the slightest form of undistorted clarity over what they are containing or what they are doing. But I guess I'm lucky enough to not even consider myself someone who doesn't work for the foundation or suchlike institutions and who therefore doesn't even know about all of this, right?
I guess I could've really been better off without all of this shit, but it cannot be unseen. No.
I cannot trust any of this apparent clarity and order anymore. I am not even willing to trust my own senses at this point.Dr. Pier: But this order… it is what keeps us alive, isn't it? The empirical study of the unknown, without it we wouldn't be here. Without becoming curious and attempting to sieze control over our environment. This is human, and being human inevitably drives us towards preserving our species and therefore acting out on this goal by all means necessary. We are designed to live! Don't you get it?
(The vortex grows rapidly in strength as Reseracher S███ looks around himself calmly.)
Senior Reseracher S███: So it was all a dream… being human.
(Pier rapidly abandons the containment facility as Researcher S███ undergoes transformation, ending the interview.)
<End Log>
Closing Statement: Senior Reseracher S███ transformed into an instance of SCP-XXXX-1, becoming a spherical entity of unknown nature, roughly 20 cm in diameter and emitting a strong blue light. Subject attempted to escape the scene by generating a hole into the closest lying wall, leading out of the facility. Thereby reality-bending capabilities cannot be ruled out. MTF Mu-13 was alarmed, all termination attempts have failed however. The entity was last recorded 2.4 km away from Site-17 before disappearing to all witnesses. Current whereabouts of this SCP-XXXX-1 instance remain unknown.
