Voidalnaut

Item #: SCP-XXXX

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: The restaurant containing SCP-XXXX has been purchased by the Foundation and converted into a condemned building under the appearance of constant construction as is common in the surrounding area.

All entrances to the construction site are under constant surveillance and guard to prevent anyone other than Level 2 or higher research personnel from approaching the subject. Upon entering the restaurant, all personnel are to report directly to the on-site lead researcher before any further action.

All personnel entering SCP-XXXX are to wear standard protective gear appropriate to Biosafety Level 3 and are to be wearing body cams issued on-site for external monitoring. Upon exiting SCP-XXXX all personnel are to undergo decontamination followed by thorough examination by subject researchers and sent to a mandatory 2 hour quarantine.

Under no circumstance are personnel to enter SCP-XXXX alone. All personnel entering SCP-XXXX for subject research purposes are to follow on-site guidelines and enter the room with at least one other Foundation worker with appropriate clearance level and express permission from the on-site lead researcher.

Any substances removed from SCP-XXXX are to undergo immediate examination and quarantine by subject researchers. Further actions will be determined by the on-site lead researcher.

For the purpose of maintaining a constant secretion cycle within SCP-XXXX, the Foundation is funding a steady provision of locally raised goats to be administered to the room every 200 hours or less as determined by the need of on-site research. Additionally, the Foundation has sanctioned the use of Class D personnel scheduled for termination as enzyme secretion catalysts.

Description: SCP-XXXX is situated in the center of the restaurant [REDACTED] Kitchen located at [REDACTED] in the middle west region of North America. The restaurant appears to have been constructed around the room itself keeping the dimensions of the room in mind in regards to the layout of the restaurant proper.

SCP-XXXX is an empty room measuring 9x3x3 meters. Its walls and ceiling are comprised of light-beige painted concrete blocks. The floor is made of a square patterned waxed linoleum. There is a single door entryway made of stainless steel at one end of the room. The door has a key locking mechanism, however no key has been found that can operate the lock.

When more than one person is inside of the room, SCP-XXXX maintains the appearance described above. It remains in this inert state until one or no entities are inside of it. The exterior walls and roof remain unchanged as parts of the restaurant built around the room.

All attempts to install surveillance cameras inside SCP-XXXX have proven unsuccessful as the walls' natural secretions dissolve any adhering agents, and drilling anchors for mounted cameras results in the room producing a shrill screeching noise until the anchors have been removed.

Upon the event of a person entering SCP-XXXX alone, the interior side of the door fuses into the walls surrounding it becoming as one solid wall of concrete. From this point onward, the door can only be opened from the outside. The walls then begin to secrete a highly corrosive enzyme that immediately starts to break down any organic materials that it comes in contact with into simple compounds. The secretion pools at the floor of the room and dissolves all organic matter typically within 5-10 minutes.

Once all organic matter has been dissolved, the room will then begin to emit a humming sound akin to a distant electrical generator. The pooled enzyme containing the broken down organic compounds is then slowly absorbed by the floor until there is no trace of the organic material or the enzyme secretion. The distant humming also stops at this point.

Any attempt to open the door to SCP-XXXX from the outside during this time, designated as the primary secretion stage, halts the process, immediately rendering the enzyme inert and beginning the absorption stage through the floor of the room. The door will then break its fusing from the interior walls and will become able to be opened again.

All electronic devices are unaffected by the enzyme, allowing for video documentation of the process via body cams attached to test subjects. All attempts to identify the source of the enzyme to date have been unsuccessful. Microscopic observations of SCP-XXXX have been inconclusive as to the composition of the interior surfaces other than the concrete and linoleum that is visually apparent. Efforts to take samples of the wall have resulted in the room emitting a shrill screeching noise until all instruments have been removed from the surfaces and all extracted samples replaced. Upon which the separated segments fuse back into the larger structure.

Samples of the inert enzyme have shown it is chemically similar to hydrogen peroxide (H202). To date, only inert samples have been obtained as the enzyme immediately shifts its form upon any attempt to enter the room during its primary secretion stage.

Approximately 3-5 hours after the enzyme secretion process has completed, SCP-XXXX will begin to emit a louder version of the distant humming. It is during this time that the walls of the room will begin to secrete a fluid that is physically and chemically identical to fresh-churned, melted dairy butter.

Thorough examination of this butter secretion has shown it to be harmless, though all samples collected from SCP-XXXX must undergo further examination and a brief hour-long quarantine.
This secondary secretion stage lasts for exactly 51 minutes and 12 seconds. During this time, a single entity can enter SCP-XXXX without triggering the primary enzyme secretion stage. If a single entity does enter during this time, the distant humming sound increases in volume until the entity exits the room. The humming does not increase in volume if more than one entity enters the room.

During the time of secretion, the melted butter liquid will cool down and congeal along the floor of SCP-XXXX pooling into a layer of room temperature whipped butter.

Once the secondary secretion stage has reached its 51 minute terminus, the distant humming will cease and the butter secretion will slowly be absorbed through the floor until no trace of it remains. This secondary absorption stage lasts around 15-20 minutes allowing for collection of the substance for examination.

There appears to be no limit to how often a full secretion cycle can occur apart from allowing the constant interstitial periods to take place.

If an entity does not enter SCP-XXXX and trigger its primary enzyme stage for longer than 203 hours, the room will emit its shrill screeching noise. This screeching will increase in volume every 30 minutes until an entity has been placed inside to trigger its primary enzyme stage. Recent tests have shown the screeching is comprised of dozens to hundreds of human-like voices all screaming at once. The screeching has been tested to reach volume levels of 120dB and higher after three days of entity deprivation.

Various tests have been made regarding what form of entities trigger the primary enzyme stage. Animals larger than an average house pet, (e.g. medium to large sized dogs) trigger the enzyme stages. Introducing smaller animals will keep the room in its inert state. Any expired entities do not trigger the enzyme stage. Large plants do not trigger the enzyme stage.

Recent limited experiments have shown that entities brought into SCP-XXXX and subsequently terminated do trigger the enzyme stage. Entities terminated outside of SCP-XXXX and brought into it do not trigger the enzyme stage.

Local Documentation of SCP-XXXX: Below is a series of journal entries acquired by the Foundation upon initial containment. The journal details the events leading up to containment and has been deemed by subject researchers to be invaluable in determining the macro effect SCP-XXXX might have had on the immediate surrounding area.

+ Local Documentation

06/18/19xx

Dad passed away last week. He left me the restaurant. I am now the sole owner of [REDACTED] Kitchen which has been in my family since my great grandfather came to this country.
The executor read my Dad’s will at the probate hearing, leaving me his keys to the Kitchen along with all of its paperwork. I already had keys to the restaurant. I have worked there since I was 18, and have helped open and close for years now. It was odd to hold my father’s own set of keys after all those years. It gave everything a sense of permanence. Inside the envelope were another set of keys I had never seen before and stationery with my father’s handwriting. A letter addressed to me.
It was the writings of a madman.
I always saw my dad as an unimaginative type. Quiet, stoic, a typical father in a family of immigrants. He had his moments toward the end where his mind would slip. But I never saw him as deranged. Not in the way that his own writings make him sound.
It was a letter addressed to me and not a single word of it makes any sense.
He spoke of a room. Evil without a name. A horrible price he had paid. That I must keep paying. I could not make heads or tails of it all. A lot of the letter came off as a confession. A final profession of guilt before he left this earth. In one line my father said he never meant for anyone to be hurt, but that was as far as he went. He never described things further. He would dance on the specific, but never dive deeper. It was rambling and random. And I must admit it upset me. This was a side of my father I had never seen before. Something that had hid below his calm surface for who knows how long.
I had no ideas where the keys in the envelope had come from, nor what they were for. They were old and rusty, twisting and jagged. I had only seen keys like those in old movies about ancient dungeons and castles.
There is a lot on my mind and it is hard to collect it all. I hope I don’t sound as rambling as dad did. I will have to open the Kitchen again now. The mourning period will have to come to an end so life can continue. I will have to push my father’s letter out of my mind and get back to work.

06/26/19xx
I opened the Kitchen without issue, though the empty spaces left behind by my father’s absence are ever present. The wait staff all offered their condolences, and several of our regular customers as well. It will take some time for things to feel normal again without my father. Hopefully running the Kitchen will help with that.

I did notice that my mind kept returning to that letter and my father’s ramblings. Those keys upon that rusted ring. They must open something somewhere. Or perhaps they were just a trinket my father held on to. The detail that bothered me the most was how my father had addressed the letter specifically to me. “My Dearest [REDACTED], please heed my words” it opened. As if it were some kind of warning or confession proffered to me and no one else. Not my mother, not my brother. Me.

I still can not parse the words on the page, beit for their scribbling messy nature or their incoherent ramblings. I need to take my mind off of this. I need to focus on the Kitchen.

Speaking of, I did notice that the butter stores within the pantry and walk-in cooler are significantly low. It was incredibly unlike my father to leave such a critical ingredient of the Kitchen depleted like that. Perhaps that was another symptom of my father’s secretly ailing mind? But then how had no one else in the kitchen noticed? Yet another mystery to weigh me down.

7/03/19xx

As I was closing the Kitchen last night, I could have sworn I heard voices.
Not voices speaking to me or sounds resembling whispers that could very well be wind or a distant television. Voices that were moaning in pain. Several distant voices crying out from some unknown origin. I could not pinpoint where it was coming from, though it became louder the more centralized I was within [REDACTED] Kitchen; near the pantry and electrical housings. The noise only lasted about 20 minutes before fading away entirely, and no one else I asked could hear what I described. Celia shrugged it off as the old AC unit shaking the ceiling vents.

I could not help but recall a word that was scattered throughout my father’s writings: voices.

I do not feel well. Those voices unsettled me. Perhaps all of this is getting to my head. The grief. The stress of taking over the Kitchen.

I need to rest.

Note: These entries are the only known recording or instance of SCP-XXXX specifically targeting a single entity. Subsequent trials have been unable to replicate such an encounter.

7/08/19xx

A quick note here for my records. Our budget has been rather odd lately. We have been spending so much money on butter to keep up with our typical requirements that we have actually veered into the red after just one month of me taking over. Am I truly that incompetent? I can’t be. Has butter always been this expensive? It couldn’t have been with the sheer volume we have needed for decades. But how have we afforded this until now? How had my father done this? Where had he been getting all of his butter? I actually called up [REDACTED] at [REDACTED] to see if she could cut me the same deal for butter she had given my father. She had no idea what I was talking about. In fact, this past month had been our largest orders of butter from her that she had received in years. From anyone.
I must be imagining things. The books don’t check out. In fact, aside from the purchase orders I now knew were phony, there were no other transactions for butter anywhere within the records at all. Another mystery.
I will have to call around to see if we can keep up with our recipe needs without going bankrupt. There has to be a way. If my father and grandfather could do it for almost a century then so could I.
At least there have not been any more voices.

7/11/19xx

The voices came back. Louder this time. I had to lock myself in the office. I couldn’t hear anything else toward the end of it this time as it gradually increased in volume. I didn’t want anyone to see me how I was. The expression I surely had upon my face.

By the time it was over I felt insatiably hungry. And there was also a sensation of rage simmering within. The rage felt as a mixture of irritability and anger. It frightened me. Had the voices made me feel that way?

After the episode, I resumed checking through the Kitchen’s books. I needed to bring us back into the black, or break even at the very least. We could not afford to purchase less butter from the sheer demand we had of our customers and daily output. I had to make a decision. I needed to let people go. Over the last 70 years [REDACTED] Kitchen had never laid a single worker off. The restaurant had been financially secure since the Great Depression. And now I had to do the unthinkable. I am a failure.
The looks on Henry and Pedro’s faces when I told them we were cutting our staff down. They could not believe it. I could not bear to talk to them. I apologized and told them to leave. It was all I could do to not break down and cry. How far the Kitchen had fallen. Before they left I let them know that as soon as the Kitchen recovered from these hard times, on my father’s name, they would be made whole. There would always be room for them to come back and work.
I feel sick.
Nothing else matters right now. I can only focus on the Kitchen. I can not let my family’s legacy fail.
I will not fail.

7/19/19xx

I know what the keys open. The keys my father left me open a room in the center of the Kitchen. So many mysteries have been answered, yet so many more questions have been unveiled.
What I had always thought was simply a secondary entrance to the electrical housing closet was actually a door to another room entirely.

The voices started again today, this time right as I let myself into the restaurant in the early dawn. They were deafening. In my attempts to find their source I noticed they were loudest right outside that door. It would not budge, and by a mere hunch I tried those keys father had left me. The moment the keys unlocked the door, the voices stopped. The door opened into an empty room. Nothing on the walls or ceilings. Just linoleum and concrete walls.

When inside the room I could not hear anything from the Kitchen. No humming of AC or coolers. No outside traffic. Nothing. Only my own breathing and the beating of my heart.

I looked at my father’s letter again and saw several instances of the word ‘room’. I also saw in the more manic scribblings what appeared to be the words ‘sacrifice’ and ‘ritual’. The scrawled handwriting is nearly illegible, but every time I look at it more and more words jump out at me. As if my father had written in a code that was slowly deciphering itself within my mind.

He knew about this room, and he gave me the key to it.

What does this all mean? I need to focus on the Kitchen. I need to sleep. I am so very tired.

7/27/19xx

My God what have I done?

I tried to show Jeff the room to hear the source of the screams. He swore to me that he heard nothing. When we were in the room the voices stopped, but Jeff started acting erratically. He just wanted to leave. He looked frightened and anxious. He nearly knocked me over trying to rush out of the room.
I couldn’t let him leave. I knew that look on his face. He was going to tell everyone.

That bastard. I told him everything and he was going to spill it all to the rest of the Kitchen. Going on about how crazy I am. I knew he was going to do it. I couldn’t let it happen. I had to do something.

I’m not sure how I did it. I would never hurt a fly. I can barely remember what happened. All I can recall was Jeff rushing into me standing in the doorway, and I was overcome with rage. Then he was lying face down on the floor, a puddle of blood seeping from somewhere along his head. He was spasming. I wanted to help him. But the rage came back. The fear of those voices. The risk of losing the Kitchen. The goddamn overwhelming chaos of it all. I did not know what to do. And I am still not sure how I did what I did.

I hit Jeff. I could not stop hitting him.

I have to believe I was putting him out of his misery. He was dead anyway. Whatever I did to put him on the ground, there was no coming back. And there is still no coming back after the fact. I could not risk the Kitchen for Jeff’s stupid behavior. Why did he have to be such a goddamn coward?!
After he was gone I locked his body in the room. I can’t report any of this to the police. If Jeff going around telling everyone about my being crazy was a risk to the Kitchen, him suddenly dying inside will be no better. No one needs to know. No one will even question it. He’ll have gone on vacation or something. He’s worked at the Kitchen for three years. I’ve never heard of him talk about family or friends or anything. No one will question it at all.

For now I’ll have to worry about what I’m going to do about the smell.

7/28/19xx

I do not know how to begin to explain what has happened. I have truly lost my mind. I went to the hidden room with bags and tools to move Jeff and cover the smell. But he was already gone. Not a single trace of him. What was there was far more disturbing.

The floor was covered in a layer of congealed butter.

At first I did not know what I was seeing. But once the smell hit me, I knew. I could not believe it at first, but my senses were not lying to me. The voices may not have been tangible or real, but the butter that formed on the floor of the room was as real as ever.

I did not want to taste it. I needed to find Jeff’s body. But it was nowhere to be found. There was only the foot-deep layer of congealed butter.

I did not want to taste it.

But I couldn't help myself. How could I? There was a miracle before my very eyes. Pounds and pounds of butter. And it was going away.

I noticed that the layer of butter was slowly sinking down into the floor, being absorbed by the room somehow. I could not let it happen. I grabbed a saucepan from the kitchen and scooped as much butter as it could hold.

Looking at the butter disgusted me. Had Jeff’s body been lying in it? Had he decomposed into the butter? Had he been transformed into the butter?

I slammed the door to the room shut and locked it. The saucepan of butter is still in the fridge. I am not sure what to do with it. Jeff is gone. I noted on the calendar that he had gone on a spur-of-the-moment vacation. The room still remains. Its mystery. I have to focus on the Kitchen. I can’t let it go under. I am sorry, Jeff. I wish none of this had to happen.

At least the voices have stopped.

8/01/19xx

I do not know how to even begin explaining this to myself, so I will just write it down and see how that looks.

I used the butter from the saucepan for one of our recipes.
And it was delicious.
It is no better than the best butter someone can buy. By no means is it a miraculous butter from another world. But that's what it is isn’t it? This butter came from nowhere. And Jeff might have been the key to bringing it out of that room, so to speak.
But it still tasted delicious to me.
That room had so much more butter on the floor of it before it slowly sank away into the floor.
I need to try and get it to make more. But I am afraid of the cost. Does the room need a life for butter? Do I need to coerce the room into granting me more of its creation?

I truly have gone insane haven’t I? I am reading back at what I have written and it is slowly looking more and more like the insane ramblings of my father.

But the possibilities are there. The butter is there. This could save the Kitchen.

I will have to run some tests. Some experiments.

I will have to see how far this will need to go.

8/03/19xx

I am disgusted with myself, but I knew what I was getting myself into didn’t I? I tried bringing roadkill from the highway to the room. Nothing happened. It just sat there rotting until I eventually threw it away.
I can only try these experiments during the night. I can’t let anyone get wind of what I’m doing in the Kitchen after hours.
They would never believe me.
They would catch on to the fact that Jeff has been missing.
They would blame me.
The Kitchen would go under.
I CANNOT let that happen.
I have to find out how to get the room to make more butter. But I am afraid of the cost. Was Jeff not enough? What more must I do?
I already know the answer to that question, don’t I?

I honestly cannot remember the last time I slept.

8/04/19xx

I have done the unthinkable again.

I was closing up the Kitchen for the night when I saw some man walking down the street. It was midnight. I had stayed overnight trying more roadkill in the room. I had given up for the week.
But I saw the opportunity. And I took it.
That inexplicable rage took control of me. It was as if someone else was moving my arms and legs. I don’t know if anyone saw me. It happened a building down, in front of [REDACTED]. Do they have cameras? I couldn’t be sure.

I can’t get the eyes out of my head. His eyes as I plunged the knife deep into his neck. The fear. A fear I had never seen before. A fear I have never known.
But haven’t I? When the Kitchen was going down. The threat of losing my family’s legacy.
I know fear. It pains me that I had to bestow such pain on another person. But it had to be done.
I dragged the man into the alley and hauled him into the Kitchen from the back.

Nothing happened at first when I dropped him in the room. I didn’t even notice that the screams had stopped. I barely notice them anymore. All I think of now is getting the butter out of that room.
I left the body alone in the room and fell asleep in my office. I woke up to a humming noise coming from the room. A humming like a refrigerator or a distant parked car.
When I looked into the room, I saw the miracle again.
The floor was coated with butter. So much I could barely push the door open. It was nearly 3 feet deep. Nothing remained of that man but for the handle of the butcher’s knife I used sticking out in the middle of the sea of butter.

I do not know how to feel. I am disgusted with myself. I am afraid of what has come over me.

But now the Kitchen has butter again. So much butter. More than I know what to do with right now. We won’t have to order more butter for weeks.

I am crying as I write this. I weep for myself. I weep for that man I killed. But most importantly, I weep for the future of [REDACTED] Kitchen. The beautiful future I have provided it.

I need to find a way to store all that butter.

8/27/19xx

The Kitchen is doing great. We have had enough butter to carry us through the rest of August, and possibly through September. Our output has never been better.
Call me crazy, but I swear the customers have been enjoying the food even more now.

I am trying to keep it out of my mind for now, the room has still been screaming every week or so. It has been more subdued since the man I killed in front of [REDACTED]. I am ignoring it for now. I will deal with that when our current butter supply runs low.

Speaking of which.
Brenda asked me if I had heard from Jeff at all. I told her that he had gone on an extended vacation. That he needed the time.
She looked at me funny when I said that. She told me that she stopped by his house, and the box was full of mail. His car was still in his driveway. I shrugged it off and told her maybe he took a cab. She has been quiet ever since.
I think I fucked up.
I thought Jeff had no friends. No one had asked for him the past month. And now Brenda suspects something.
No. She knows something.
I’ve seen her watch me in the pantry, as I open one of the dozens of tubs of butter I procured from the room. She is always watching me.
I cannot let her tell anyone else.

8/29/19xx

The problem has taken care of itself. But something is wrong. Goddammit something is always wrong.
I asked Brenda to stay late. I killed her while she was cleaning out a sink. A quick jab in the back of the head. The same knife as before. Quick. Clean. No need to make her suffer. She didn’t ask to be involved in this. In this madness. In my madness.
I couldn’t bear to see the fear in her eyes like I had before. Maybe that’s what’s wrong.

The butter came back, four hours after I left Brenda in there. I spent the whole morning scooping it into the tubs to use for the next two months. Just like last time. Again, I can’t recall the last time I slept for more than a couple of hours.

But something was wrong. The butter didn’t FEEL right. I can’t explain it. It tasted the same. It smelled the same. But as I scooped it into the tubs it felt off. I even asked Jose if he tasted anything off about the butter. He couldn’t tell the difference. As far as he could tell it was the same butter he had been cooking with for fifteen years.
But he is wrong.
I could see the looks in the customer's eyes. They enjoyed the food. I even approached a couple of diners throughout the day to ask their thoughts on the [DISH REDACTED]. They all said they loved it.
But they were lying. They were all lying. I could see the deceit in their eyes. They were keeping something back. Some unseen criticism of the food. They knew something was off as much as I did.
What is wrong then?
What did I do wrong?

I have an idea. I just need to test it.

9/05/19xx

I’ve cracked the code. I now understand the room. It wants the Kitchen to succeed as much as I do. And It knows the price that must be paid to provide the butter for our recipes.
The screams came to me again at the end of the week. They were louder than before. They were telling me what I already knew.
The screams from nowhere. The room was letting me hear what IT wanted to hear. It needed the screams. It feeds on fear. And for our little cooperation to continue working, I needed to provide.
So I tested it. And I was right.
A new bus boy. Francis. I told him to go into the room, that the entire fate of the Kitchen depended on him.
I let him see the knife.
I will not repeat what I have done. It sickens me to even relive those fresh memories.
But he was afraid. I made him scream. And the room was glad for it.

Today the customers were happier than ever. Business has been booming, we have been busier than ever before. And there were no lies behind the customers’ eyes. They all genuinely enjoyed the cooking. More so than I had ever seen. Than possibly my father or grandfather had ever seen.

I know the price that must be paid to keep this up. I only hope I have the strength to keep doing it. I do not know for how long I can maintain this exchange. But for the Kitchen, I will do whatever needs to be done.

10/15/19xx
I have a problem. The Kitchen has been doing better than it ever has before. This is a level of popularity unlike any we have had before. Newspapers have reported on our food. Even [REDACTED] on channel [REDACTED] interviewed me for a local restaurant report. Normally I would be ecstatic. But for one thing.

The butter from the room that would normally have been enough for two months, now barely lasts a single week.

The unspeakable exchange that I must offer up to the room will have to take place once a week now. And every time, I must provide fear for the room, so that It will be glad.
Is this what my father and grandfather had to do? How long can I keep this up?
How long before the police catch wind of what I am doing here? When someone starts looking for those that have gone missing?

The past two times I offered up a vagrant and a tourist who had been travelling alone. How many more opportunities will I have?

It doesn’t really matter does it?

The room must be sated. It must be made glad. All for the butter that supports the Kitchen.
Everything for the Room.
Everything for the Kitchen.

I will do what must be done.

Note: Here there are several entries of illegible notes and diagrams. On several pages, the words ‘room’, ‘fear’, and ‘glad’, are repeated hundreds of times. There are also several names and descriptions of persons who have been reported missing since the entry on 10/15/19xx.

The next and final legible entry takes place February of the following year.

02/15/19xx

The room is angry with me. The fear is not enough. The screaming has not stopped for the last month. No matter who I offer to the room. No matter how much fear or pain I subjected them to. The room will not stop screaming.

I know what must be done. And I am ready. I have taken the necessary steps.

[REDACTED] Kitchen is in good hands now. Jose knows the place as well as I do.

I have made many terrible mistakes. I hope that the families of those I have stolen from can find it in their hearts to forgive me.

The room has been screaming for me and only for me this entire time. It has always wanted me.
I will now go and join the room once and for all. I will make it glad. And hopefully its hunger will be sated. Hopefully no one else must be offered up in its name.

I will give my fear over to the room. And hopefully it will be glad.

Note: This is the final entry in the journal. No trace of the previous owner has ever been found. The Foundation was not made aware of the existence of SCP-XXXX until two years after the final entry when the then owner Jose [REDACTED] was arrested under charges of kidnapping and premeditated homicide.
The restaurant has since been condemned and placed under the guise of eternal construction in order to contain SCP-XXXX.