Bab 1: SCP-173 ⨷ The Sculpture
We were a team despite our differences. Despite the terrible things they'd done, we were still a team. That's not how the higher-ups saw it, though. No, the guys upstairs with their perfectly pressed shirts. For them, we were judged by our level of expendability, and they knew our next mission was a death sentence. One by one, that thing took out my team—my friends—snapping their necks so quickly and with such ease that no sooner did I hear the scream than they were dead. We had been used. I'd been used. Delivered as prey to the predator, a plot sanctioned by the bosses and approved with a blood-red stamp. Why did they do it? I'm still trying to figure that out. Maybe that's something you can tell me after you hear how these so-called scientific men left us in the cell, in the hands of SCP-173.
For me, it had been the best of times before it became the worst of times. The best because I'd quickly risen through the ranks of the facility. The worst because—well, I'll get to that. I was never the best student. I finished high school by the skin of my teeth, and my job prospects looked bleak. But I was lucky, I guess. Or at least I thought so at the time. You see, I have an uncle, Siegfried, who did some work for the government. I never actually knew what he did—just thought it was secretive work. I used to imagine he was some sort of super spy, so you can imagine how excited I was when he found out I needed a job and offered to help me out. I couldn't believe it. I always thought he hated me. I'd overheard him telling my parents that I was a no-good deadbeat. But now he'd had a change of heart and was willing to take me under his wing. What would I get to do? Undercover intelligence gathering? International assassinations? "Just you wait," he said.
And that's how I found myself walking into a sprawling, futuristic-looking facility where they handed me a level one security clearance card with big, bold letters that read "Janitor." But I was happy. Just the words "security clearance" made me feel important, and it beat flipping burgers. I pushed mops, turned off lights, fired up generators, clocked in, and clocked out. But all that time, they must have been watching me, grooming me, waiting for the day they could throw me to the wolves. I should have known. I've always been an expendable kind of guy.
After a few years, I was called to an office. There was a man in a plaid shirt and a tweed jacket that professors wear. He asked me, "Do you have any idea what we actually do here?" And to be honest, I didn't. I knew that there were many parts of the facility I couldn't enter. I imagined that down a maze of corridors were weapons being built, prisoners being interrogated. But I had no idea about the anomalies. How could I? Before I was told anything, I had to sign a bunch of forms—so many I thought I'd get to find out who really killed JFK. And while they didn't come out and say it, what I inferred was that if I ever talked about what happens at the facility to someone outside, well, let's just say it's not the kind of thing they'd spell out on a piece of paper, but it involves padded cells and rusty tools.
I wasn't scared, though. I was part of something big, something secret, and I loved it. So I signed my life away with no hesitation. Soon after, I was introduced to my first anomaly—the safe class, of course. They took me to an observation room. From that room, I could see into another room with a sign on the wall that read "SCP-067." I just stood there, waiting for something to happen, when in walked another guy in a white lab coat.
"Welcome to your first anomaly," he said. "Is it okay if I hook you up to this heart monitor? We want to gauge your reaction to what you see."
"All I can see," I told them, "is an empty room with a table and what looks like a pen on top of some papers."
"Correct," he said, half-smiling as if I were some kind of idiot. "That's SCP-067."
I thought about telling him that if I needed years of training before I could see a pen, I probably should have taken that fast-food job. I could have been a shift manager by now. Then they brought a young chimpanzee into the room, small enough to be harmless. One of the guys forced the pen into the scared chimp's hand, and something strange happened. It started scribbling. Nonsense at first, but suddenly it was sketching and drawing faster and faster. I could catch glimpses of words and images. By the time they dragged it out, it was flailing around like it was possessed.
"That pen has power," said the man in the lab coat, "a power whose source or origin we don't fully understand. That's why we're here. That's why you are here."
One of the guys in the other room held the chimp's drawing up to the window. It was a perfect sketch of the Tower of London—intricate and brilliant. Above the sketch was the title, "Tower of London, Tudor period, circa 1541," the year Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury, lost her head on the chopping block. Underneath that, the chimp had written, "Pity. She was no traitor. Take it from me. I was there."
They didn't need to look at the heart rate monitor to see that I was shocked. That was far from the only anomaly I'd come into contact with, and I must have been doing something right because, in time, I went from level one to two to three security clearance. And that's when they made me a containment specialist. I won't bore you with all the details, but as you can guess, I dealt with the containment of anomalies. A lot of my time was spent looking through small windows and cell doors, making sure that whatever was inside was still inside and still in one piece. Other times, I worked with field agents when anomalies were brought in—a transition period that the arrested freaks didn't much like.
There was one certain anomaly, though, that I was tasked to oversee on many occasions. I like to think of it as my pet. But in hindsight, I was its pet. This was SCP-173, something that was in what we call the Euclid-class classification, meaning that we don't fully understand it but know it is very dangerous. We know it's intelligent. We know it's unpredictable. And we know it will kill. And for that reason, there are people tasked with containing it and keeping an eye on it at all times.
At first glance, you wouldn't guess just how dangerous 173 is. You wouldn't think it's incredibly intelligent. In fact, you'd think the opposite. That's because it's more or less a walking slab of concrete and rebar with stunted limbs and traces of spray paint that give the impression of a dopey face. We have to enter its cell twice a week for cleaning duties. It leaves a disgusting, foul-smelling liquid on the floor, a reddish-brown substance that I can only describe as a mix of blood and waste products. Where that stuff comes from has remained a mystery since we first contained it in 1993.
Going into the cell was always a three-man job because, and this is maybe the weirdest part about 173—it can't move if human eyes are watching it. That's why you need at least two people watching it at all times. If you were in the room watching 173 by yourself and blinked, you'd be dead before your eyes opened. We don't know how it moves that fast, but in that fraction of a second, your neck is snapped so hard it's almost like being decapitated. I've seen the videos to prove it. All it took was a sneeze. He wasn't even finished getting the rest of the "choo" out when there was a flash, and his partner was left lying on the ground, his head twisted around the wrong direction. So, you can understand why we now require three men for any time we must enter 173's cell.
Then, a few months ago, I was told that a long process would begin to train and re-educate some future Class Ds. Class Ds are mostly prisoners with lifelong sentences or those we've taken from death row and given a new lease on life. We were apparently understaffed, so why not employ these men whose lives had pretty much ended anyway? That was the rationale, or at least that's what they told me. I was told to train them on their new job—mopping up 173's mess—so that the rest of the containment specialists could focus on more important tasks. They hadn't been through the training I had, seen what I had seen. But after showing them the video of 173 nearly taking off a man's head, they were more than willing to follow the rules. They understood not to blink, turn away, or sneeze, and that any lapse in focus could lead to a violent death.
So, I started to show them the ropes—how we move as a team into the cell and always keep the others informed about what we're doing. 173 was always sitting in the corner of a cell, no expression on that crude face. But when we walked in its cell, I got the feeling it knew something had changed. I felt almost as if it was communicating
with me, but I couldn't tell what it was trying to say.
And then, it happened.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, three days since the last time we'd cleaned. As usual, 173 had covered the floor with that horrible liquid. We headed in to clean. My new team was alert as always, and some of them cleaned while others kept their eyes focused on the thing in the corner. Things were going smoothly when we heard a noise I knew very well. It was the sound of the cell door locking. Someone must have screwed up.
"Hey guys, we're locked in here," I shouted through the intercom.
Nothing.
"Guys, the damn door is locked."
Nothing.
I lost it a bit. "Open the door, will you?"
Nothing.
My team looked at me—the ones not on eye contact duty—as if I should know what to do, hoping that this had happened before and that there was some kind of standard plan to deal with it.
There wasn't.
We were always observed when in the room, and I knew that a technician couldn't accidentally lock the door. It was impossible. There were protocols. Someone had done this on purpose.
The four of us sat in the corner of the room as far from 173 as possible, our eyes locked on it. It didn't move an inch, as usual. Just stood, staring at the wall as it always did. We stayed awake through the night, talking a little, holding on to the slim hope that something had gone wrong. But as night turned to day again, we all began to lose hope. We weren't sent here to clean. We were a test. Totally expendable. Lab rats. But I wouldn't go down without a fight.
We couldn't just stay up forever. That was a death sentence. I suggested that two of us stand, one sit and rest, and one get some sleep. We'd take shifts. A couple of hours on, a couple of hours off. Maybe we could show that we wouldn't give up. They'd have time to realize what they were doing was insane. Call off the test and come free us.
We made it through a couple of shifts like this, and it seemed like we'd actually be able to make it another day or two when everything went wrong. It was my turn to sit and rest when I heard the worst possible noise: snoring. The con next to me was sleeping quietly, so it must have been one of the standers. I glanced over for just a split second and saw both of them leaning against the cell wall, dozing. At the same time, I saw the flash.
Crack.
Snap.
Pop.
One after another, their necks were snapped. I'm not sure how it happened, but I was standing again, staring at 173, which was now in the corner, dead bodies with their heads twisted around and piled up in front of it. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't stare at this thing forever. I felt myself giving up. I lowered my head to the ground and then finally broke my gaze, ready to die.
And then...nothing happened.
I slowly raised my head back up, and there it was, a tedious face inches away from mine. It was then that I understood what we'd been containing, what we'd underestimated. I felt it again like it was telling me something. It was telling me to close my eyes, to sleep. So I did. But as my eyes closed, I didn't see darkness. I saw 173 or something like it, but not in the cell. I saw it outside, in the world, standing over children sleeping in their beds, watching. I saw them hiding in the shadows, staring out at passersby. And I realized they weren't watching, waiting to pounce. No, they were hiding.
My eyes popped open as the door opened, and in rushed six security personnel. They took me outside, and jabbed my leg with a syringe, injecting me with something as the world faded away.
-------------Incident Report, Time, and Date Redacted-------------
Following the experimental forced interaction with Euclid-class anomaly SCP-173, the subject has ceased responding to external stimuli and appears to have taken on the traits and behaviors of the anomaly. The subject now spends entire days sitting in the corner of the cell, staring at the wall. Staff are advised to proceed with caution when dealing with the subject, as the only behavior they engage in is an attempt to strangle anyone who enters the cell. No treatments have shown any effectiveness, and the subject will unfortunately require incarceration, likely forever.
This report has been read and approved by [██████], [██████], and Dr. Alexander Ford.
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Item #: SCP-173
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: Item SCP-173 is to be kept in a locked container at all times. When personnel must enter SCP-173's container, no fewer than 3 may enter at any time and the door is to be relocked behind them. At all times, two persons must maintain direct eye contact with SCP-173 until all personnel have vacated and relocked the container.
Description: Moved to Site-19 1993. Origin is as of yet unknown. It is constructed from concrete and rebar with traces of Krylon brand spray paint. SCP-173 is animate and extremely hostile. The object cannot move while within a direct line of sight. Line of sight must not be broken at any time with SCP-173. Personnel assigned to enter container are instructed to alert one another before blinking. Object is reported to attack by snapping the neck at the base of the skull, or by strangulation. In the event of an attack, personnel are to observe Class 4 hazardous object containment procedures.
Personnel report sounds of scraping stones originating from within the container when no one is present inside. This is considered normal, and any change in this behavior should be reported to the acting HMCL supervisor on duty.
The reddish-brown substance on the floor is a combination of feces and blood. The origin of these materials is unknown. The enclosure must be cleaned on a bi-weekly basis.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone