Item #: SCP-7267

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: Once an SCP-7267 instance is triggered, cameras must be manually manoeuvred in order to gain a clear recording of the event. Warnings have been added to previously erected signage by the Federal Government of Brazil; due to age, official condemnations of the property have deteriorated and are largely illegible.

Urban explorers, squatters and opportunists are to be left undisturbed if intruding on the property, as they may trigger SCP-7267 events integral to research progress.

Description: SCP-7267 is a series of related anomalous phenomena occurring within the grounds of Colégio Santo António secondary school, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. SCP-7267 events involve incongruences between the present physical state of the school and a suspected previous state in the property’s history, often additionally manifesting spectral presences and unexplained movements. Witnesses of these events experience abnormal effects to their emotional and mental states, such as dissociation from reality, insertion of foreign memories and thoughts, auditory and visual hallucinations, and in rare cases, extreme lucidity.

Exploration of the building reveals significant detritus accumulated inside the school and its external facilities. The first floor is littered with papers, folders and school bags, whilst the second floor is largely empty of clutter. All first and second-floor windows have been broken. Notably, only a small number of first-floor rooms have glass shards covering the floor space in front of windows, implying windows were shattered from the outside. Many of the school’s doors are heavily obstructed with makeshift barricades formed from available debris, including chairs and desks from nearby classrooms.

The school’s extended grounds are overgrown but comparatively undisturbed.

Historical Information:

Due to the recent discovery of SCP-7267, there is little first-hand Foundation documentation regarding the school and its surrounding property, as well as the age of the SCP-7267 anomaly.

According to Government records1, in May 1968 the Brazilian Ministry of Education and Culture (Ministério da Educação e Cultura) pushed a renewed education scheme, involving the building of new schools and introduction of a new curriculum. The budget for the school was redirected to other projects and soon after the school lacked the necessary funding to remain open.

Following the opening of alternative secondary schools in the local area after the dissolution of the Fifth Brazilian Republic in 1985, the building was never re-established. The school was deemed unsafe for use due to structural decay and the presence of asbestos and was eventually permanently condemned.

Upon initial exploration of the building, no anomalous phenomena were observed. This result was consistent with the school’s anomalous history (or lack thereof), however, frequent local legends prevented the Foundation from disregarding the school as an active anomaly.

Two months following this, a video containing the school was posted to a public forum and was subsequently flagged. The individuals responsible could not be found.

Footage begins with the individuals approaching the school, presumably after bypassing the front gate. The video timestamp displays 18:27. The sun is setting on the right of the school, while the left side is heavily shadowed. The pair reach the front entrance, large double doors without windows. After repeated failed attempts at ingress, the second individual notices a broken window on the right side of the school and climbs through. The cameraman follows.

They enter into a large office space, illuminated through the windows on the right wall. The room is littered with glass and papers, and the imprint of a chair and desk, both now absent, can be observed on the floor. The two move on, exiting the room by a door at the far left end.

They emerge into a foyer, comparatively dark due to a lack of windows. They both activate flashlights. On their left, the front entrance can now be seen, a mass of deteriorated chairs and desks barricading the double doors, in addition to dirt and debris. The corridor walls are covered in graffiti, on top of the peeling paint. Situated opposite the office door is a hallway leading further into the building. The two men travel down the corridor, encountering little of note save for two minor events. While exploring the cafeteria, a loud metallic bang is heard from the kitchen; upon inspection, a cooking tray was found to have fallen off the counter. Inside the library, the sound of crunching is audible with every step; a plume of dust draws the cameraman’s attention.

Returning to the foyer, the two men approach the barricade. The second one grabs a broken chair leg and begins prodding the pile, but in doing so he upturns a broken desk, revealing a large nest of scorpions. Both men exclaim and lurch back from the infestation. The cameraman stumbles and drops the recording device, however, it is held on their person presumably by a neck strap.2 Suddenly, the corridor walls are plastered with posters displaying phrases illegible due to motion blur but clearly repeating. There are red strokes of spray paint overlapping in sweeping lines on the walls, in crude formations of words. The camera stutters; the two panic and frantically enter the office, moving towards the entrance window. In the darkness, they climb through and begin running. They turn back to look at the school—great smoke plumes are rising from the roof and dark silhouetted figures enter through windows and doors; there is a stampeding noise, and shouting from the second floor.

The camera pans away and the footage ends.

After this occurrence, the school was immediately blacklisted and Special Containment Procedures were established.

The following is a list of notable documented SCP-7267 occurrences.

Addendum 7267.2: Events

DATE
EVENT

12th March 2008
A cat enters the school through a broken window. Soon after, the school’s bell system activates and begins ringing periodically throughout the day, despite the electrical wiring within the school being nonfunctional for over 20 years prior to the event. The final ring is at 13:00.

9th April 2008
A tree falls, disturbing a flock of birds which fly towards the roof of the school. Upon touching the roof, the birds immediately panic, flying in circles and dispersing away from the building.

25th April 2008
A silhouette stands by a first-floor window for four minutes, before walking away. This event was only by one camera on the outer side of the property. The other cameras displayed static.

27th April 2008

A group of four adolescents enter the school from the East side and begin spray-painting various walls. Immediately upon their exit, the blackboard in the Year 10 classroom manifests chalk writings that continue until the board is covered.

The writings are haphazard and unorganized, overlapping each other. Microphones record the screeching of chalk for one hour before the event ceases.

28th April 2008
Similar chalk writings spread throughout the classrooms, mimicking the style of the initial manifestation. Manifested words are universally related to school subjects, such as História, Filosophia and Literatura.

12th May 2008

A 33 year old man, identified as Gabriel Azevedo, scales the property wall and enters the building through the gymnasium side entrance. He explores the school extensively, encountering no anomalous phenomena or mundane hazards. However, upon attempted exit of the building three hours into exploration, all doors separating school buildings are sealed and all windows are spontaneously repaired and cannot be opened.

The individual attempts to break windows of the first-floor rooms in the main school building—they remain intact. He attempts to open second-floor windows to no avail. Then, he begins moving the debris blocking the entrance doorway, but ceases after disturbing the scorpion infestation therein.

After two hours, he calls the emergency services which redirects to Foundation lines. The Foundation operator informs him of the nature of the anomaly and immediately the building is reverted to a ruined state.

The individual is retrieved safely and amnesticised.

Four hours after the incident, the roof of the gymnasium spontaneously collapsed, the first documented case of significant structural damage on the property. This event dislodged the camera, causing it to fall and face upwards. Over the course of the next three days, the camera view is covered in plant growth. The wood of the building rots and withers. Microphones intermittently record the sound of muffled talking.

The recordings were interpreted by Lusophone Foundation agents, but due to the damage to surveillance equipment, should not be treated as definitive. The phrase 'eles não podem parar todos nós'3, and repeated references to 'a marcha'4, or 'o dia'5 recur throughout the recordings.

After this point, SCP-7267 events experience a sudden intensification, causing further destruction of the property and larger-scale anomalous effects.

DATE
EVENT

15th May 2008
A pair of boot footprints are seen traversing through the school for up to an hour, etching the boot imprints into the floor, regardless of debris or presence of dust. The prints move throughout the school, stopping at doors and occasionally entering rooms. In rooms with blackboards, the footprints stop in front and overwrite the white chalk words with a singular unique phrase, written in green.

1st June 2008

A 17 year old boy, identified as Oscar Hernandez, scales the building and enters through a 2nd-story window on the west side. While exploring, surveillance cameras observe reflective surfaces containing shadowed silhouettes in the rooms the individual traverses.

As the exploration continues, the number of silhouettes increases, with each increase corresponding with the passing of the following rooms: Bathroom W-5; Music Room; Year 12 Classroom.

The individual enters bathroom W-5 to utilise one of the out-of-operation urinals; there is now an indeterminable amount of figures within the mirror. He has not noticed the anomaly once during the exploration, and exits the building through the window he entered. The silhouettes remain standing in the bathroom, before fading away one by one. The last figure places a hand on the mirror before demanifesting.

Two hours following this incident, plant overgrowth was found to be exacerbated within the building. This growth caused significant deterioration around many of the entryways, and was most concentrated in the gymnasium, the east side entrance of the school, and an office near the front entrance.

10th June 2008
A Foundation agent is deployed to fix a camera in the cafeteria. Upon entering, the agent remarks on the smell of rotting food, but continues to attend to the equipment.

N/A
Numerous camera failures occur, causing recordings of three destruction events to be lost.

17th June 2008
A heavy cloud forms over the school, growing and spreading across the neighbourhood. It begins to rain.

Rainfall continued for three days following this incident. Coinciding with the rain was the commencement of Festas Juninas, or the June Festivals. The local authorities issued a Yellow flood warning, however festivities continued. Due to the constant precipitation, the school building suffered flooding and extensive water damages, with the cafeteria, the backside of the building, and the westside of the building almost entirely collapsing.

On 21st June, 2008, the Federative Government of Brazil ordered the property to be demolished. Later that evening, the weather quickly worsened into a thunderstorm, followed by all surveillance cameras on the school grounds shutting down.

Foundation agents were unable to approach the property in time due to the large crowds surrounding the school in the square, causing significant road blockages.

The closest remote observation device was a nearby street camera, which was redirected to Foundation control. Due to the angle of the camera, Colégio Santo António could not be properly viewed, only part of the eastside and the street next to it were visible. Additionally, the light of the festival bonfire caused extreme glare in the camera lens, rendering the footage unusable.

After the weather had cleared the next day, the entire roof of the building was found to have been completely caved in and the contents of all rooms were entirely flooded. The front school gate had been forced open.

Below is an eyewitness account translated from Portuguese.

…I still remember, after sundown. It had rained for four nights and the stormdrains were struggling. It felt like the streets were flooded with people and water, all moving towards the square. It was all dancing and colour, soaked through, thanking the rain for coming…

And our eyes stung in the sudden smoke—they had lit the fogueira, we thought. Bright and burning, we blinked through the rain and the smokey wind and the celebrations began. But it was the school burning, not the fire. Even as the festivals started the firemen did not come. It was only a few of us, pushing through the crowd to cling against rusted fence posts and brick walls. It had rained for four nights and somehow it burned and stayed burning.

And I do not know if it was the drinks, the crowd pushing against my back. I was dazed. Almost alive; the festival music was not as loud as those shadows dancing into the building. The glass shattered and I knew it was the young men and women who were fighting, their desperate cries and I closed my eyes and I saw them. Papers flying, the splintering of wood and tar in bottles and wrists sore and faces down on bloody floors and a chant of which I did not know the origin.

abaixo a ditadura… povo no poder…6

I opened my eyes and the building stood. The school we had avoided as kids. I had never asked questions, I didn’t want to meet the ghosts who lived there. Sometime I wandered back into the crowd. They had lit the foqueira and we had started celebrating but I did not blink from its smoke. I heard those cries behind me and turned back, for a moment.

abaixo a ditadura… povo no poder…

Raging against the shadows, an inferno, alone.

Footnotes

1. From records of the now-collapsed military dictatorship of 1964-85.

2. Due to this, the following seconds of footage are confused.

3. They cannot stop us all

4. The march

5. The day

6. Down with the dictatorship… power to the people…