

SCP-3894: Our Sorrow

Author: CadaverCommander

ATTENTION

This document has been secured under Operation Marduk executive authority. By accessing it and the information contained therein, you consent to potentially undergo physical, metaphysical, and spiritual augmentation pursuant to Operation Marduk personnel transmutation protocols, if you have not done so already. If implemented, this process is irreversible. Do you wish to proceed?

I accept the burden.

Bear the weight proudly. Your sacrifice is not in vain.

Greetings, soldier. Allow me to formally congratulate you on making the worst, greatest, and last decision of your life.

I'll start by saying that you probably think you know what you've signed up for. You've been briefed. You've read the supplemental documentation. You sat through the presentations.

It's also likely that you think you're experienced enough. You might have been a frontline NCO your entire career. Maybe you were a unit commander. Maybe you were just a punchy grunt that turned mercenary and got lucky. Either way, you've seen action. You know how to shoot, choke and throw an elbow or two. That's great.

It's also completely worthless.

Your life is about to become a collection of extremes with absolutely no room for gray. You will struggle under a weight so heavy that you will wonder how you ever dared to think you were strong. Your soul will be pressed, crushed under a burden that seems to cry out for your destruction at every moment. You will never know rest. You will never know a moment's relaxation. You will never eat, drink, sleep, fuck, or have a meaningful human relationship ever again. You will fight. You will struggle until you can feel your back breaking, even though you won't have one. You will suffer agonies that are more horrible than any mortal man was ever meant to feel, and they will be slow to heal. And as much as you beg, you will never, ever die.

You will be eternal.

You will save humanity each and every moment of your miserable existence. You will choose your weapon and you will use it to slay the grandest, most horrifying beasts that mankind has ever faced. The tides will bend at your call and batter your enemies to paste. Gravity itself will call you master, and you will break your foe's bones with the same weight that you carry, because they're just not goddamn strong enough to bear it. You will tear flesh, shatter spines, and relish the shrieks of your nemesis, knowing that whatever torture they are suffering, you are going through worse. In your agony, you will become invincible. You will become one of the toughest, strongest, most unstoppable warriors that has ever existed in this reality or the next. You are now humanity's first and last line of defense.

Forget everything you ever were. Now, you are a legend.

Welcome to Special Task Force Sigma-01.

STF Sigma-01 Commander Chuck Holloway, "Diamond Lance"

Item #: SCP-3894

Object Class: Thaumiel

Threat Level: O White

Special Containment Procedures: Operation Marduk Site Alpha-001 is to be secured via blockade by Naval Task Force Omega-09 “Dire Straits”. Entrance to and knowledge of Site Alpha-001 is to be restricted to personnel of Overseer and Marduk/4 security clearance only.

In the event that SCP-3894 is determined to no longer be effective in tactically suppressing Entity of Interest 090 “Mother”, Operation Sorrow's End will commence in preparation for an imminent TK-Class Total Human Transmutation scenario.

Description: SCP-3894 is the collective designation given to EoI-089 “The Sorrow”, GoI-089 “The Bearers”, and the diplomatic, thaumaturgic, and martial alliance between the aforementioned and the Foundation for the purposes of impeding, combating, or otherwise containing EoI-090.

This has been deemed a necessity as a result of several changes observed in multiple SCP objects over the course of the previous two years as of the time of this document's creation. These are annotated below.

Anomaly
Changes Observed

SCP-3889, entity suspected to be subordinate to SCP-3894-Alpha and confirmed to be disruptive/inimical to EoI-090
SCP-3889's TEHOM events have yielded progressively more aggressive and durable entities, either matching or exceeding TEHOM-41's destructive capability. Lesser TEHOM entities have begun to manifest independent of SCP-3889 near coastlines worldwide. SCP-3889 has begun to assist Foundation naval assets in the neutralization of these entities, however the rate of entity manifestation has accelerated to the extent that Foundation tactical asset losses are becoming dire.

SCP-3897, now confirmed as EoI-090 scouting and reconnaissance bioform
Multiple manifestations of SCP-3897 have occurred worldwide, with the current maximum observed number being 97 simultaneous instances. SCP-3897 have also begun to display greater aggression, significantly increasing predation rates and manifesting above densely-populated urban centers at all hours, greatly decreasing the effectiveness and feasibility of mass-amnesticization upon the civilian populace.

SCP-3896, currently understood to function as loci for EoI-090 bioform manifestation and dispersal
37 instances of SCP-3896 are now recorded, each requiring an extensive naval blockade to prevent escape of SCP-3896-01. SCP-3896-01 entities have begun to display greatly increased intelligence, strength, durabiltiy, size, and manifestation rate. Foundation Naval Task Force casualties as a result of these manifestations now number in excess of 150,000.

As a result of these events, Operation Marduk was initiated, and Procedure 3894-PERSEPHONE was devised to supplement the Foundation's available tactical resources.

Procedure 3894-PERSEPHONE describes a process through which willing and able Foundation task force personnel undergo complete metaphysical transformation through a series of interactions between SCP-3898, the influence of SCP-3894-Alpha, and a hyperthaumaturgic distortion field generated by a battery of sixteen Morgenstern-Khan Thaumaturgic Rams. Upon completion of this process, the subject's body is destroyed, and the subject adopts the standard set of anomalous properties exhibited by GoI-089 while retaining spiritual autonomy and loyalty to the Foundation. These properties are as follows:

Conversion of the body into a Type V (permanent, autonomous, selectively corporeal, thaumaturgic) ectoplasmic construct

Greatly increased physical strength and endurance

Type IV (post-thanatotropic, substance-variable, nexus-conditional) immortality

Hydrokinetic and gravikinetic capability

The subject is then registered and inducted into Special Task Force Sigma-01 “Foundation's Anchors”, to be selectively deployed alongside GoI-089 to counteract all sorties initiated by EoI-090, including containing now-global instances of SCP-3896, neutralization of all instances of worldwide TEHOM-class entity emergence, and prevention of Event Marduk-01 DEUCALION1, among others.

EoI-089, tentatively designated SCP-3894-Alpha, is a Category 4 thaumaturgic and hyperphysical entity, referred to by members of GoI-089 and STF Sigma-01 as “The Sorrow”, “The Bearer of the Burden”, and “The Withered King”.

Early-stage thaumaturgical scanning of SCP-3894-Alpha has revealed a considerable amount of conceptual energy contained within its corporeal frame, when manifested. The majority of this energy is encoded with markers that coincide with EoI-090, a number of known Keter-level SCPs, anti-thaumic exponents of significant value, and several codons corresponding with Earth and all extant forms of life with humanity as a focal point, at an Association Magnitude of 9.8. This, compared to thaumic scans of other similar entities accessible to the Foundation, has led to the conclusion that SCP-3894-Alpha is conceptually and metaphysically interlinked with life on Earth to such an extent that its existence is necessary for human civilization to exist in its current state.

SCP-3894-Alpha manifests physically as an emaciated, decomposing male humanoid figure, dressed in a hood and torn coat, carrying an Admiralty-pattern anchor with angular flukes roughly as long as it is tall (≈ 2 meters). It will occasionally and without warning appear near the rear wall of Site 001-Alpha's primary equipment chamber, where it rarely moves and to date has only spoken when spoken to. During its appearances it willingly gives interviews, which have been performed and coordinated by Operation Marduk Thaumaturgy Department Head Dr. Kumail Khan.

Current projections by Operation Marduk tactical assessment personnel estimate that given the rate of EoI-090's expansion compared to SCP-3894, SCP-3894 will become redundant within ██ months, which despite Foundation efforts results in a TK-class Total Human Transmutation scenario in 93% of all simulations to date. Efforts to maintain standing disinformation protocols (including 3895-SIRENSONG) have thus far been effective, but are estimated to fail alongside projected failure of SCP-3894. Investigation to determine possible alternatives or amplifying solutions that avoid the implementation of Lifted Veil protocols is ongoing.

See Operation Marduk document SCP-3895 for current information regarding EoI-090.

A very long time ago, a life, at some point, learned to care for others like it. Not all others, as organisms have to eat, but it gained an awareness of its kin. And it cared for them. It was primitive, but a bond was formed.

And as expected, that bond ended in death. That life felt a new pain. Not a pain of the body, but a pain of the soul. Grief. Loss. Mourning.

There is beauty in hardship. Every loss is a tale, a tapestry, and the threads are love, companionship, courage, and perseverance. The things that make life what it is. It was sorrow that solidified life's ability to see itself, to look inward for the first time, to observe and understand something that was beyond eating, or mating, or fighting. It was sorrow that taught life to remember things that had stopped existing. To reflect upon its actions, to feel shame for its wrongs and to delight in its achievements, knowing full well that Death waited right behind it. Sorrow gave life its soul. Its heart. It is the weight that pulls us down and prevents life from destroying itself in wrath or hedonism or terror.

It is in Sorrow that we will find our salvation, and be reminded of what truly makes us human.

Dr. Kumail Khan, Operation Marduk Thaumaturgy Dept. Head

So long as I stand, you shall never fall.

I am with you.

Footnotes

1. Described in greater detail in "Time of Mourning: An Analysis of SCP-3894 Failure Contingencies" by Dr. Kumail Khan and Dr. Hans Morgenstern