A ghost is a memory and a memory is a ghost. What happens when the dead forget even themselves?

THUMBNAIL

SCP-8200

By: MontagueETC

Published on 18 Feb 2024 23:35

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* Also based on:
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SCP-8200 - The Phantom Sea

A spiritual successor to SCP-7009.

SCP-8200

Canon Hub » Ad Astra Per Aspera Hub » SCP-8200

ITEM: SCP-8200
LEVEL 4/8200

CLASS: keter
extrasolar

DISRUPTION CLASS: amida

SCP-8200

Special Containment Procedures: 140 high-grade phantasmal dispersal arrays have been placed in low Earth orbit to impede SCP-8200's rate of amalgamation. Further containment measures are currently being investigated by the Department of Spectral Phenomena.

As all areas on Earth are perpetually under the influence of one or more ED-K Lethe Events,.ED-K Lethe Event: An event that removes all knowledge of one or more concepts within a specific region. Those affected are unable to engage with said concepts, even after leaving the region. examination of the anomaly must be carried out through unmanned exploratory drones.

Description: SCP-8200 is Earth's ocean. In the century following humanity's mass exodus from the planet, approximately 45-70% of SCP-8200 has transmuted into spectral matter..Spectral Matter: Collective term for esoteric material associated with phantasmal manifestations. (Ectoplasm, howling oil, apparitional viscera, etc.) The cause of this ongoing transformation has yet to be conclusively determined.

EXPLORATION LOG

[BEGIN LOG]

[00:00] - [03:01] Unmanned exploratory drone HERMES-44 descends through Earth's lower atmosphere, passing through clouds.

[03:02] SCP-8200 enters view. It is irregularly luminous, being clearly visible in the night despite a lack of moonlight.

[03:02] - [06:11] HERMES-44 continues to descend, moving towards an area of greater luminosity.

[06:12] HERMES-44 ceases its descent 1.5 m above the anomaly.

[06:12] - [11:05] HERMES-44 hovers in place. SCP-8200 is unnaturally still. Numerous semi-transparent humanoid bodies are partially visible beneath its surface. The bodies are entangled in a singular mass, conjoined at various points. They writhe.

[11:06] HERMES-44 receives instructions to move closer to the anomaly.

[11:06] - [11:12] HERMES-44 descends until it is 0.6 m above SCP-8200.

[11:12] - [11:17] HERMES-44 continues to hover.

[11:18] - [11:21] A shiver appears to pass through the mass of bodies.

[11:22] - [11:35] A hand begins to press up from within SCP-8200. It does not breach the surface, instead causing it to slightly bulge upward as though it were a flexible, solid object.

[11:35] - [12:09] Additional hands begin pushing up at SCP-8200's surface, causing it to deform further.

[12:10] The surface breaks.

[END LOG]

Instance of SCP-8200's influence on Earth's biosphere.

In the last year of her life, my grandmother developed Alzheimer's disease. It progressed rapidly, chewing through her mind so quickly that I'm not sure she ever realized what was happening—a mercy, perhaps.

I have seen many spirits over the course of my time with the Department of Spectral Phenomena. I have fought with blood-soaked poltergeists and property-bound house ghosts. I have felt my breath stolen by spacewalking void wraiths and watched countless dead dissolve from our world into the next. But I have never felt a fear so intimate as I did the day my grandmother died.

Her ghost could not remember what it was to be alive—could not even understand it. A ghost is a memory and a memory is a ghost—with so little of one, it was barely the other. Great gouges had been carved into its torso, limbs, and head, leaving it to twist about on alien angles. It was more absence than woman. A hole in space, dragging in light. A hungry ghost.

I've been thinking about her more and more, recently. The forgetting that destroyed her. I've been wondering: what happens when a planet's ghosts are left behind? When all of memory unravels in a place, what happens to the things that haunt it? Do they grow mad? Do they grow ravenous? Do they seek comfort in the possession of a body? Do they turn on one another in cannibalistic fury, devouring their fellows just to feel whole for another moment? Do they grow vast?

And when only one spirit remains—one planetary revenant with a hunger that could swallow stars—what happens then?

I fear we're about to find out.

—Dir. Salvador Novik

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