Still frame of the typical landscape encountered within SCP-5848.

Item #: SCP-5848

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-5848 is contained in Provisional Site-39, established within a sealed-off wing of the main campus of the National University of San Marcos, Lima. The door leading to SCP-5848 is to be kept closed at all times. The secretarial post outside the door is to be staffed by at least one armed guard. Staff are forbidden to respond to scratching, banging, or verbalized pleas coming from the other side of the door. Research and exploration of SCP-5848 have been suspended pending a review of Incident I-5848-012 by the South American branch directory.

Description: SCP-5848 is an extradimensional anomaly existing within the former laboratory wing of the National University of San Marcos, Lima. The door leading to SCP-5848 is situated between an ordinary corridor and a classroom, and is reported not to have existed before [REDACTED]. SCP-5848 features an arboreal landscape of indeterminate size. SCP-5848 has similar day-night cycles, air pressure, and temperatures to Earth. Foundation research has asserted the flora encountered within SCP-5848 genetically resembles exemplars of the Miocene subtropical rainforests that once existed in present-day North Africa1. Save for small arthropods, thought to have entered SCP-5848 through its connection to Provisional Site-039, no macroscopic fauna has been encountered within SCP-5848, save for specimens of SCP-5848-1.

SCP-5848-1 is a large population of an indeterminate species of Purgatorius, a mammal eutherian genus extinct in the early Paleocene, thought to have been a precursor to the Primates order. SCP-5848-1 specimens measure about 20 cm in length and are were typically docile.

Instances of SCP-5848-1 are anomalously resistant to physical damage. Although specimens have been shown to suffer injuries from standard Foundation-issued weaponry or occasional accidents in their foraging activities, and emaciate in the absence of food and water, none so far has been shown to expire. Despite its de facto immortality, SCP-5848-1 continues to breed and grow in size. New instances appear to instinctively migrate deeper into the anomaly, preventing any given region from becoming overpopulated.

Some instances of SCP-5848-1 are capable of vocalization in a number of extant human languages through anomalous means, with younger instances presenting more elaborate speech patterns than older ones. Conversely, approximately 70% of the specimens encountered within a █ km radius of the door to SCP-5848 are unable to vocalize2. These specimens also present simpler social hierarchy and foraging patterns, compared to the ones still able to vocalize in human languages. The mean time for a weaned SCP-5848-1 specimen to completely lose this capacity is about nine years.

SCP-5848-1 specimens who are still able to vocalize often try to engage in conversation with personnel entering SCP-5848. Instances claim to have been human in the past before suddenly awakening in their present form, and repeatedly express distress at their situation, or a desire to contact supposed spouses or members of their families. SCP-5848-1 specimens also claim to have a poor recollection of their human lives, which has been noted to worsen as time passes until it disappears altogether, followed shortly by any knowledge of human languages. This hampered the Foundation's efforts to assert the validity of their claims but did not completely impede it. To date, about ██ people mentioned by SCP-5848-1 instances have been found. Conversely, research has confirmed every human subject that an SCP-5848-1 instance claims to have been in the past has expired sometime within the last 10 to 15 years.

Contact with SCP-5848-1 instances has become more difficult since a pack has become aware of the door connecting SCP-5848 to the Foundation's baseline reality (see Incident Report I-5848-012). Many of the younger specimens verbalized a desire to "return home" and "make things right", and repeatedly attacked or hurled themselves at the door. In the following weeks, knowledge of the incident seems to have spread among other SCP-5848-1 packs, which in turn have become significantly more distrustful of Foundation personnel3.

Testing has shown to be impossible for any SCP-5848-1 instance originating within the anomaly to cross the threshold to the Foundation's baseline reality, even when the door remains open. Research into this phenomenon is ongoing.

Addendum 5848-01: On ██/██/████, 21 days after Incident I-5848-012, a written note was found within SCP-5848, lying on the forest floor about five meters from the door leading to the anomaly. Samples from the note have ascertained it to be composed of commercial-grade A4 paper and blue ink from a ballpoint pen. The note, translated from the Asturian language4, reads as follows:

To whom it may concern,

Damn their rules of what is eternal and what is not. We're building something beautiful in here.

I won't let anybody go.

H.

Footnotes

1. The reason for the chronological discrepancy between SCP-5848's fauna and flora is unknown.

2. Except for the sounds believed to have been typical of non-anomalous Purgatorius specimens.

3. Namely, instances now seem to believe the Foundation is unwilling to free them from their present situation.

4. Analysis indicates the author is unaware of, or opted to ignore, the standard orthographic rules laid out by the Academia de la Llingua Asturiana in 1981.