Test subject after 7 months of exposure to SCP-3948 (left) and his SCP-3948-altered reflection (right). Note differences in hairstyle, nose and lip shape, and facial hair.

Item #: SCP-3948

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3948 is to be contained in Provisional Site 43-3948; when not in testing, all entrances should be blocked to prevent unauthorized entry. Entrance to the building will be denied for all Foundation personnel over the age of 53 apart from select D-class subjects used for testing.

Description: SCP-3948 is an anomalous phenomenon affecting all reflective surfaces inside a former nursing home located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Branded as the “Full Hearts Retirement Facility”, the 50-unit nursing home was built in 1976 and contained by the Foundation in 1997.

SCP-3948 activates when a human subject above the age of 531 enters the building. While initially the subject will notice no change, over a period of months their image in all reflective surfaces (bathroom mirrors, glass windows, metal cutlery, etc) will become unrecognizable to them through gradual alterations. SCP-3948 does not affect the perception of affected subjects but rather the reflective surfaces themselves; an observer standing behind an affected subject will perceive the same changed reflection as the subject themselves and similarly a photograph taken of a reflective surface affected by SCP-3948 will maintain the changed image.

At the time of containment the building was occupied by 37 residents, all of whom showed signs of moderate-to-severe dementia along with depersonalization2, derealization3, and depression. It additionally appears as though the staff of the nursing home were taking active precautions to avoid external discovery of the anomaly. The extent of these precautions (detailed in Addendum 3948-c along with details of initial containment) imply they were done knowingly and maliciously.

Addendum 3948-a: Long-term Experimentation Results, 02/12/2007

On the recommendation of the Ethics Committee, the previous residents exposed to SCP-3948 were relocated and no specific testing was done on them within the nursing home. In order to more accurately test the long-term effects of SCP-3948 on humans, an indefinite-length study was started immediately after containment with 20 D-class test subjects. Each subject remained in isolation from each other; half received virtual therapy treatments from offsite Foundation psychologists while the other half was left as a control group.

Ten years on, all subjects show some signs of dementia although the symptoms are highly elevated in the control group, suggesting that the mental deterioration is not strictly anomalous. In addition, observers have noted an increasing similarity in the changed reflections for all subjects, an analysis borne out by Foundation biometric facial scanners. With some variations in the timescale (mostly correlated with the race and gender of the subject), all of the subjects' reflections appear to have started to converge to the same image of a Caucasian male with skin mottling and a severely-impacted nose. Facial recognition technology has matched the common biomarkers to that of Ronald Exeter Corcoran, an Oshkosh native who died in 1955 in a murder-suicide.

Addendum 3948-b: Data recovered from Wisconsin Corrections Records re: Ronald Exeter Corcoran

Booking Photo, Ronald Exeter Corcoran, 04/15/1954

Booking photo taken of Ronald Corcoran for a public intoxication charge approximately 15 months before his death

Ronald Corcoran lived with his grandmother (his only living relative) in a house that would after his death be torn down and eventually replaced by the Full Hearts Retirement Facility. The official report filed on his murder-suicide is excerpted below:

Date of Incident: July 14, 1955

Report Author: Officer James McCallum

Incident Details: At 11 PM on the night in question, Officers James McCallum and Arthur Murphy responded to reports of distress at ███ ████████ ████, owned by Marjorie Corcoran. Upon arriving, both officers noted hearing cries for help inside and Officer McCallum forced the door open to render assistance. Upon entering, officers traced the sound of the cries to the basement. Both officers proceeded into the basement where they found Marjorie Corcoran chained to a radiator and surrounded by a circle of candles alongside her grandson, Ronald Corcoran.

Mr. Corcoran had died of a wound to the neck, apparently self-inflicted, and was holding a shard of glass dripping with blood. Mrs. Corcoran had received multiple stab wounds and most notably the skin of her face had apparently been cut or ripped off; Officer McCallum attempted to provide medical assistance but Mrs. Corcoran died of her wounds shortly thereafter. Officer McCallum was unable to locate Mrs. Corcoran's face.

Addendum 3948-c: Foundation Post-Mortem Report, 02/03/1997

Display Report

Hide Report

Eight corpses were discovered in Full Hearts Retirement Facility on February 3rd, 1997. Three of the dead - Patricia Rodriguez, Jamaal Koury, and Robert Korvier – were found in the basement of the facility, surrounded by a thin circle of dried, powdered rosemary leaves and another, larger circle of broken mirror shards propped up against rocks, with the silvered edges facing inwards. Rodriguez had suffered deep vertical slash wounds across her abdomen and arms and succumbed quickly from her wounds; she died while slumped over Korvier in a manner that suggests she was trying to physically protect him. Korvier died at almost the same time as Rodriguez due to a sudden heart attack. Koury had a severely-broken left leg, as if he had fallen on it from a height; this did not immediately kill him but the blood loss he sustained eventually proved fatal. Koury died while holding one of the mirror fragments, which he had apparently used to scratch a complex and indecipherable series of pictograms on the basement floor. In addition, Rodriguez's personal Bible and Koury's copy of the Quran were also recovered from the basement floor where they had been tossed haphazardly.

The other five dead – Emilia Robertson, Laura Janney, Carla Porter, Albert Fisk, and John Cassidy – comprised the entire staff of the Full Hearts Retirement Facility. All five lived on-site and had done so since the facility opened; Robertson, Porter, and Fisk were found dead in their rooms while Janney and Cassidy died in the hallways while making the rounds. All five died of asphyxiation when their tracheae were severed by a force or forces unknown. Forensic examination additionally revealed each had physical features consistent with a human in their mid-20s, despite official records noting their ages as significantly older.

Interviews with the residents immediately following the incident revealed that all cameras and photographic equipment were confiscated by the staff when residents entered under the premise that flash photography was upsetting some epilepsy-prone residents, regardless of whether the cameras actually possessed in-built flash devices. When interviewing families of the former residents, nearly all noted that the nursing home was marketed to them as one that would take care of all of their relatives' needs and which therefore would never require them to visit; a majority of those interviewed admitted that they were not interested in visiting at all and had made this clear to staff at the outset4.

The subset of families that did try to visit the home were repeatedly informed that their relatives were too weak, too emotionally unstable, or were simply unwilling to receive them as visitors. Those that persisted found their relatives suddenly and unceremoniously discharged back into their care with the supposed explanation that the resident in question had instigated a "violent incident" and the nursing facility would press charges if the family did not quietly take them back5.

Immediately following the discovery of the bodies by the local police, all mirrored surfaces in the facility became matte-gray and non-reflective6. This in turn alerted Foundation operatives, who initiated containment and distributed amnestics to those affected. After approximately 20 hours, all reflective surfaces began reflecting images affected by SCP-3948 again.

Addendum 3948-d: Long-term Experimentation Results, 06/24/2017

Twenty years into experimentation, all test subjects' reflections appear identical to the known images of Ronald Corcoran. In addition, all subjects (regardless of therapy and/or pharmaceutical aid) show severe signs of dementia and the majority have lapsed into a near-comatose state, still capable of feeding themselves and other basic motor functions but seemingly unable to speak or acknowledge the presence of others. However, when staff entered the facility to perform followup testing it was noted that some subjects' reflections appeared to be tracking the staff (following them with eye movements, turning slightly towards them, etc.) independently of the subjects themselves. An attempt to conduct an interview directly with one such reflection was performed; for the purposes of this transcript the reflection is referred to as SCP-3948-1 and the subject by his designation, D-07214.

View transcript [LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE ONLY]

Access granted

Interview took place on 06/24/2017, at which point D-07214 had been in residence without interruption for 20 years. Subject was restrained in a chair with a 1m x 2m mirror placed next to him such that the interlocutor (Doctor Mangala Shastry, presiding researcher on SCP-3948) was able to see both the subject and his reflection via remote videolink.

Dr. Shastry: D-07214, can you hear me?

No reaction from D-07214 or SCP-3948-1.

Dr. Shastry: D-07214, please blink three times if you can hear me.

No reaction from D-07214 or SCP-3948-1, which has thus far completely mirrored all of D-07214's minor movements.

Dr. Shastry: Very well, then.

Dr. Shastry turns towards SCP-3948-1.

Dr. Shastry: Can you hear me?

There is no immediate reaction. After a few seconds, SCP-3948-1 smiles and relaxes backwards into the chair. D-07214 does not change his position.

Dr. Shastry: Ah. It appears as though you can.

SCP-3948-1 looks directly at Dr. Shastry and opens his mouth. Simultaneously, D-07214 begins to speak, looking away from Dr. Shastry and making no other movements. SCP-3948-1's lips are the only part of its image that perfectly mimic D-07214's movements. As it is believed that this is how SCP-3948-1 communicates, all such interactions will have the source designated as "SCP-3948-1".

SCP-3948-1: Yeah, looks like.

Dr. Shastry: Am I currently speaking to Ronald Exeter Corcoran?

SCP-3948-1: Uh-huh.

Dr. Shastry: And are you responsible for the anomaly here? The changed reflections of the elderly?

SCP-3948-1: That's another bullseye. Although at this point it kinda runs itself without much push from me, but yeah, I set it in motion.

Dr. Shastry: Have you always been able to do… things of this nature, or did that manifest only after your death?

SCP-3948-1: Do you know I've never seen myself in a mirror?

Dr. Shastry: I don't understand-

SCP-3948-1: I'm telling you, just hold on. Ever since I was a kid, I've never seen myself in the mirror. I've seen lots of things in the mirror - plenty of things - but never myself. You know, for a number of years I thought I looked like a young Cary Grant. Isn't that funny? When a I was about 16 someone took a picture of me - it wasn't as common then, you know - and that was the first time I actually saw me. I mean the way I really was. And suddenly it clicked, you know, all the times I got made fun of, the jokes about my nose, the whole thing. Looking back, maybe I was a little slow not to figure it out earlier but hey, you look at a stranger in the mirror for 16 years and you tell me who you are, huh?

Dr. Shastry: You're saying that you were changing your own reflection?

SCP-3948-1: I'm saying I guess I've always been a little special. That's how she referred to it, anyway.

Dr. Shastry: This would be your grandmother, Marjorie Corcoran?

SCP-3948-1: What an idiot she was.

Dr. Shastry: You moved in with her when your parents died. Did you have anything to do with their death?

SCP-3948-1: I've thought about that but nah, pretty sure that one was just bad luck - I was a year old at the time and they got into a car accident while I was at my nan's. Although apparently my pop was drunk and maybe that was because he had an ugly-ass toddler at home, so who knows.

Dr. Shastry: Tell me about Marjorie Corcoran.

SCP-3948-1: Just a grade-A moron, my nan. She'd believe any-goddamn-thing you'd tell her. I remember one time I managed to convince her that her husband - guy named Carl, died before I was even born so really not my fault there - anyway, I told her that his name was actually "Earl", you know, just to see if she would believe it. Every single time she'd mention Carl I'd just sigh and "remind" that his name was Earl. At one point she opened her photo album to prove to me I was wrong, but I'd gone through it the week before and changed all the Cs to Es so she just kept flipping through it, getting more and more out-of-sorts. (Laughs) What a dummy. Eventually she just started calling him Earl herself. They were married for fifteen years and she was calling him the wrong name. (Laughs)

Dr. Shastry: Are you familiar with the term "gaslighting"?

SCP-3948-1: As opposed to electrical lighting? Sure, what about it?

Dr. Shastry: Never mind. Did you kill your grandmother because of her, ah, stupidity?

SCP-3948-1: Nah - I mean, that was kind of a nice side-benefit, but not what I was really after. I'd always had these headaches, ever since I was a kid - I'd drink a lot to make them go away but it mostly just made em worse the morning after, so one day I figured I'd try going clean for a bit. It was real rough, but then one morning I woke up and I just - knew. Hard to explain. Uh, it was just - I knew exactly how I could leave all the bullshit behind, and I knew that she was part of the reason that I was here in the first place, so she had to go. I realize it doesn't make a lot of sense for you but for me it was like fiery letters written in the sky, an instruction manual for getting out.

Dr. Shastry: Getting out of what?

SCP-3948-1: Well, mortality, for one. Plenty of other things, beside. Hard to tell you, but I could show you…

Dr. Shastry: No, I don't think so. If your object was "freedom", then why have you apparently stayed in one place all these years?

SCP-3948-1 grimaces slightly. D-07214's expression does not change.

SCP-3948-1: Nan might have been dumb but she had a few tricks up her sleeve, I'll give her that. Whatever I had, seems like she had it too - probably she passed it down to me, even. When she realized what I was doing and that she couldn't stop me, she… bound me, here. It was so frustrating, at first, to be free and yet imprisoned. But after a while I learned patience. I had forever, after all. And soon enough I found my prayers answered - like God himself came down on my behalf and gave me a bunch of toys to play with.

Dr. Shastry: I assume now you're referring to your work in this building. Were you attempting to use the residents of this facility as a way to break out of your grandmother's binding?

SCP-3948-1: What? No, you really don't understand what's going on here, do you? Nah, this was all just… me having fun, mostly.

Dr. Shastry: What about the previous staff of this facility? Were you, ah, "having fun" with them, as well?

SCP-3948-1: Well… yes and no. Not in the same way, certainly. I just gave them some options. They had a choice - really, they did, it takes me a long time to make people do things… not generally a problem, given the amount of time I have, but starting up from nothing takes some doing. So I offered them some of my time. I was surprised at how easy it was, honestly. They really felt underappreciated, you know - I just had to tell them this was their reward for putting up with the crap they had to put up with and they fell right in line.

Dr. Shastry: Let's talk about the events of Februrary 2nd, 1997. The three residents who died in the basement of this facility - what were they attempting to do, precisely?

SCP-3948-1: No.

Dr. Shastry: I'm afraid I have to insist that you-

SCP-3948-1: Let me put it to you this way: Would you let me know where you hide your spare key, when you go to bed, what the easiest way to dispose of your body would be? Would there be anything I could say or do to you that would make you give that to me? No, because you're not an idiot. I'm not an idiot.

Dr. Shastry: So it's a way to kill you?

SCP-3948-1: No, that was a, whaddyacallit, an analogy. Drop it. We've been having such a pleasant conversation so far, it'd be a shame to end it here.

Dr. Shastry: Let me ask a related question, then: How did the three residents figure out the ritual they performed, whatever it was? We've discovered nothing that might suggest their knowledge of any occult or anomalous matters and yet they had a clear, defined plan for what they did in that basement.

SCP-3948-1: Turns out Nan was a little less dead than I thought.

SCP-3948-1 sighs and leans forward slightly. D-07214 does not react.

SCP-3948-1: I still don't really know how she did it - if she was sucked up along with me or she did it on purpose. Whatever it was, that bitch hid so well I almost didn't notice her until it was too late. Almost. Like I said, she was still a dummy - showed her hand a little too early, gave me time to react, and that's really all I ever need. After I dealt with her three little pawns, I dealt with her. Permanently. Had to stop operations here for a little bit to do that but she's gone for good, now.

SCP-3948-1 smiles broadly, maintaining eye contact with the videolink. At the same time, D-07214 is observed to rapidly scan his eyes across the room, in a manner suggesting an unconscious reaction.

Dr. Shastry: All right, that should be enough for now. We'll contact you again if-

SCP-3948-1: Hold on just a moment. Isn't there something else you have to ask me?

Dr. Shastry: What would that be?

SCP-3948-1: Why I'm telling you all this. I mean, if you're smart you'd probably assume that I was just telling a bunch of lies and I'm not going to sit here and swear that everything I've said was the Lord's own truth, but I could've just said nothing at all. Don't you want to know why?

Dr. Shastry: I suspect you're going to tell me, regardless.

SCP-3948-1: Part of it is that I haven't had anyone to talk to in a while, of course. And another part is that I wanted to brag, a little, although I know pride is a sin. But the main reason is I wanted to figure out why you were doing this.

Dr. Shastry: Why we were doing what?

SCP-3948-1: This… the whole thing, giving me all these new toys. I mean, I had to promise things to my last crew, enter into a covenant with them, the whole nine yards. But you gave me exactly what I wanted and I didn't have to do a damn thing. And, listening to you just now, I think I've got it figured: You were just curious. I mean, that's wild. Even to me. You know, when the last one, the Koury-one, was dying, you know he honestly really thought he'd stopped me - that even if I didn't go away, nobody would ever let me do this again. And then immediately - the blood didn't even have time to dry - you proved him wrong. God bless you all, it was wonderful.

Dr. Shastry: We can also shut down everything here whenever we want.

SCP-3948-1: Oh, feel free to try. You could put a bullet in the head of all of my toys here - and honestly, they're getting a little stale now, it would probably be a good idea - and burn this place to the ground if you wanted to. I'm not the building, Doctor Shastry7. Will you still be here in a hundred years? A thousand? Can you vouch for the next person I talk to, that they won't be more interested in what I have to offer? I don't need to beat you or outwit you. I just need to outlast you. Patience is a virtue.

Dr. Shastry: This interview is over.

SCP-3948-1: Yeah.

SCP-3948-1 adjusts its position so it now perfectly matches that of D-07214, and continues to mirror its movements until the recording ends.

Following this interview, all testing on SCP-3948 was suspended indefinitely pending review.

Footnotes

1. This is a lower bound; subjects as old as 57 have been unaffected by SCP-3948.

2. Characterized by the inability to recognize oneself and/or one's own thoughts

3. Characterized by a lack of belief in the reality of the external world

4. Later interviews indicated that those who expressed an interest in maintaining relationships with their relatives were routinely rejected for dubious rationales such as "insurance incompatibilit(ies)" and "discrepanc(ies) in health history."

5. Interviews with residents have found no such documented incidences.

6. This phenomenon has never recurred.

7. All recordings indicate that Dr. Shastry has never spoken or otherwise indicated her name within SCP-3948's known radius of effect