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This article contains grotesque violence, gore, extremely light sexual themes, and toe-based horror.

This article, although not NSFW, is not suitable for young readers.

⚠️ content warning

Item #: SCP-6513

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Containment of wild SCP-6513 instances is to be handled solely by agents of Mobile Task Force Zeta-29 ("Blood Brothers"). Due to the deleterious nature of SCP-6513 wild populations to civilians, force against observed entities has been authorized due to the single instance already existing in containment for research purposes. Agents of MTF Zeta-29 without military training are to orchestrate cleanup and amnestic distribution operations under a cover story of the affected subjects’ participation in the fictitious GoI “Church of the Seven-Armed Christ,” a cover story used to explain violent self-detonations with no apparent cause. SCP-6513 subjects that have been terminated in public areas, either by Foundation members, civilians, or environmental objects, are to be cleaned under the cover story of supervising agents’ choosing.

A single mature instance of SCP-6513 is kept dehydrated in a low-priority containment archive. Due to the anomaly’s biological processes, no maintenance is required besides the presence of standard dehumidifier practices for anomaly archival. No water is to enter the SCP-6513 locker.

Description: SCP-6513 is an unknown animalian organism, theorized to be in the platyhelminthes phylum, that imitates the human big toe. It has a number of complex biological, psychological, memetic, and perceptual anomalies associated with its life cycle, which are still in the process of being understood.

SCP-6513 eggs are laid inside claw and chute-based gashapon vending machinery located in grocery stores, convenience stores, and amusement parks along the Eastern Seaboard of North America, with regional populations flourishing in the cities of New York City and New Orleans. At this stage, the organism’s egg resembles a brightly colored plastic container with a mild antimemetic effect. The organism at this point remains dormant, but after 6 weeks it becomes developed enough to shed the antimeme and begin psionically searching out for the brainwaves that indicate a correct host.

Suitable hosts for SCP-6513 fall into a number of criteria:

They must be children with at least one parent.

Their home must have at least one source of water.

They must be taking hip-hop dance classes that utilize techniques seen in mainstream representation of the form, as opposed to traditional, improvisatory amateur ones.

Once the thoughts that indicate the correct hosts are detected within the range of the eggs, SCP-6513 instances begin producing a powerful memetic effect. Subjects are drawn towards the egg, and the machine within which it is laid, in order to purchase it. In a distinctive color pattern on the egg’s surface, the words “BIG DAVE FABULOUS TOE-FUN JUST SOAK” are perceived. These words and their corresponding letters do not actually exist.

Once a subject buys an SCP-6513 instance and takes it home, the organism enters the second stage of its life cycle. Once opened, the hatched organism attaches to, consumes, and imitates the host’s hallux, or big toe, much in the same way the parasitic isopod Cymothoa exigua detaches and imitates the tongues of fish species. SCP-6513 instances possess both chemical and psionic anesthetic compounds to reduce alarm during this process, and most individuals will use SCP-6513 as a detachable replacement toe with little to no stress for roughly four months. If detached at this stage, SCP-6513 can survive indefinitely on little-to-no nutrients in a state of dormancy until fed again.

SCP-6513 are hermaphroditic, and capable of laying fully fertilized eggs. When an organism enters the final phase of its life cycle, it sends targeted neurotransmitters through the blood stream encouraging the host to detach it and place it in a standing body of warm water under the guise that the fake toe is a “magic grow” capsule toy. Once in water, the organism will slowly begin to expand, growing organs that resemble granulomas and additional toenails, until it is a engorged rough sphere about a meter in diameter. This is the only stage in its life cycle that SCP-6513 is capable of perambulation, usually via rolling. It then proceeds to attempt to absorb any nearby organisms into its own body mass. First, it “primes” the surrounding environment by emitting a final burst of psionic anaesthetic that locks in with known neural pathways observed during the feeding stage, keeping the host and any nearby individuals both in a state of contentment and with an elevated heart rate. Once this is done, it rolls to “primed” organisms and incorporates them. Research theorizes this process provides an unknown nutrient to aid development of offspring.

SCP-6513 instances are extremely fragile at this stage, and can be stopped if a nearby individual merely prods the side of the dermis, causing the developing eggs inside to agitate and the organism to rupture, ending the “priming” process. An unimpeded organism will cloak itself in an antimemetic field to avoid detection, and will roll to, and then inside, the nearest vending mechanism to lay its eggs. However, as this process can be dangerous due to the fragility of instances, only 5.6% of final stage organisms successfully reproduce. To make up for this discrepancy, SCP-6513 instances lay prodigious numbers of eggs, upwards of 2,000 each, in the hope that some offspring will survive and continue the cycle.

Addendum:

A full record of the final stage of an SCP-6513 organism’s life was captured on the home security camera of the Boxwell family of Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. As of Friday, 6/8/2018, this instance had successfully replaced the halluxes of Amy Boxwell (43), a dance and yoga instructor at ShakeWELL Studios, and her two daughters Juliette (13) and Mackenzie (9), the original hosts and both dance students themselves. All three subjects regularly swapped the instance between their own feet, allowing it to form chemical connections with all three. Husband Marcus (50) was unaware of the instance. The use of an adult host is unusual in this case, although it is theorized the combination of Mrs. Boxwell’s profession and demeanor may have caused the instance to accept her.

Begin Log

Captured on HALLWAY_CAMERA_ONE, facing down an upstairs hallway towards the living room below. Juliette and Mackenzie Boxwell climb up the stairs and pass by the camera as they enter their bathroom. The following dialogue is audible.

Juliette Boxwell: Are you sure about this?

Mackenzie Boxwell: Totally, Jul! You’re supposed to do this next part, duh! And I thought you were too old to play with toys!

Juliette Boxwell: Hey, I am! The toe-fun’s not a toy!

Mackenzie Boxwell: You’re just gonna miss having a big toe is all!

Juliette Boxwell: Am not!

Mackenzie Boxwell: Shut up, give it over.

Juliette Boxwell groans, and there is a soft ‘pop’ noise. Analysis and cleanup of the audio indicates a faint wet, viscous noise.

Mackenzie Boxwell: Ew.

Juliette Boxwell: Hey, your foot looks like that too, you know!

Mackenzie Boxwell: I said shut up!

There is the sound of water running for 2 minutes, then it shuts off. A plop noise follows. Mackenzie and Juliette Boxwell leave after another minute, discussing an episode of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” as they walk downstairs under the camera. Juliette Boxwell hobbles slightly on their right foot. They leave the living room to the left and become inaudible.

A prolonged period of stillness lasting an hour. Mackenzie Boxwell enters frame, presumably to enter the kitchen on the right, as two minutes later she comes back with some kind of canned beverage, product name indiscernible. No further activity for another twenty minutes. Amy Boxwell enters the home from the front door on the left, dressed in a jacket thrown over workout clothes.

Amy Boxwell: Hey girls!

Juliette Boxwell: (inaudible)

Amy Boxwell: Is it the day?

Mackenzie Boxwell: (faint) Yep!

Amy Boxwell throws her coat over the back of a chair and runs upstairs two steps at a time. She leaves to the bathroom on the right. Pause of a minute and a half. Mackenzie and Juliette Boxwell enter the living room from the left, staring up towards the bathroom and by extension the camera. They look at each other, talking inaudibly.

Amy Boxwell: Mack, did you do this right?

Mackenzie Boxwell: (shouting) Yeah, why?

Amy Boxwell: It just looks kind of sick, dear. I’m not sure you know how to take care of your toys.

Mackenzie Boxwell: (shouting) Ugh, god, Mom!

Juliette Boxwell: (shouting) Maybe it will look better once it’s all done!

Amy Boxwell enters from the bathroom and leans on the hallway railing.

Amy Boxwell: I hope so, I need to have all ten toes for this new routine I’m choreographing for the littles and if you messed this up—

Juliette Boxwell: (shouting) Mom, it’s gonna be fine, okay?! Leave us alone!

Amy Boxwell shrugs and walks down the stairs. Mackenzie and Juliette Boxwell appear to lose interest and walk out of frame to the left. Pause of over an hour. Amy Boxwell is sitting on the couch browsing the internet on a laptop computer. Juliette Boxwell enters from the left and runs up the stairs, stopping at the top to look into the bathroom. She looks uneasy. She exits to the left again. Pause of ten minutes.

Juliette Boxwell enters from the left in a new outfit, a set of leggings and a crop top. She runs down the stairs and talks to Amy Boxwell, who points and appears animated. The dialogue is not audible. From Juliette Boxwell’s body language she is not happy. She leaves downstairs to the left again. Pause of 15 minutes. Mackenzie Boxwell crosses the living room to the right. The camera shakes. Pause of one minutes. A large fleshy object, assumed to be the engorged, mature SCP-6513 instance, enters from the left, sluggishly rolling.

The instance appears infected, with a soft, pliable surface marked by splotches. Pus leaks from the granulomas of the multiple toenails. One small toenail appears to be painted a dark color. This is assumed to be the “original” from Juliette Boxwell’s body. Amy Boxwell stands, hearing the noise, and turns around. She screams. The instance immediately recoils from the sound, it’s surface undulating. Amy Boxwell backs away. The instance wiggles abruptly, and its granulomas promptly pulse, producing a rhythmic vibration. Foundation musicologists have theorized this rhythm is an attempt to imitate the New Orleans style of hip-hop known as bounce music, potentially that of the 2018 Big Freedia song “Strut”, which Amy Boxwell had choreographed a routine to earlier that month.

Amy Boxwell appears to be affected by the psionic priming and begins to dance. The camera captures her appearing to relax her shoulders and smile as she moves down the stairs in coordinated rhythmic movements. While some of the precise movements of the arms and hips appear to correspond to the notes for the "Strut" routine, the vast majority of the dance appears to be improvised. The SCP-6513 instance begins to roll down the stairs after her.

Juliette and Mackenzie Boxwell enter from the left in a panic, having seemingly run up the basement stairs. However, as soon as they step into the space they too appear to relax and begin to dance. Due to a combination of spins, hip-drops, and a single cartwheel, Amy Boxwell is now farther away than her daughters from the instance. The three engage in dance movements to the rhythmic pulsing, each following their own movement combinations, until the instance approaches Juliette Boxwell, the closest subject.

Juliette Boxwell attempts a ducking-and-weaving motion. The top of her scalp brushes the SCP-6513 instance and fuses. She is lifted off the ground slowly as it swerves and continues to roll. As she is lifted, more and more of her body begins to fuse with the instance, appearing on the camera to be sucked in to its internal structure. Her body attempts to continue the dancing even once off the ground, the legs flailing rhythmically in midair as her torso is rotated upwards.

Mackenzie Boxwell shrieks in glee upon seeing this. She deliberately shuffles into the side of the SCP-6513 instance as it continues to pursue Amy Boxwell. The left side of Mackenzie Boxwell's body fuses with the instance and it wobbles as her left arm, left leg, and half of her torso and head merge with the instance. She giggles. It appears her left eye and several fingers rotate around the back of the instance before seemingly melting and becoming absorbed. Her right limbs jerk erratically as if still trying to follow a beat. The rest of her body is soon incorporated.

Amy Boxwell brushes her hair out of her face and smiles upon seeing Mackenzie Boxwell's death. She pirouettes and leaps around the sofa and the side of the instance (obscured from the camera on this view by the instance.) She slaps her thighs, claps, and begins to move her hips with her hands raised, a movement that itself turns into movements similar the twerk dance move, and eventually grinding movements, on the SCP-6513 instance. Marcus Boxwell enters the space from the left, seemingly returning home from work, and stands suddenly very still upon seeing his spouse and the instance. He drops a briefcase. The SCP-6513 instance fuses with Amy Boxwell's posterior.

Marcus Boxwell: Amy?! What the—what, huh, hah, Jesus, what the fuck?! What the fuck is that thing?!

Amy Boxwell: Come shake it with me, honey!

Marcus Boxwell: (screaming)

Amy Boxwell attempts a gyrating movement taken from Caribbean dancehall dances, but cannot due to her posterior and the backs of her thighs having fused with the instance. Marcus Boxwell runs and grabs her arms, attempting to pull her out of the instance, but cannot manage it. The entirety of her lower half fuses and her torso is now full horizontal from Marcus Boxwell's pulling.

Marcus Boxwell: I'm gonna save you, baby, please, I'm gonna save you.

Amy Boxwell's head lolls and she smiles.

Marcus Boxwell: I'm gonna get you out of there, I promise!

Amy Boxwell: I don't wanna, I'm purified…

Marcus Boxwell: What?

Amy Boxwell: Marcus, sweetie, we don't dance anymore! Dance with me!

Marcus Boxwell: (grunting as he tugs)

Amy Boxwell: You don't dance like the old days. No more.

Amy Boxwell is pulled into the instance as it absorbs more of her torso. The sudden jolt causes Marcus Boxwell to stumble, and his fingers accidentally prod the side of the instance. It wobbles and begins to swell slightly as bruises form across its mass and the partially absorbed mass of Amy Boxwell, who smiles and sighs. The entire form, including Amy Boxwell's body, explodes outwards, coating the room in blood, viscera, and remnants of ruined clothes as much of the room's furniture is destroyed by the blast.

Marcus Boxwell is propelled back outside and lands against the tires of his Toyota Corolla parked outside, captured on LAWN_CAMERA_ONE. The tires are partially destroyed by the impact, and the front lawn and road are partially coated in a mixture of viscera and rubber. Marcus Boxwell slumps to the ground. Amy Boxwell's facial skin has landed inside-out on his face, and as he sits up he slowly peels it off. A small pile of viscera in the center of the house containing the eggs quivers before deflating slightly.

There is the slight background babble of neighbors drawn by the music and explosion noises. Marcus Boxwell looks down at the piece of skin in his hand, but his reaction is hard to discern due to a piece of viscera on the camera lens.

End Log

Marcus Boxwell was given Class B amnestics during his hospital treatment for spinal injuries and told that his wife's dance studio had been infiltrated by a cultist from the “Church of the Seven-Armed Christ,” who had begun an affair with her. He was also informed that this cultist had encouraged his wife and children to play around with a pressurized gas tank as part of the church's rituals while he was at work. Neighbors who witnessed the aftermath of the instance's death were given Class A amnestics and informed that there had been a severe cockroach infestation on the premises, and thus the Boxwell family had moved prior to the cleaning crew's arrival.

The local Publix grocery store was found to contain roughly 5,700 eggs spread across fifteen machines, greatly outnumbering the number of nonanomalous toys present. All were terminated.