Item#: 6396

Containment Class: euclid

Secondary Class: {$secondary-class}

Disruption Class: ekhi

Risk Class: danger

A disembodied instance of SCP-6396.

Special Containment Procedures: Foundation efforts are to focus on disabling or terminating instances of SCP-6396-1 through the use of explosives and incendiary munitions. Isolated SCP-6396 specimens are to be frozen and stored separately in locked, steel-lined coolers. Contact between SCP-6396 and animal cadavers is to be avoided.

Description: SCP-6396 is a species of parasites which resemble desiccated human hearts. When inserted into a recently deceased cadaver, Instances of SCP-6396 meld with the corpse’s cardiovascular system and restore function to the animal. Organisms resuscitated in this way, designated SCP-6396-1, become carnivores which prey upon large game for sustenance.

SCP-6396-1 fuse with the corpses of their prey, gaining mass and growing new limbs. Many SCP-6396-1 grow to weigh several tons and incorporate tissues from many species, including: humans, elk, cattle, and pigs. Instances of SCP-6396-1 are much more flexible and physically capable than their non-anomalous counterparts, have humanlike intelligence,1 and can remain animated even after receiving massive ballistic trauma. In order to neutralise the anomaly, the associated instance of SCP-6396 must be destroyed.

Due to specific properties possessed by SCP-6396, it is likely that the anomaly was artificially developed as a weapon and did not naturally arise out of nature. For example: SCP-6396 is specifically hostile to humans over all other organisms; no method of reproduction has been identified for SCP-6396; and instances of SCP-6396-1 have been sighted where Chaos Insurgency activity has been reported. Notably: The Islamic Union of Eastern Samothrace, also known as IDAS.

Addendum 6396.1: Discovery

+ Access fileserv:/S:/6396/fileserv/discovery

- ACCESS GRANTED

On the 4th of November, 1965, open conflict broke out between the military of IDAS2 and a militant separatist faction known as the Samothrace-East Liberation Front (SLF).3 In spite of being composed of Syriac Orthodox Christians, native Macedonians, and Shi’a Islamists, whose beliefs are theoretically incompatible with one another, the SLF exhibited an unusual level of cohesion and military competence during its initial campaign against IDAS, leading military analysts to conclude that they were being directed by a third party.

Attempts by IDAS officials to negotiate with the SLF were unfruitful and so the conflict continued, with numerous war crimes and human rights abuses occurring in regions occupied by the SLF. On the 23rd of December, 1966, the first historical records of SCP-6396 activity were reported by Foundation scouts in the vicinity of the capital city of IDAS, Samos.4

Analysis of SCP-6396 attack patterns led the Foundation to conclude that they were being wielded by a third party against IDAS battle lines and population centres. Suspecting that a Chaos Insurgency cell had instigated the civil war and was destabilising the region via the SLF and SCP-6396, Foundation forces were deployed to protect the Foundation’s regional holdings and to investigate the emergence of SCP-6396.

REPORT ON SCP-6396 AND INSURGENCY ACTIVITY IN THE ISLAMIC UNION OF EASTERN SAMOTHRACE

SCP-6396 has been positively identified and classified (see attached proposal for SCP classification). IDAS has been entirely cooperative with the Foundation-led operation and has granted investigators the authority to act on its behalf.

Preliminary appraisal of the anomaly indicates significant battlefield potential: according to survivors of attacks, SCP-6396-1 are functionally impossible to incapacitate with small arms fire and have demonstrated an extraordinary capacity — and propensity — for ending human lives. SCP-6396 eviscerates and dismembers its victims, damaging the morale of IDAS forces. A disinformation campaign is not feasible at this time but also largely unnecessary due to disruptions in local communication and the general atmosphere of paranoia.

The presence of the Chaos Insurgency has not been definitively ascertained but has been deemed extremely likely: Agent Thornbury was drugged and stabbed to death in IDAS-controlled territory; the investigation has been met with resistance from key figures in the government known for being sympathetic with the SLF; SLF combat doctrine is significantly more advanced than what would be expected but would be consistent with an Insurgency or ██████████ sponsored war effort; and the SLF is openly sourcing weapons from an anonymous benefactor. This is all consistent with the Insurgency’s modus operandi.

In regards to the tenability of current containment protocols within IDAS. SLF gains south of Samos and around Mount Fengari have placed Site-266 outside of the zone of influence exerted by IDAS, forcing a partial evacuation. Due to the SLF’s grip on regional transport networks, transferring SCP objects out of Site-266 has not been attempted. In the current wartime climate, an attack upon Site-266 appears imminent.

We recommend deploying Foundation MTFs to secure Site-266 from hostile parties, redoubling Foundation efforts to contain SCP-6396, and initiating counterintelligence operations against the Insurgency’s proxies in IDAS and the SLF.

- Senior Agent Florette

In light of these recommendations, a series of mobile task forces were deployed throughout IDAS. Notably: elements of MTF Nu-7 (“Hammer Down”) were tasked with training the then-disorganised IDAS forces in urban warfare and counteranomalous tactics, MTF Iota-10 (“Damn Feds”) were directed to facilitate cooperation between the Foundation and IDAS, and MTF Epsilon-71 (“Cyhyraeth”) were deployed against suspected Insurgency strongholds within SLF territory.

In spite of Foundation intervention, SLF battle lines continued to expand in the months which followed, while SCP-6396 activity spiked tremendously. At this point, information containment protocols had failed, and knowledge of SCP-6396 was widespread within IDAS. However, the Foundation’s ability to intervene was limited by its policy of neutrality. This changed on the 17th of March, 1967, when Insurgency agents embedded within Site-266’s staff disabled security protocols, incapacitated security personnel and escaped with a number of anomalies of tactical importance into SLF-controlled territory.

Insurgency-aligned manifesto found in Site-266’s site director’s office

I speak on behalf of the true ██████████, the ██████████ which never gave up on its ideals. In aligning itself with the militant nationalist faction of IDAS, the Foundation has declared its support for a government with no real relevance to the anomalous community or ███ core mission statement. This runs counter to ███ longstanding policy of neutrality and is an insult to the members of the ██████████ who have lived in Samothrace their entire lives, and whose loyalties are now torn between the ██████████ and the parties fighting over the fate of our beloved country.

Our demands are singular: the Foundation will withdraw its support for IDAS and will pursue the containment of Eastern Samothracian anomalies unilaterally. If this occurs, we will remand ourselves into Foundation custody and return all stolen objects.

- Calais Acasta, Director of Site-266

With this, there was no denying that the Insurgency had aligned itself with the SLF. The ethics committee unanimously agreed that the possibility of an openly Insurgency-aligned state in the form of the SLF was too great a risk to international safety, and thus actions against SCP-6396 and the Insurgency began in earnest.

Following a period of petitioning, IDAS agreed to dedicate its forces to the containment of SCP-6396, which included their participation in disinformation programmes and the placement of infantry units under MTF Epsilon-71’s command. Combat operations against noted areas of SCP-6396 activity and the former staff of Site-266 were undertaken. In spite of heavy losses on the part of IDAS, Foundation-provided training materials and weaponry proved to be effective against the Insurgency-trained SLF and SCP-6396 itself.

By the 9th of August 1969, all known instances of SCP-6396 had been either neutralised or placed into containment, and MTF Epsilon-71 was withdrawn. However, elements of MTF Nu-7 and MTF Iota-10 remained embedded in the government and military of IDAS, so as to ensure that if the Insurgency was to resume activity in the region, the Foundation would have the means to respond. This has had the added benefit of promoting IDAS-Foundation relations, making IDAS holdings a bulwark of Foundation influence within Anatolia and Eastern Europe at large.

Addendum 6396.2: Discovery, Auxiliary Documents

Note: The following data entry is level 4/6396 classified. Appropriate clearance is required to view this entry.

+ Access fileserv:/S:/6396/fileserv/classified

- ACCESS GRANTED

Interview with a survivor of an SCP-6396 attack

Time and Date: 29/01/67, 5:01PM

Interlocutors: Senior Agent Florette, IDAS Rifleman Dmitrios Pappas

Synopsis: Pappas had been wounded by SCP-6396-1 and was under the effect of a mild analgesic at the time of the interview.

Florette: Tell me about the night of the 25th.

Pappas: How long ago was that, miss?

Florette: Four days. The night your unit was attacked.

Pappas: Um… ok. We were camping outside of the city, by Lake Limni. It was very dark but we were able to see dancing lights from the other side of the lake which gave us enough light to see each other. The older boys told me to fetch them some cigarettes from a tent in the woods. I’m scared of the dark but they made me go anyway.

When I got to the tent I saw Kolios hanging from a tree. And then, before I could speak, a- a big goat charged out of the bushes! But it wasn’t a goat, it had a body like a worm, covered in big armoured plates with red meat in between each segment. It dragged itself along with these huge black arms, like burnt tree trunks, and its mouth made a noise like two rocks being ground against each other.

It stared at me with its head full of black eyes — black like rotten peaches — and then just kept running. Toward the older boys. They were firing shots, but the bullets just bounced off its big skull. There was this awful commotion. After a while, the boys got very quiet. The goat turned back to me, and its head was full of the other kids from my unit. They were draped on its neck like a mane, moaning and intertwined.

I was so scared, I couldn’t move. The monster grabbed me by the arm and tried to eat me. I pulled away, thinking I was going to die until my arm came loose and I ran into the woods. Then I woke up in this hospital.

The grown-ups tell me I imagined it all. But I talked to an old man, and he tells me that I met an epivarynetai! And that I’m very brave to have lived through it. But I know epivarynetai aren’t real.

Florette: Epivarynetai?

Pappas: Mmhmm. It’s a story my papa used to tell me. Burdened spirits, which suffered so much in life that their hearts become demons that take over their dead bodies, and which eat children! He always told me to stay out of the forest in case I met one. Do you think I really saw one? I can’t wait to tell my sister about what her brave little brother did.

Florette: You’re a very brave boy, Dmitrios. Thank you for talking to me.

UPDATE ON SCP-6396 AND INSURGENCY ACTIVITY IN THE ISLAMIC UNION OF EASTERN SAMOTHRACE

Through interviews with the population of IDAS, additional background information on SCP-6396 has been gleaned. There is a local legend about the ‘epivarynetai’, vengeful spirits which arise during atrocities and which exact retribution against the people who wronged them. Anthropological accounts of the epivarynetai date back to the 14th century BCE and describe hordes of reanimated farm animals and civilians slaughtered by local warlords overrunning the island, forcing its temporary evacuation and the displacement of the local population into Greece. This is seemingly an account of the Samothracian Exodus,5 described in Sarkic and Mekhanite literature of the age.

This runs counter to the previous narrative that SCP-6396 was manufactured as a bioweapon by the Insurgency to destabilise IDAS and advantage the SLF. Instead, it appears that SCP-6396 is an autochthonic phenomenon which occurs in the face of humanitarian atrocities; when a person is killed under traumatic circumstances, they are shortly reanimated as an instance of SCP-6396.

What was previously believed to be a disproportionate hostility shown by SCP-6396 towards IDAS would appear to be an error arising from working with incomplete data. Interrogation of captured SLF fighters reveals that they are suffering casualties from SCP-6396 as well, possibly in volumes equal to those experienced by IDAS.

Ala the Chaos Insurgency. Although most members of Site-266’s senior staff have been killed or captured, no strong connections between them and the Insurgency have been established. It seems probable that what we assumed to be Insurgency activity at the outset of the war was actually intentional subterfuge conducted by the staff of Site-266, a majority of whom are native Shi'a Muslims, atheists, and orthodox Christians, demographics which are underrepresented in IDAS and overrepresented in the SLF.

I recommend discontinuing counterintelligence efforts and severing the Foundation’s overt support for IDAS.

- Senior Agent Florette

Unidentified Recording

Time and Date: 13/05/68, 8:33PM

Interlocutors: Senior Agent Florette, Site-266 Director Kenneth Alcott6

Florette: I can infer that you were the one who prevented my suggestions from going through. So what’s this? An attempt on my life?

Alcott: Don’t act like I’m the one holding all of the cards. This is a conversation between equals. Now to explain my behaviour: I didn’t shut down your suggestions, I only delayed them so that we could have this conversation first. I want to ask you to reconsider.

Florette: Reconsider what? You arbitrarily redacted the word ‘Foundation’ from your predecessor’s manifesto to paint him as a defector to the insurgency. Don’t tell me you didn’t realise ‘Insurgency’ and ‘Foundation’ share the same number of letters. This entire thing, from suggesting that the SLF is backed by the Insurgency to pretending that SCP-6396 was a recent phenomenon, has been part of your attempt to seize power.

Alcott: I’m flattered that you think I’m so Machiavellian.

Florette: If you didn't arrange this little debacle then it must have been the overseers. They’ve done a very admirable job. Inflaming tensions between IDAS and religious minorities, gaining IDAS’ trust after the outbreak of war, and extending their influence into Eastern Samothrace under the guise of it being in the name of containing SCP-6396 when it already existed before the SLF. Did they know that Site-266 would defect en-masse and start supporting the SLF too? Because the fiction of them being an Insurgency cell was the perfect excuse to throw their lot in with IDAS entirely. Nu-7 are training their soldiers, Epsilon-71 are leading their assaults, Iota-10 are providing their intelligence… I just don’t know what the Foundation’s motive in all of this is.

Alcott: Protecting normality. The SLF are genuinely harbouring Foundation defectors. IDAS is the best tool for rooting our former personnel out.

Florette: They could have just asked for IDAS' cooperation. Helping them to fight a war wasn't necessary. It's plain to see that this was never about normality, or defectors, or SCP-6396. It was about preserving the status quo.

Alcott: Normality is the status quo. You’re aware that the Foundation fought in World War II?

Florette: Against Nazism. Against the Obskuracorps. Those were examples of absolute evils. You’re telling me that punching down at the SLF is the same?

Alcott: It’s not too different from sabotaging GRU-P science projects and working with the UIU. The ‘normal world’ is more tangled up in the anomalous hemisphere than you think.

Florette: Apples to oranges. Ultimately, it boils down to this. The Foundation invented a nonexistent Insurgency op and misrepresented an anomaly in order to justify fighting on the side of IDAS against a non-anomalous rebel group. And all of this in pursuit of what, profit? IDAS’ gratitude?

Alcott: IDAS' debt. Debt which keeps the lights on. Through it, we buy their steel, recruit from their academies, gain access to their intelligentsia; activities that would have been unthinkable just three years ago. The Foundation needs green paper and warm bodies.

Florette: So it whores itself out to whichever government will pay for its support? You’re making it sound like a business.

Alcott: The Foundation needs to operate like one in order to make ends meet. Containment is a business. The Foundation and GOC are the two big shareholders in the market. The Insurgency occupies a small slice of the pie too. We've operated under other models before, which came with their own sets of compromises. We used to work like a paramilitary group, which earned us a reputation for being extortionists. Would you rather we return to those days?

Florette: I just want us to stick to our principles. To not get involved in the natural course of history.

Alcott: We deny history daily. Two floors above you, a roomful of analysts are rewriting Samothracian textbooks as we speak. You don’t take umbrage at the fact that the Foundation guides human development, you just don’t like the fact that our involvement in Samothrace looks like it was deliberate.

Florette: We shouldn’t be beholden to national or private interests.

Alcott: We very definitively already were. The Foundation isn’t above the rest of humanity. I want you to discard that notion. Think of containment like a plumbing business. It’s dirty, it’s necessary, it keeps people safe, and you might even perform your work without the consent of whoever you’re doing it for. But ultimately, there are overheads to be met. And sometimes, you need to play favourites in order to ensure that that happens and that you can prevent the entire neighbourhood from getting backed up.

Florette: Thank you for the mental image.

Alcott: Look, just let things in Samothrace play out. In two or three months IDAS will win, the SLF will dissolve, everyone from Site-266 will be back in our custody, and we’ll be able to tackle SCP-6396 in earnest.

Florette: And IDAS will be the Foundation’s newest prize poodle on the world stage.

Alcott: You could think of it that way.

Florette: I’ll think about it.

In July of 1972, the government of Eastern Samothrace collapsed, giving rise to a period defined by humanitarian crisis7 throughout the former holdings of IDAS. The aftereffects of this incident continue to the modern day. See SCP-1173 for more information.

Footnotes

1. Although instances of SCP-6396-1 inhabiting human bodies are capable of vocalisation, they universally disregard attempts at communication in favour of screaming, delivering insults, or babbling incoherently.

2. IDAS, the Islamic Republic of Eastern Samothrace, is a state encompassing the Anatolian landmass of Eastern Samothrace and its surrounding island territories. IDAS is composed of a majority Sunni-Muslim population and is known for its dictatorial model of leadership and deep connections between the national religion and the government.

3. An independence movement composed of various Samothracian minorities, with the stated goal of overthrowing IDAS and forming a few paradigm.

4. Not to be confused with Samos Island.

5. In 1364 BCE, ”…King Corbantes of Thrace and Macedonia waged a campaign of terror against his own people, enraged by what the commonfolk had done to his grand palace and his seven beloved sons while he had been campaigning in Anatolia. He favoured the company of war beasts and hounds over his own soldiers, whose loyalties were to their families before their king. He ravaged his own lands in an unquenchable rage, and from the mountains of bodies he raised there arose a legion of demon hearts, which inhabited the corpses of cattle and men and kids, until the whole island was shared between Corbantes’ insanity and the devils which wandered aimlessly, butchering those unfortunate enough to have remained.“ - Interview with Karcist Gerod, 1895.

6. Appointed after Director Acasta’s defection.

7. Famine, civil instability, ethnic cleansing, the formation of various militant and nationalist movements.