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Hello! I am Poinsettia.aic, an Artificial Intelligence Construct responsible for general personnel assistance within Site-82.

Ah, Junior Researcher Kreutzer. You're up late. What can I help you with?

Please bring up SCP-8883's file for me

Of course, right away. SCP-8883, clearance level checks out… you're good to go.

Apologies for the odd question, but you've accessed this file quite a few times this week. Is everything alright?

Sorry. Everything's fine, just want to check something

Understood. Here you are: scp-8883-documentation.scp

They told you during your orientation that Poinsettia had a habit of being a bit nosy. An excuse to get familiar with the newly hired Junior Researchers assigned to Site-82, to better guide the newbies along in baby's first site. This is the first time it's stopped you like that, though. You're not sure what the limit is on obsessive requests for the same document, but it looks like you've just reached it.

Not like that'll stop you. The familiar sight of 8883's file slowly loads onto your terminal…

Item #: SCP-8883

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Due to SCP-8883's widespread and spontaneous nature, containment of all SCP-8883-A instances is infeasible. All known instances are to be documented in order to track potential exposure to SCP-8883 among relevant medical workers. Access to this catalogue is available upon request.

Worldwide medical imaging infrastructure has been remotely updated to automatically detect SCP-8883. Upon detection, these systems will temporarily cease normal operations in a manner appearing to result from mundane technical malfunctions.

In the case of high-profile SCP-8883-A instances1 attempting to receive medical care that would necessitate the use of medical imaging, anomalous treatment methods will be provided via undercover Foundation doctors, followed by an amnestic regimen. Standard amnestics are to be used on instances deemed low-profile or untreatable, along with relevant medical professionals and family where necessary. Any medical complications experienced by these instances are considered acceptable losses. The development of medical imaging methods and cost-effective anomalous treatment immune to SCP-8883's effects is currently headed by Dr. Wyatt.

SCP-8883-A instances employed by the Foundation are to have their status as such noted on their medical records. These individuals are exempt from medical imaging, and are eligible for aforementioned anomalous treatment regardless of security level.

Your hand moves to the ribs on your left side. The bones stick out just a little more than they should. As you take a deep breath, you slowly rub your thumb up and down, feeling the stiffness of each bone beneath your skin.

Description: SCP-8883 is an anomalous phenomena in which an individual (designated as SCP-8883-A)’s internal components—including all organs, muscles, bones, and bodily fluids2—appear as a random assortment of animal viscera when viewed via medical imaging. Said biomass consists of partially decomposed carcasses, organs, bones, musculature, and fecal matter from various species of cows, pigs, chickens, fish, and other livestock animals. Smaller amounts of flies, maggots, and other insects are also usually seen infesting these tissues.

This effect only manifests via medical imaging systems, including (but not limited to) x-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds, and thaumaturgic imaging. Methods that involve direct viewing of an instance's internals, such as endoscopies or surgeries, are unaffected. The internal structure of each SCP-8883-A instance appears to be unique, though new viscera may manifest as an instance matures. The contents of this biomass have not been known to decompose further beyond its initial manifestation.

Despite this, SCP-8883-A instances appear to be physically normal. Through extensive testing, it has been determined that SCP-8883 does not directly alter an instance's biology or bodily functions in any way. Instances are able to process food, respire, and reproduce3 no differently from baseline individuals.

You still remember your onboarding physical - sitting on that cold table as the CT scan machine hummed around you. The technician's eyes widening at the display as you exited the machine, reassuring you that everything was fine despite her obviously frazzled tone of voice.

As you were being ushered out, you caught the tiniest glimpse of your innards on the screen - a cow stomach taking up your entire left side. Your hands filled with tiny, splintered bones and jumbles of impossibly long tendons without rhyme or reason. Two eyes floating around a slurry of muscle, a giant cluster of maggots where your heart should be.

The rest of your orientation was a blur. Eventually, after days without answers, a gray haired man pulled you out of a meeting to introduce himself as 8883's head researcher - Dr. Wyatt. He gave you a printout of the first SCP documentation you ever read - the very page you're on now. After reassuring you time and time again that you'd be fine and that nothing was wrong with you, he asked if you had any questions.

You asked if you could keep a copy of your scan. Dr. Wyatt shook his head without asking you why.

The process in which SCP-8883 manifests is believed to be instantaneous, as no partially affected SCP-8883-A instances have ever been documented. It is unknown how widespread SCP-8883 is among the general populace, though it is estimated that between 4,000 and 12,000 new manifestations occur each year.

All instances of SCP-8883-A identified thus far have previously been diagnosed with (or shown signs of) depression, body dysmorphia, or gender dysphoria.

Shocker.

You've only ever met one other -A instance - the only other person in this entire organization who's shown you an ounce of real kindness. You remember Dr. Wyatt's tired face, his eyes that seemed to hold no light at all, and the way he slumped a little as he told the story of how a broken finger eventually revealed the miasma of mush and organs that had replaced his insides. How he agreed to head research and containment, and how he personally volunteered to have endless samples taken from his body and be sliced open again and again, just to confirm that he was indeed human like everyone else.

Your eyes fall from the screen for a moment as your attention is brought to a dull sensation of pain. Your hand has been clasped around your right arm for a while now - you've got a bad habit of digging your nails into your skin whenever you get too stressed. You briefly let go to reveal the tiny scratches nestled between the bones in your arm, hard enough to scrape up the topmost layer of epidermis.

A tiny dot of blood swells from where you've broken the skin. You can smell it - it's disgusting. Your attention moves back to the page, your hand returning to press down harder without even realizing it.

Discovery of SCP-8883: SCP-8883 was first documented in 1934, due to advancements in medical technology allowing for easier identification of SCP-8883-A instances. However, records of SCP-8883 attributed to faulty equipment and other anomalies have been found dating back 20 years prior. SCP-8883 is not believed to exist prior to the invention of medical imaging. Upon discovery, it was estimated that less than 300 new instances manifested per year, allowing SCP-8883 to go relatively undetected.

Manifestation of SCP-8883 has steadily increased over the past 80 years, with the most growth occurring since 2002. This is believed to be due to an overall increase in the aforementioned conditions associated with SCP-8883.

Due to inconclusive testing during SCP-8883's discovery, it was initially believed to be a memetic perception of one's physical innards as non-anomalous, rather than an alteration of imaging scans. As memetic and perception based anomalies became better understood, researchers concluded that this hypothesis was inaccurate. However, modern memetic testing is still not entirely conclusive. Specifically, SCP-8883 often registers as a memetic anomaly only among SCP-8883-A instances. This phenomena has never been replicated among non-affected individuals, and is believed to arise from a common belief among SCP-8883-A instances that SCP-8883 affects them physically, despite evidence to the contrary. Even so, this cognition is not anomalous in nature, and has been attributed to conditions associated with SCP-8883.

It can't just be some cognition. It feels too real. The bones in your face are wrong. Your hands don't feel like they should. The rhythmic pump of blood you can feel if you focus hard enough doesn't feel human. It's real. It has to be real.

For weeks, you've had nightmares where you're standing before your bathroom mirror, frozen in place as your abdomen rips itself open before your eyes. Your entrails spill across the floor of your bathroom, the scent of blood and dung and bugs hitting you like a truck as you weakly collapse to your knees. Dozens of feet of intestines all squirming in unison, a litter of malformed piglets plopping onto the ground, squealing at you in terror. When you open your mouth, you squeal back. The buzz of flies, the feeling of whole udders squeezing out of you one by one, a thousand different flavors of mucus and pus escaping every orifice, finally revealing themselves after hiding in the dark for so long. Finally answering the eternal question of what the hell is wrong with you.

You are rotting. You've been rotting this whole time. Thank God.

SCP-8883's Effects on Medical Treatment: Though SCP-8883 does not inherently cause any health complications, the inaccuracy of SCP-8883-A instances' medical scans greatly hinders the diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of other diseases4. While current containment procedures have been effective at keeping SCP-8883 hidden to the public, it does not mitigate this difficulty. Research teams headed by Dr. Wyatt have made several advancements in new methods of medical imaging, though none thus far have been immune to SCP-8883's effects.

Oh, but it could be worse. You could be dying of some horrible illness that nobody will ever find. You should be grateful.

However, SCP-8883 does not directly hinder the body's ability to receive treatment or heal naturally. Because of this, various anomalous treatment methods (including SCP-████ and SCP-████) have been used to treat instances without the use of medical imaging. Attempts to extend the availability of such treatments to all SCP-8883-A instances in a cost-effective manner have been unsuccessful thus far.

All attempts to outright neutralize SCP-8883 have failed. SCP-8883-A instances continue to show anomalous properties even after death.

There's no way out. No matter how many times you scour this file, there will never be a way out.

Hundreds of years from now, long after the name Elliot Kreutzer has been forgotten, the Foundation will dig you out of the ground. Your skin, your face, your heart, long since rotted away. Now little more than another test subject, they'll neatly set your bones on an MRI table, roughly in the shape of who you used to be.

When they take a good, long look at whatever's left, they won't see the boy that bounced between four different instruments, two theatre companies, and dozens of pointless art classes out of unrequited love for absolutely everything. They won't see the boy that visited his ninety-seven year old grandmother every week, too afraid to come out to her - too scared to admit that he will never be everything she ever wanted him to be. They will only see what's left of you, after all the love in the world has been spent.

What will it look like after everything else is gone? When all that's left are the guts and slop and shit and maggots and every part of you that you were afraid of people discovering? Will it be in the shape of a person? Or will you be no more than a pile of sludge, waiting to be sealed back up in the earth forever?

The document suddenly minimizes itself, bringing you back to reality and almost making you jump.

Junior Researcher Kreutzer. I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to check in on you.

You've had your camera covered up for quite a while now. Is everything alright?

Your focus drifts to the top of your monitor. A small blue sticky note, the kind supplied to all personal workstations like the one you're at now, covers the pinhole camera - you don't remember putting it there. Another habit you've never managed to break, born from the fear of somehow being spied on while you were at a low point. Not wanting any trouble, you peel the sticky note off and allow it to flutter onto your desk. The pressure around your arm lets up again as you unclasp your hand to do so, your fingers stiff from holding on for dear life. A thin amount of blood is smeared on your fingernails, staining your keyboard as you type.

Sorry Poinsettia. I'm okay. Please don't worry about me

I understand. Apologies again for snooping. As always, let me know if you need anything.

It's alright. Thank you

The room is quiet. Blood lazily coagulates around a cluster of tiny scratches across your right arm.

At this point, the fire inside of you has faded. You know this article by heart. More thrilling information about long dead Foundation personnel bumbling over x-rays and ultrasounds for days on end. Medical breakthrough after medical breakthrough from Dr. Wyatt and his precursors, to no avail. Bodies ground up and dissolved and burnt to ash just to make sure that there is no escape.

You scroll all the way to the bottom, past almost a hundred years without a way out. How stupid of you to think there would ever be one.

You are rotting. You will always be rotting.

A single piece of toilet paper wipes away the blood - a few tiny smears and scratches are all you have to show for your little tantrum. You can't stand to look at yourself in the mirror as you flush it. If you do, you fear that your nightmare will somehow come true. You can feel your insides squirming, squealing at the thought of finally being free.

What are you going to do when Poinsettia brings this up to your superior? How are you going to explain to whatever Foundation therapist you get dumped onto how you're not coping well with being filled with pig shit? Tears and snot smother your face - you can't imagine how disgusting you look right now. Yet at this point, you feel completely numb. You could have gone your whole life not knowing, without ever-

A sudden noise snaps you to attention before you have a chance to spiral again. The numb aching of your body is interrupted by a soft ringtone coming from your terminal in the other room. Shit, Poinsettia, what do you want now?!

You don't even care if it hears the kind of expletives you're using as you trudge back to your monitor, once again summoned by… not Poinsettia. Wait, no. No, no, no, no.

Incoming Call

Dr. Arthur Wyatt, Site-12

Accept call?

…Fuck.

Footnotes

1. Instances whose unexplained illnesses/deaths would arouse public suspicion - such instances are noted in the aforementioned catalogue.

2. Eyes, teeth, and oral cavities are unaffected in all instances.

3. SCP-8883 does not affect a pregnant SCP-8883-A instance's fetus.

4. The number of deaths arising from lack of treatment is unknown, but is believed to be at least 5,000 since discovery.