SCP-813 was initially recovered from an armed convoy in 
[REDACTED] operated by known members of The Church of the 
Broken God. The crate from which SCP-813 was recovered 
displayed anomalous properties causing the artifact to levitate in the 
center of the container. However, during the ensuing confrontation, 
the crate was damaged and SCP-813 was dropped from its 
suspended position. Cushioning inside the crate prevented the 
artifact from entirely shattering; however, what are believed to be 
bullet fragments generated by the conflict struck SCP-813 and 
dislodged several pieces of SCP-813-1. These promptly invaded a 
number of Mobile Task Force operatives (SCP-813-1 instances do 
not appear to target Church members). Following the event, 
SCP-813 was transported to Site- for analysis. No members of the 
Church survived the incident. 


A fragment of paper, believed to be a handwritten letter, was 
recovered from the convoy; the following is an excerpt of that letter: 


An eye sees all things except itself. For that, it must have 
another. That which was paired and now separated must 
be made whole once again. Through its shards the 
broken Eye sees. Through heathen minds the Broken 
God seeks. 


Footnotes 

1. It has been determined that SCP-813-1 will only target living 
human beings with one or more functional eyes; it is undetermined 
how they locate said targets. 


« SCP-812 | SCP-813 | SCP-814 » 


of golden liquid behind him. "I'm expecting Katherine soon. You're at 
the Hubble estate?" 


"Yeah, and we found bodies. Twelve of them." He held up his 
notepad to the phone's camera. "I plotted them out. Any of these 
look like anything to you?" 


Reynolds frowned, and pointed at the camera. "That one, with the 
shape like an electrocardiogram's output. Add a thirteenth point to it, 
and you have a Granola Sarkic ritual for promoting bountiful 
harvest." 


"I'm sorry, Granola What?" Hastings asked. 


"Granola Sarkic. It's a valid branch of Sarkic carnomancy, though no 
Karcist will tell you that. Popped up in the sixties, promoted the use 
of human sacrifice for the sake of natural harmony— higher crop 
yields, the ability to commune with animals, that sort of thing. Well, 
human-ish sacrifice." 


"Would vampire qualify as Humanish?" he held up the phone to face 
the vampire's skull. 


Reynolds whistled. "That explains where poor Mr. Hubble got his 
infection from, at least. Vampiric sacrifice in carnomancy isn't 
unheard of, but it's risky, for this exact reason." He rubbed his chin. 
"The Foundation registers all known mages in Nexus zones it 
controls, and they bar any dangerous cult activity within them." 


"So, what the fuck was a Sarkic cultist doing in Sloth's Pit?" 
Hastings's face screwed up." This isn't right." 


"We'll begin looking into it as soon as we can." Reynolds frowned. 
"There are only twelve bodies?" 


"As far as we can tell," Guillard piped up. 


"There should be thirteen. Look for signs of soil disturbance, one of 
them may have been moved or removed. A broken spell matrix 
would account for the bloody pumpkins." 


"Where would the thirteenth point in the matrix be?" 


Reynolds leaned closer to the camera. "If up on your diagram is 
north, then, then it would most likely be at the eastern-most point of 
the matrix." 


"Thanks, Monty. Give my regards to Sinclair when you see her. Oh, 
and congratulations." Hastings disconnected the call and handed 
the phone back to Partridge. 


"How old are the bodies?" Partridge asked. 


"They easily date to the 1960s, if not earlier," Malcolm pointed at 
each of the pits. "Other than the vampire, we have three that show 
signs of polio, one with a lead slug in the hip that one of the ballistic 
guys thinks dates to World War Two, and a male with a Class of '63 
ring from Jackson Sloth Memorial." 


"So, locals," Hastings frowned, making his way to the easternmost 
spot on the farming patch. The shifted his foot in the dirt, and 
frowned. He brushed the topsoil aside with his foot, and found a 
skull's eye socket staring out from beneath the dirt. "Yeah, there's 
something buried here." He knelt to inspect the skull, frowning. 
"Huh." 


"What is it?" Guillard frowned. 


Chris carefully lifted the skull from the dirt, and shone a light into its 
jaw. "There's a taproot growing through the skull." He turned it over, 
finding a wilted dandelion on the opposite side. "This was... maybe 
not dug up. But pushed to the surface by something." 


Guillard presented Hastings with a slab of gel, and Chris pressed 
the skull's teeth into it. "How long will it take to get a result from the 
imprint?" Chris asked. 


"Well, looking at it now, | can tell you that it's from a male, late fifties. 
Probably killed by a blow to the head." The investigator indicated a 
large crack on the top of the skull. "Maybe by a baseball bat or 
something?" 


Chris shook the skull, and frowned. Something small and metal 
rattled about inside. He tilted the head back, and out of the hole at 


the base, a key fell out. He caught it, and read the inscription. "Key 
to the City of Sloth's Pit, awarded by Clive Carter to Marian Carter, 
1969.’ Good to know that nepotism is eternal." He frowned. "You 
said that this was a man's skull, though." 


"It is." Guillard chewed his lip, and looked at the teeth. "He has a 
porcelain crown. So, definitely pre-50s; that's around when they 
started using amalgam fillings. Key was placed in their skull after." 
He took the key from Chris's hand. "Pretty recently, too. There's 
some wet mud on this, still." 


Chris scratched his head, and started pacing. "What does that 
mean, though? Why would someone dig up a skull and place the 
key to the city in it?" The researcher stumbled, his foot getting 
caught in a hole. "What the hell?!" 


"Calm down, Hastings." Partridge looked within. "Looks like a critter 
hole. Probably a woodchuck or something. Move your foot." 


"I can't," Hastings swallowed. "It's stuck. I—" He felt something 
squeeze his leg. "Oh shit, something's got me. I-It feels like a 
snake." 


"Shit, probably a joint snake hole." Guillard produced a knife. "I'm 
going to cut off your pant leg, and we're gonna peel it off, okay?" 


"O-okay," Hastings swallowed. He winced when the fabric was cut 
from his pants. 


Guillard backed away. "That's... not a snake." 
"What, then?" He asked. 
"It's," Partridge swallowed. "It's a root. Maybe a vine." 


"Oh. Shit — " Hastings gasped and sank to his knees, the root 
sinking under the ground and pulling his legs with it. He felt himself 
being pulled under. "Fuck, fuck, it's got me, it's pulling me." He 
quickly removed his shirt and put it over his face, trying to claw at 
the dirt. At the very least, he wouldn't inhale dirt when he got 
dragged under. He gasped and whimpered. "Shit, | think it's gonna 
break my leg —" 


The two senior researcher stood back, and Partridge spoke into his 
phone. "Helen, b-begin phone tracking of Site-87 r-research 
personnel Christopher Hastings." 


Chris swallowed, tears in his eyes. "If | don't... if you don't find me, 
the research | got for you, Doc— it's in my desk, locked drawer. 
Break in if you have to." 


"Understood." Partridge swallowed, and told the same lie he'd told 
countless other personnel who had gone missing in the line of duty. 
"You're going to be okay, Hastings.” 


Chris felt a sharp tug, and gasped. His leg wasn't broken, but at 
least one joint was dislocated. He wrapped his arms around himself 
and took a long, deep breath, before he was tugged underneath. 


"Son of a bitch," Partridge rubbed his face. Hastings had performed 
protocol to a T; suffocation prevention, minimizing surface area and 
protecting the chest when being dragged, not attempting to be 
pulled out and drag others with him. He was smart, and he might be 
gone. "Call March. Tell him we need a squad of Sigma-10 
scrambled yesterday." 


Christopher Hastings felt his skin being scraped away by Wisconsin 
soil. Thousands of insects, rocks, and roots peeled off his flesh, bit 
by bit, and he felt blood trickle into the soil. Some part of his mind 
was thankful for his tetanus shots, but that was soon drowned out by 
the pain. 


Then, he started being dragged lower by the roots, beneath the 
ground. At this point, he doubted his phone would broadcast any 
signal. But if by some miracle it did, at least they'd be able to find his 
body. 


The Foundation had a high mortality rate in most professions, and 
botany was certainly up there. Between dealing with poisonous 
flowers and trees that could eat you, botanists could be gone 
through like tissue paper. It seemed far too appropriate that he'd be 
killed by a plant. 


He felt himself start to run out of air. His vision started going grey, 
and his body went limp. It was better than being eaten or squashed. 
Relatively painless. And then— 


He found himself exposed to air, and gasped, coughing and 
gagging. The root let go of his leg, and the researcher fell in the dirt, 
whimpering in pain. Above him was the ceiling of a large cavern— 
he estimated to be about thirty meters high, and some light coming 
from a crack in the ceiling meant that he may be close to the 
surface. 


Hastings crawled forward, not wanting to test the condition of his 
leg. He closed his eyes, forcing them to adjust to the darkened 
surroundings. He saw something along the top of the cavern— 
some form of root system, most likely the pumpkin he had been 
taken by. But the actual plant was nowhere in sight. 


Chris saw what he had landed on, and let out a miserable groan. He 
had fallen on top of a half-buried skeleton, with its clothing still intact. 
The chest cavity of the skeleton had plant matter in it, pumpkins 
fused together to form facsimiles of organs. Vines splayed out from 
these plants, which pulsed and seemed to breathe; the 'heart' and 
‘lungs' were the most active. Chris felt its body, finding its pants and 
rooting through them. Technically mistreatment of a corpse, but he 
needed something to do while waiting to die. 


He found its wallet, and looked inside. The contents were three- 
hundred dollars in small bills, a membership card for the "Sloth's Pit 
Hunter's Club" (defunct as of 1988 due to an explosion that flattened 
their lodge), a driver's license for one Clive Carter, and a Polaroid 
photograph, folded up. 


"Hello, Clive. Guess we know where the key came from." He looked 
down at the organs. "Trying to tell us where you were?" Chris 
unfolded the photograph, and found a picture of four men standing 
in front of a Ferris wheel, smiling at the camera. The youngest 
among them, Chris recognized, was Jeffery Hubble Senior. The 
three others were unknown to him. 


On the reverse side of the Polaroid, in pen, was: 


C. Carter, J. Hubble, R. Gideon, & Z. Allen 
10/26/69 

Douglas County Fair Organization Committee 
Photo by M. lsimeria 


Hastings took out his phone, and snapped photographs of the 
Polaroid's front and back. Then, he placed the phone on the ground, 
propped it against the skeleton, and set it to record video. 


"If the words ‘esoteric containment’ mean nothing to you, stop 
watching." He paused, and rubbed his eyes. "My name is 
Christopher Hastings. I'm a researcher at S & C Plastics in Sloth's 
Pit, Wisconsin, known internally as Foundation Site-87. | am ina 
cavern approximately... | don't know, deep below Nexus Zone 18, 
which includes the town of Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin. 


"This cavern appears to have a complex root structure on the 
ceiling, leading me to believe that... this is inhabited by some form 
of fruit-bearing vine organism, originating from pumpkins that have 
replaced the organ systems of one Clive Carter. Hold on." He 
retrieved the phone. "I'm activating the flashlight to get a better view 
of the cavern." 


He turned on the flash bulb on the camera, illuminating the ceiling 
with a gasp. "Oh my god." 


On the ceiling were scarecrows, hung upside-down. There were 
fifteen of them, moving along the vines like they were on conveyor 
belts, occasionally enveloped in plant matter, emerging with new 
parts; newly attached limbs, a different head, and a hat. The process 
was slow, and a single scarecrow took half an hour to complete. 
Hastings was glad he had a high-capacity memory chip in his 
phone. 


"These are where the scarecrows are coming from," he swallowed, 
bringing the camera down. "I think this may be where everyone 
around town was taken to, to be... converted. But that doesn't 
explain why they started up—" he looked at Clive's skeleton, 
inspecting his head. "Cracks in the skull. Blow to the head might 
have killed him; did Hubble throw you down here?" He touched the 
breathing pumpkins. "Maybe he was using you to... as an extra 


power source for his ritual? |..." Chris's head pulsed. "Shit." 


He aimed his camera at the ceiling. "It seems that your hypothesis 
was correct, Dr. Partridge," Chris swallowed. "The scarecrows do, in 
fact, originate from plant matter. The plants present in the body of 
Clive Carter appear to be mimicking the functions of organs long 
after death. Current hypothesis: the plant-organs pushed the... 
skeleton found at the Hubble estate out of position, breaking the... 
spell matrix, and causing Jeffery Hubble's infection." He swallowed. 
"I'm going to attempt to destroy the heart analogue. | realize that this 
is seriously against Foundation policy, but at this point... my leg's 
dislocated, I'm bleeding from half my skin, and... shit, my knife's 
gone. Must have lost it while being dragged here." 


Hastings looked at his phone. "| am going to attempt to use my 
phone as a blunt instrument to smash the outer casing of the heart 
analogue. This recording will cease, possibly resuming when... 
when | destroy it. Hastings out." 


Hastings turned off his phone, and clutched it in his hand. It barely 
weighted half a pound, but all he had to do was nick the skin of the 
pumpkin. Then he could press his nails in and rip it apart. He forced 
his phone down onto the pumpkin, the screen glitching and cracking. 
Again, he brought it down, but it seemed to bounce off. Pumpkins 
had thick skin, and whatever this was wasn't willing to give way. 


Still, one did not get into the Foundation without some ingenuity. The 
corners of the phone itself were blunted, but the battery within was a 
different story. He peeled off the back plastic covering, and 
extracted the battery from the phone. The corners were sharp 
enough that, with the right application of force, he could break 
through. 


Hastings dug the corner of the battery into the pumpkin's skin, and 
pushed. It slowly gave, and as it did, the cavern around him started 
to rumble. The skeleton twitched, unseen by him. He twisted the 
battery in deeper, starting to see the pumpkin's guts leak out. But it 
stalled on something, a hard inner shell. "No, shit, dammit," he 
sobbed. "Fuck." 


The skeleton's hands jumped up to grab Christopher's. The 


researcher gasped, and shut his eyes, fearing that it would be torn 
off. He prepared a scream, but instead, he felt the bones tug his 
hand downward, sharply, towards the pumpkin heart. The battery 
pierced the skin, and he felt it dig into the ground beneath. 


The bony hands went limp, except for one finger, which wrote a 
message in the dirt. 


THANK 
YOU 


It then drew a sloppy triangle, and laid still. All the other pumpkins 
withered, and Hastings's eyes followed the withering. It went up 
through the roots, the scarecrows dropping off the ceiling, the entire 
cave rumbling. 


Christopher Hastings was tired. He clutched the phone in his hand, 
and laid besides the skeleton of Clive Carter. "You're welcome, 
mate," he said, eyes landing on a triangle. From his point of view, he 
realized that it was not a triangle, but a pyramid. This was the last 
thought that crossed his mind before he slept.