Item #: SCP-5167
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: Foundation web-crawlers are to monitor online communities for mentions of potential SCP-5167 sightings. In cases where these sightings are confirmed, all direct witnesses are to be apprehended and all secondary evidence removed from the platform in question.
Apprehended witnesses are to be held until symptoms of SCP-5167 abate, and are then to be amnesticized and released under a standard 'mental breakdown' cover story.
Description: SCP-5167 is an entity known to manifest as a player of the online multiplayer game Among Us under the username of 'Phthonus'.
SCP-5167 will randomly join multiplayer lobbies of the game and participate as an ordinary player would, with the majority of its anomalous effects only becoming obvious following the initial encounter. During this initial encounter, SCP-5167 has been observed to communicate using the in-game chat function, although the majority of its speech consists of lengthy diatribes produced at little prompting from other players.
Individuals who interact with SCP-5167 in-game will subsequently begin to exhibit symptoms of paranoia and Capgras delusion1. The severity of these symptoms varies from person to person, but in initial cases was significant enough to prompt acts of perceived self-defense from those affected2. These symptoms persist for a period initially believed to encompass several months, but has lessened to one or two weeks as observation has continued.
SCP-5167 was initially discovered by the Foundation after a period during which the player 'Phthonus' was a minor urban legend in the Among Us community. Although interest in the figure died down fairly quickly, Foundation web-crawlers flagged recorded accounts of player encounters with the entity as potential anomalous phenomena. Learning Computer Psi-2 ("Meville") was assigned to track sessions of the game until SCP-5167 was encountered — and when the other players in said session were tracked down, they exhibited the symptoms now associated with SCP-5167.
Foundation efforts to track the individual behind SCP-5167 have thus far proven unsuccessful — all attempts to locate the internet access point used by the anomaly have led to deserted home addresses in rural Greece.

Analysis of Impending SCP-5167 Neutralization

As requested by Head Researcher Abrams, I've had the Site-22 analysts look into the progress of SCP-5167's anomalous effects over the period we've observed it — and the results are much as I expected.
When we first discovered SCP-5167 — for the sake of argument, let's say this is when SCP-5167 first came into existence — the impact it had on its victims was severe. I don't think I have to remind you of what Billy Heth did to his family's faces.
But since then — almost immediately, really, since that first couple of manifestations — the potency of its effects has started to decline. Full detachment from reality became delusion, and delusion has now become paranoia - and the intensity of that paranoia is lessening in each new case.
This is all conjecture, of course, and shouldn't be taken as gospel — but based on what we've observed of this anomaly thus far, our estimation is that SCP-5167's anomalous effects will become inert by the end of the year. Whether it'll keep popping up in these video game matches is another story, though.
Site-22 Intelligence Director,
Michelle Ross

Observation Log 5167-1

The following is a log of SCP-5167 as observed by Learning Computer Psi-2 in a game of Among Us. SCP-5167 participated in the game without communicating until specifically addressed by other players. Following the game, all participating players were tracked down and treated as containment procedures dictate.
Communication is logged below:

<Begin Log>
JonArbucle: red, where were you when we were doing reactor?SCP-5167: I was there when the mountains were newborn, and the oceans virginal.SCP-5167: I was there when mankind was capable of legends.SCP-5167: I find myself in a world that has forgotten even the taste of life, even the very concept of life beyond existing from one day to the next. Mere continuance. Where all the world is wasted away in idle play of emotions that once rang true.SCP-5167: I thought my time had come again. I thought this could be the new me. But this is nothing. Let me stay dead this time.(No activity for twelve seconds.)
your mom: red is sus
xg1200: yeah, vote red
<End Log>

Footnotes
1. A psychiatric disorder in which an individual comes to believe that those around them have been replaced with identical impostors.
2. Full record of recorded SCP-5167-related homicides available in the Site-22 archives.

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