Working at the SCP foundation has never been an easy job, but through a lot of blood, sweat,
and tears, you've been able to work your way up from being a lowly intern to being
a fully-fledged member of the Foundation's science team. Sometimes the work can be tough, after all,
most of the SCPs under your supervision are direct threats to humanity. One SCP you never thought
you'd have a problem with was 049 - also known as the Plague Doctor. SCP-049 is usually cooperative,
even sometimes sharing the findings from his 'research' with the science team.
But today, he's somehow breached containment, and worse still, he seems to have a problem with
you. According to 049, you've been infected with 'the pestilence'. What does that mean,
why is that so dangerous, and what can you do to get this monstrous medieval medic to
take a chill pill and go back to his cell without incident? It'll be a tricky task, but it's doable.
This is You vs SCP - 049: the Plague Doctor. First, let’s take a look at what you’re up against
in a physical sense: The Plague Doctor is a humanoid entity, roughly 190 centimetres or
6 feet 4 inches tall. His imposing stature is only amplified by his appearance. As the name suggests,
he appears to be dressed in the thick robes, hat, and beaked mask of a medieval plague doctor.
He's usually seen carrying an old-fashioned doctor's bag that seems to contain an
infinite number of surgical tools. At the time of his capture, he also wielded a large cane,
similar to the kind used by plague doctors to examine patients from a distance,
although this cane was eventually confiscated by foundation personnel, as is standard procedure
for any possessions of anomalies that could potentially be used as weapons.
Unlike many SCPs, the Plague Doctor is not only highly intelligent,
but capable of being reasoned with – which is a huge point in your favour.
SCP-049 speaks in a variety of languages, but his preferences are English and Medieval
French. When he was first discovered in the town of Montauban, France,
he went willingly into foundation custody. This SCP is generally very cooperative and reasonable,
particularly with scientists, as he considers them to be his peers as fellow men of medicine.
In containment, he is regularly provided with corpses on which to perform experiments,
and after he completes them, he's often eager to discuss these findings with staff. This cordial
relationship makes the plague doctor a very manageable prisoner, but don't be fooled - his
interactions with staff must be closely monitored. Due to his high intelligence, as
well as a naturally intimidating aura, SCP-049 can be very persuasive to anyone not mentally prepared
for an encounter with him. If you aren't careful, you might end up being convinced to, say, give him
a human subject for his experimentation, which is strictly forbidden by his containment guidelines.
Or, as was evidently the case today, he might just be able to convince you to let your guard
down and let him out of containment. So, the first line of defence against this SCP
is simply to not give him a chance to appeal to your ego or engage you in any kind of mind-games.
Someone less familiar with this SCP might think that letting him out isn't a big deal.
Other than being a creepy, super-smart humanoid with a magic bag full of strange surgical tools,
he doesn't seem actively malicious, what's the harm in giving him a bit of freedom?
Well, SCP-049's polite attitude has one very important exception - if he decides a person
has been infected with 'pestilence', he will become incredibly aggressive towards them.
Now, you've worked for the Foundation for a while, so you know the basics of how SCP-049 behaves.
When SCP-049 singles you out from your team, you suspect he may have seen you exhibit some
kind of symptom. But you know he's generally a creature that can be appealed to with logic.
When you notice SCP-049 becoming hostile in your presence, you might try and show him your
vaccination records to try and prove that you aren't suffering from any sort of pestilence.
However, that's unlikely to work. You see, nobody can quite figure out the criteria that 049 has
for what pestilence is, and he has so far refused to explain himself in interviews with Foundation
staff. In fact, SCP-049 gets extremely annoyed if the subject is ever brought up, calling the
Foundation doctors simple-minded amateurs for not being able to intuit what the pestilence is,
or what its symptoms are. So, even if you're all up to date on your measles, tetanus,
rabies, and hepatitis shots, and your most recent foundation-issue COVID test came back negative,
SCP-049 won't find that sufficient proof that you're pestilence-free.
What does SCP-049 do to people that he decides have been infected? Well,
as he does consider himself a doctor, his stated intention is to cure people.
That's good! But, by 'curing' them,
we actually mean he kills them. That's bad!
SCP-049 can kill with a single touch, and Foundation personnel have yet to
conclusively find out the exact cause of death in any of 049's victims.
The most important rule when it comes to surviving a run-in with SCP-049 is to dress for
the occasion. SCP-049 can kill anyone instantly just by touching their skin, and if that wasn't
bad enough, he's also incredibly fast, able to close the distance between you and him in a matter
of seconds. You're no Usain Bolt, so there's probably no way that you'll be able to outrun him,
so the best way to prevent your sudden death is by wearing thick clothing that
leaves as little skin exposed as possible. As a member of the science team, your lab coat
and gloves should do nicely - keeping your skin safe from unwanted toxins is, after all, what
they're designed to do. Tie a scarf or something similar around your neck to protect your throat,
and, if possible, cover your ears and face with a beanie or ski mask. And, if you aren't
already wearing them, it might be wise to change into jeans, thick socks, and closed-toed shoes.
It might be tricky to track all of those things down without leaving the office, but trust us,
it's essential to surviving an SCP-049 containment breach. His lethal touch is so potent that any
exposed skin at all will put you at risk. If you can, donning a full Foundation-issue Hazmat suit
definitely wouldn’t be an overreaction. Before killing a person he deems infected
with pestilence, SCP-049 will begin by asking typical questions that any doctor would ask a
patient about their medical history. Then, with frightening speed, he descends on his victims to
deliver his lethal touch. Sometimes, killing the person is enough for SCP-049 to consider
them cured, but other times it doesn't have the effect that he was going for. SCP-049 will show
remorse for the killing, lamenting the fact that the pestilence is still present in some way in his
'patient'. This is the point where his 'treatment' gets a little more complex, and a lot more weird.
If you thought being instantly killed with a single touch was bad, you'll really hate
hearing about what will happen afterwards. If the person killed by SCP-049 is decided to still have
signs of pestilence, SCP-049 will produce a variety of surgical tools from the doctor's
bag that he carries and begin performing surgery on the dead body. The tools used in this surgery
vary from scalpels and forceps to a variety of vials and syringes full of fluids that the
SCP calls 'the essence of the four humours'. The four humours, in case you weren't aware,
were a concept popular in Medieval European medicine - the idea is that the body contains
four fluids, or humours - blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile - and that an imbalance of
them is what causes sickness. This idea has obviously been disproven since, but given
that 049 resembles a medieval plague doctor and claims to have originated in the 15th century,
it makes sense that his idea of treatment would align with medieval beliefs and theories.
Once the corpse has been dissected and had its humours thoroughly equalised,
a process that usually takes several days, it may then reanimate as a mindless,
shambling zombie - known in the foundation as SCP-049-2. This doesn't always happen, but when
it does it's always bad news, even though SCP-049 considers these reanimated people to be 'cured'.
He does admit that it isn't a perfect cure, but to us that sounds like a pretty big understatement.
Indeed, instances of SCP-049-2 retain no memories or higher brain function, and while they're
normally docile, they can become very aggressive if provoked, or if SCP-049 directs them to attack.
While SCP-049 obviously prefers to practice his 'cure' on human beings, most instances
of SCP-049-2 that you would encounter in the Foundation building would be animals.
SCP-049 is given animal corpses to experiment on once every two weeks. These animals are most
frequently livestock, particularly cows, but SCP-049 has also experimented on other animals,
including an orang-utan that he was ultimately unable to revive. Though they behave in an
erratic and sometimes violent manner, SCP-049-2 instances are, like most classic movie zombies,
relatively easy to put down. There's no evidence in Foundation documents to suggest
that anything more than conventional weapons is required to dispatch them. Once dispatched,
the corpses should be taken to be incinerated as soon as possible.
As for SCP-049 himself, while he is a terrifying and imposing figure,
if you can avoid his zombified minions and deadly touch, it's surprisingly easy to get him back into
containment. Sedatives have been proven to work on this SCP, and are part of the standard protocols
for transporting him from place to place. Getting a needle through SCP-049's thick,
leather-like hide may be somewhat difficult, especially under duress, so you might want to
consider administering the sedative orally. SCP-049 doesn't technically require any
sustenance, but he has been seen to enjoy food and believes that eating helps him keep in the
right frame of mind to practice his experiments. So, if you can bribe him with a snack, you might
be able to sneak the sedatives in that way. Some of SCP-049's favourite foods include salted pork,
crackers, and hard cheese, so if you can figure out how to hide a pill in any of those,
go right ahead and give it a try. Additionally, tests have also shown that the
application of lavender has a calming effect on this SCP, much like it sometimes does on humans.
Lavender contains a compound called linalool, a type of alcohol that can produce an anti-anxiety
effect when inhaled. The effect of linalool is apparently heightened in the case of SCP-049,
because in the SCP's dossier, lavender is the first recommended method for subduing him.
Once he has been sedated or otherwise subdued, a locked collar, restraints,
and a pair of armed guards are all that's needed to transport him back into containment.
So, if you've followed all these guidelines, you'll be perfectly equipped to survive an
encounter with SCP-049. The security team is brought in, but as SCP-049 is subdued and
led back into his containment cell, he gives you a final cryptic warning. “You are denying
yourself salvation from the one true sickness that plagues the world of men. If you do not
allow me to advance my research, it may be too late to save all those who have been stricken.”
With those words, the enigmatic and terrifying Plague Doctor is placed into restraints
and escorted back into his cell, the armed guards locking the door behind him.
After this encounter, the protocols are changed to discourage any further contact between staff
and SCP-049. The day continues as normal, and as soon as you clock off your shift you decide
it might be high time to organise a check-up with your regular doctor, just to be safe.
Now check out the rest of our 'You vs' playlist for more tactics against terrors, and make
sure to subscribe to our new SCP Explained channel for more from the SCP Foundation.