SCP-2935: "O, Death"
Life in the SCP Universe continually hangs by a thread,
threatened constantly by the existence of a number of dangerous and apocalyptic anomalies.
These threats are encountered and contained by the existence of organizations.
Such as the SCP Foundation, or the "Global Occult Coalition."
Depending on your perspective, their efficacy in carrying out these goals varies,
but by and large life continues.
There are a number of SCPs and tales that look at potential apocalypses,
but rarely with such totality as SCP-2935;
a parallel dimension in which death prevailed.
On April 28th, 2016...
an SCP Foundation Site (Site-81) near Bloomington, Indiana;
picked up a distorted and unintelligible radio signal.
Believing it warranting investigation,
a team traced the signal to a cave underneath a cemetery...
in the nearby community of Joppa.
Sending a drone into the cave,
the team at first didn't realize that anything was amiss,
believing that the drone simply exited out of the other end of the cave.
After observing the surrounding area and picking up an undistorted version of the radio signal, however.
they realized that the drone had passed through some sort of anomaly,
to end up in a parallel dimension of sorts.
The radio signals seemed to originate from the parallel version of the nearby Foundation Site (Site-81),
and had been looping for the last eight days.
The transmission read:
"This is an automated emergency broadcast from the SCP Foundation and your national government.
One or more of our sites is experiencing a communication breakdown,
likely due to a containment breach of unknown magnitude.
All citizens are ordered to stay in their homes as containment teams work to secure the breach.
This message will broadcast from April 20th, 2016 until--"
The transmission suddenly cuts out at this point and then repeats again.
Mobile Task Force Epsilon-13 (Manifested Destiny),
were sent in to explore the anomaly which took place over the course of three manned missions,
and one unmanned mission.
The first mission, Code-named: "Gauntlet".
Commenced to explore the area immediately surrounding 2935's insertion point,
and collect any samples they could.
Upon entering the alternate dimension, they noticed that the temperature is pleasant, the sky is cloudy...
and notably, there is no living vegetation in sight
...including trees, plants, and grass.
The surrounding area seems to be identical to the area outside of the cave in our dimension,
and the team begins to travel down a road, until they locate a farmhouse.
Upon entering the house, they find the corpses of three adults and one child around a table,
each appearing to be somewhat recently deceased.
A newspaper on the table (Hendricks County Flyer) dated April 19, 2016.
Seems to be identical with the newspaper from that date from our dimension.
A clock on the wall shows it to be the correct time in our dimension,
proving that this dimension is fully connected to ours.
The team notices that none of the food is covered in mold, despite being left out for seemingly over a week.
They collect some samples, including taking a laptop and a smartphone,
but they finally turn on the television nearby.
Most of the channels contain nothing but test signals,
but the Home Shopping Network has a live feed...
showing two corpses and a burnt backdrop.
On their way back to the cave,
they note that they haven't heard any birds...
insects, or car noises; just the wind.
The samples brought back by the team,
showed no living cells or microbial life whatsoever.
And the smartphones the last message sent talked about a card game,
suggesting that whatever caused the owner to die was completely unexpected.
The next mission, code-named: "Overland".
Involved the team making their way to the alternate Foundation Site (Site-81) that was broadcasting the transmission,
and establish a forward camp there.
Sixteen agents from MTF Epsilon-13 were sent through the cave for this mission,
and they begin by commandeering several vehicles to aid their traversal.
On the way to the site, they note that the roads are fairly clear, as not many vehicles were present at the time of the incident.
They see several fires along the way,
a few of which are from downed jet liners.
They decide to split into two separate teams;
one heading into the site itself...
and the other going to the off-site server bank.
The logs follow the team that goes into the site,
and a couple members of the team note that they were at this site
...during the time when this event occurred.
The site is in lockdown status, but they soon turn it off and make their way towards the front offices.
They find corpses of individuals they recognize who work at the site in our dimension.
Although they note that there's no blood,
suggesting that it was possibly a disease of some sort.
They learned that at 4 am on the 20th...
a routine vitals check on the site reported no response from any of the vital transmitters.
The system then pinged a number of levels of staff, which failed to respond;
and then locked down the site and began broadcasting the help message automatically.
The team attempts to contact a couple of the artificial intelligences patched into the site seeing that they are still running,
but they received no response from them either.
Exploring the site...
the team leader (Agent Roy) finds his own corpse,
along with many other corpses each of which has suffered complete cellular death.
They access a computer terminal, finding an encrypted message left only three days ago,
after the point in which everything died.
They send the message back home and head in to the containment wing.
They check on a few SCPs, noting that they are all dead
...including SCP-2996.
Which they refer to as the "Ghost Girl".
They also find one of the team member's corpses, Agent (James) Keller.
Despite him not being at this site during this timeframe,
and more notably, the corpse has actually decomposed.
Unlike all the other corpses they've found.
Finally they remember that SCP-682:
the "Hard to Destroy Reptile", was being transferred recently and spent a few days at this site.
They head downstairs to where its containment cell would be and open it.
They find the corpse of 682 displaying no signs of life,
which weirds out the team enough for them to head back topside.
The next mission, code-named: "Nineteen".
Has the team head to another Foundation site, Site-19.
During this expedition,
only one of the sixteen members' recorders managed to broadcast their feed back to base,
Agent Keller.
Incidentally the same individual who's decomposing corpse the team found last time.
Because of this we're given much less information about this mission.
They make it to Site-19 and find another emergency transmitter;
although this one pings every few seconds,
allowing them to confirm that the incident apparently occurred at 3:13am, Eastern Standard Time.
They find SCP-963, the amulet that allows for Dr. Bright's immortality.
But it appears to be completely inert.
They also find the broken remains of the possessive mask (035),
as well as a deceased 173: "The Sculpture."
They also find SCP-079, which is an old artificial intelligence,
which is also dead;
confirming that anything resembling life died as well.
It seems that the effect was completely global,
affecting anything and everything that either lived or resembled life.
The log ends with Keller saying that the on-site nuke at Site-19 was tripped,
and they're locked in down there.
He gives the team's final goodbyes...
and the transmission suddenly cuts out.
While MTF E-13 was exploring Site-19,
an automated drone was sent into the alternate dimension, in order to carry out aerial surveillance.
As well as make contact with the team, and collect the evidence and samples they found.
After flying a few kilometres into the air, the drone sees the surrounding area entirely devoid of life.
With drifts of sand and dirt beginning to form alongside roadways and houses.
The drone flies towards Indianapolis, citing a number of large fires,
especially at the Indianapolis International Airport in the distance.
Indianapolis itself is largely unscathed, and so the drone flies towards Foundation Site-19.
After flying through a storm, the drone lands at the site,
transmits its coordinates to the team and powers down.
Five hours later, the drone is reactivated by Agent Keller.
Who loads a package onto the drone, and then looks into the camera saying:
"I don't have any answers. I don't think there are any. I'll do this one thing and hope that fixes it--
seal it shut.
You've got to lock it in here with us. I'm sorry."
The drone then flies back towards the cave,
and along the way, a nuclear explosion is seen at Site-19.
So, what caused Agent Keller to detonate a nuke and kill off his entire team,
telling the Foundation to seal up the cave?
Why was the alternate corpse of Keller the only one that was decomposing,
and what was on that encrypted audio message they found?
All of our answers can be found in the final log in the report...
where we get to read the encrypted message for ourselves.
The person doesn't provide their name but mentions that it's currently April 26th,
and they've managed to get back into Site-81 despite the lockdown.
The rest of the message reads:
"I wish I had an explanation.
I--If I didn't still bleed,
I would think I was dreaming.
I've had dreams that I was dreaming, but I wake up and I'm still here.
Still here...
alone...
and everyone is gone.
They send me to check this signal they had picked up near Joppa, just off of (I-)70.
Quick little exploratory mission, I was the closest.
I pop in there and find this... "cave"...
and on the other side is the world I just left, but--
But it's this one.
This is the world I ended up in.
The grass, the birds, things dropping out of the skies.
And dark things floating in the water.
People everywhere, lying where they stood.
And the silence...
God the silence, not even--
not even birds or--or bugs.
Just wind, and nothing else.
I came back to report on what I had seen and...
I don't have any answers, I don't think there are any.
I don't even have the right words to say.
This world is different from the one I saw in the cave.
People are moved around,
the date is different, things are different...
Because it's my world!
This is the one I left!
This is--
my family is here, and my friends,
but now...
It's all gone.
Everything is dead...
There's no evil magic.
There's no supernatural stars.
There's no futuristic ray gun or false vacuum device or...
nothing.
None of those things mattered.
Nothing we did mattered.
It's all gone.
Something... something must have been in that cave.
Something must have followed me out of there.
Needed me to go in there.
Needed me to bring it out.
Let it loose.
Let it do to my world what it did to...
to that...
Maybe it's me.
Maybe I was the reason.
Maybe I...
am death.
If it was in there and I brought it back,
then I am Death.
I've got myself...
in a containment cell.
Jammed the goddamn door shut.
I'm gonna put a bullet between my eyes.
Everyone else is dead.
What's one more?
You know, it occurs to me...
if you're listening to this...
You're Death, too."
What's the sequence of events here then?
It seems that the Agent Keller of this alternate universe,
was sent to investigate a signal near Joppa, Indiana.
Much like what occurred in our universe, although he was alone.
He passed through the cave and entered into a dead universe; again,
similar to what our Foundation did.
He went back through the cave,
but found his own universe to be now be completely dead,
just like the one he left.
Assuming this happened immediately when he came back,
he probably came back through the cave at 3:13am on the 20th.
He makes it back to his own Site-81 and records this message,
realizing that something within the cave or within that other universe,
needed him in order to travel to a fresh universe.
Since he's completely alone in a dead world,
he kills himself and his body decomposes since he still carried living bacteria.
The Keller from our universe finds this message,
and realizes that if they pass back through the cave to their own universe, they'll kill it.
To prevent this, he tells the Foundation to seal the cave.
And then locks his team in and detonates the nuke.
The Foundation seals the cave with concrete and leaves it alone.
We're left with two primary questions then:
What exactly is the cause of this universal death,
and is it specifically tied to Agent Keller?
We can likely rule out some sort of disease or weapon,
so it's probably some form of entity.
Clearly this entity has killed more than a couple universes.
Since the distress signal sent by the alternate Foundation
continues to lure new Foundation teams into the cave.
If it is an entity, it's certainly among the most powerful in existence,
if not THE most powerful since it's capable of killing not only 682,
but everything in existence simultaneously.
It's hard to say if it's specifically tied to Keller,
since we have limited information,
but he is a common thread that we know of.
Whether or not this entity of death is connected to Keller is left to your own thoughts.
SCP-2935 exemplifies some of the best aspects of cosmic horror,
presenting a cold, uncaring situation.
With no regards to humanity's perseverance or will to survive.
2935 is effective, because it reminds us that death could come for us at any moment with no warning.
And it doesn't really care who we are or what we've done.
Maybe it doesn't take the form of a supernatural entity,
or a universal atrocity.
But death is all around us...