In the first JamCon held in ZH Branch in 12022 HE(Holocene Era), my entries constitute a trilogy inspired by a dream in 26th February 12022 HE, with a mention of the Ghost of Kyiv during the first days of the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. SCP-ZH-968 is the third entry of said trilogy.
202202260715 - The Mystery of the Second Ghost of Kyiv
In the start of the dream, I was in an airplane, on my way along with my colleagues to participate in a ritual to start a construction. In the middle of its route, it was forced to land after maneuvering for dozens of seconds.
The landing was successful, and everyone got out of the plane, as the plane appeared to land on its bottom. The site of forced landing was a mud plain beside a forest. A dirt mound stood around 2 meters tall in between the plane and the forest.
The mound happened to be the venue of the ritual we were going to join, that happened to start shortly somehow. So we walked to the top of the mound, waiting for the ritual to start.
Fortunately, none was injured, and the top of the mound was big enough for everyone, with a 1-meter-tall pedastal made of dirt.
I sat beside the pedastal and fell asleep. After over an hour, I was waken up be a colleague telling me the people from the other company were coming here. So I was told to leave the venue.
When I was outside the venue, I opened my phone, and found out that a channel of military review that I followed had released a new video featuring the news of an accident happened exactly on our plane.
The reviewers mentioned the background of the accident, consistent to that we encountered. They also mentioned a cluster cruise missile named "MSC-7 'Bundle-o-maimers'" which can break into hundreds of sub-missiles midair to target independently.
However, they didn't think it was likely for such missile to strike our plane, as if it were the case, the plane would be hit by several sub-missiles with every turn it took, resulting in dozens of hits and a much more severe damage than what we observed.
They concluded with their most likely hypothesis that the missile targeted a formation of aircrafts nearby, while the formation broke out for evasion, one wingman was hit by one of the sub-missile, triggering an accidental launch of a missile it carried, and the falsely launched missile hit our plane, leading to our false landing.
When the video ended, I looked back to the venue of the ritual, and the ritual was ending as well. A colleague came to me to call me back to the venue to join a celebration on site after the ritual.
When I got back to the venue of celebration, turns out there were two dirt mounts with similar size. There was also a wooden bridge between the mounts, spanning at 20 meters long and 2 meters wide, with a wooden tower beneath its center. Inscription was found on the tower, with the ritual for beginning of construction presumably held on the top of the tower. Or even, the whole wooden bridge could be built solely for the ritual.
In the celebration, my colleagues were sharing cakes with the engineering contractors from another company, while chit-chatting with them. I was mistaken for the pilot by the contractors, and I even heard the people around me comparing the pilot with the "Ghost of Kyiv", the legend popular at this time.
Not taking the rumour seriously, I only expressed my thanks to them, while walking through the celebration, then the dream ends.
Here is a list of primer for the articles related to SCP-ZH-968.
- SCP-ZH-223 is a JamCon entry written by
SamScript, featuring a balloon connected to a pregnant female body which would pick up altitude without warning. Failure to shoot it down at altitude between 50m and observable range would cause a disaster with casualty above thousands to a specific ethnicity.
- *A Freak Accident/Forced Anchorage* is a Wanderers' Library entry inspired by the first half of the dream, depicting an aerial accident occured in the world remoulded as per SCP-3936. It is an entry for the first topic of the ZH-JamCon2022 - "Fly".
- SCP-ZH-385 is the missile appeared prominently in the dream, which is a hybrid of air-to-air cruise missile and cluster bomb that also comes from the world in the SCP-3936 narrative. It appeared in the baseline world in a reality bending event, and retrieved by personnel from either Site-ZH-50 or Site-ZH-81. As a result, it is in a Schrödinger's-cat-state between being contained in Site-ZH-50-2A or Site-ZH-81 until one of them decided to use it. It is an entry for the second topic of the ZH-JamCon2022 - "Inspection".
- SCP-ZH-968 is the legend of Ghost of Kyiv with the second half of the dream integrated into it. It is an entry for the final topic of the ZH-JamCon2022 - "Must be fake".
This file employs the experimental structure of 5-tier clearances, each level of clearance would see a picture different from the rest as the file unfolds, detailed as follows:
- In Level 1 Clearance, you can see a superficial description of the Ghost of Kyiv.
- In Level 2 Clearance, you can see a concrete description of the Ghost of Kyiv, as well as a guest appearance of Researcher Knave, my Author Avatar.
- In Level 3 Clearance, you can see the Ghost of Kyiv was implied to reatrribute causes of aerial loss using reality-bending power, as well as an appearance of the protagonist in the aforementioned dream coming from another universe (which is an aftermath in SCP-3936).
- In Level 4 Clearance, you can see a hypothesis that tactical theology can be used to deal with the Ghost of Kyiv.
- In Level 5 Clearance, you can see the true situation depicted for the Ghost of Kyiv as an Urban Legend Anomaly, as well as the difference between urband legends and tactical theology.
For the sake of clarity, there are some small declassification in case of confusion:
- The numeral designation alludes to the year of Siege of Kyiv in 968.
- The Ghost of Kyiv works in a principle of "Re-attribution", i.e. Redirecting the cause of a certain event. It is capable of changing any aerial loss within its operational range (3km in radius) into "aerial kill by SCP-ZH-968-UA". Therefore, there is no additional hits brought by its action, for its "hits" are already a part of those of Ukrainian Air Force in the first place. However, this phenomenon alone is enough to sustain its power and in turn serves a mental encouragement for Ukrainian cilivians and military.
- The initial observation made by the Foundation appears to be SCP-ZH-968-UA ascertaining the aerial damages into certain destruction for individual aircrafts, thus the Dark/Critical assignment under ACS.
- The redacted name below the quote in the Level 2 Clearance section is "Assistant Researcher Sin-Hop Edward Lau", the full name of Researcher Knave.
- The callsign Кєзтел corresponds to Qeztel, a code appeared in the narrative of SCP-3936.
- Human prayers can emit pulses of Akiva radiation, as an evocation of divinity correspondent to the faith involved.
- The final update in Addendum corresponds to death of
NaZare, an IRL member of Ukrainian Branch of SCP Foundation. A permanent hub page in memoriam is established in the UA Branch.
May this article serves as a junction of a dream in the best moment and a war in the worst moment, as well as a gesture of solidarity for the civilians torn by the ongoing war, and gratitude for all of you reading the file.
May all cilivians be safe. May all tyrants be doomed.
- Enneametric Document Writers Are Rarely Docile, Kyiv Never Allows Violent Encroachments.
