Item #: SCP-020-IT
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-020-IT is kept inside Containment Area A on the third floor of Site Cerere. The containment chamber housing SCP-020-IT measures 6 m x 6 m and its floor is covered by standard horse litter. One Class-D personnel must enter daily inside the containment chamber with the task of delivering food rations and to clean the wastes. Personnel is not allowed to directly touch SCP-020-IT except for testing purposes. Further Special Containment Procedures are not required.
Note from Dr. Pascale: I suggest to any personnel entering inside the containment chamber housing SCP-020-IT not to respond to any conversation attempt by the animal, unless you are truly willing and prepared to do so.
Description: SCP-020-IT is a specimen of Equus ferus caballus with grey mantle of Lipizzan breed. SCP-020-IT is 1.65 m tall to the withers and weighs 450 kg. SCP-020-IT appears not to age at all despite his metabolism working the same as for any member of the species and him being able to be injured even in a serious way. SCP-020-IT possesses the anomalous capability of being able to talk. It’s not known how he is able to produce sounds identical to those made by humans despite having the breathing apparatus typical of an horse, more accurate studies on this property are currently ongoing. SCP-020-IT possesses a deep male voice and has demonstrated having an high degree of consciousness.
SCP-020-IT attributes to himself the name of █████████ and speaks fluently a large number of languages including, modern Italian, medieval cultured Florentine, medieval and modern English (with a strong british accent), XIV century Provençal French and Danish. SCP-020-IT has shown a vast knowledge on many different topics. It usually tries to talk pushy to any human being which gets close to him, however he has never shown violent or dangerous behaviours.
SCP-020-IT appears to prefer conversation on political and/or philosophical fields, topics on which it has demonstrated a very vast knowledge, and he has proven himself capable of rhetorical devices of all kinds. In most cases, SCP-020-IT has been able to put pressure on his interlocutor to make him contradict himself, stop talking and then renounce his prior statements.
The second anomalous property of SCP-020-IT is activated when a human being gets directly in contact with the animal. At contact, the subject will experience a short visual and auditory hallucinatory state of the duration of approximately 4 seconds before returning normal. Subjects claim seeing, in this period, a fast overview of images and hearing a voice repeating the same sentence. The images have a variable pattern, however many have been recurrent, including:
- A forest covered in snow at sunset
- A man stringing a bow
- A green light turning on and off intermittently
- A dinner table in the middle of a stretch of sand
- The door of a room with the number 11
The sentence heard instead appears to be always the same:
Everything is connected.
SCP-020-IT has been shown not being aware of this property.
Addendum 020 A - Recovery: SCP-020-IT caught the attention of the Italian Branch of the Foundation in 19██, following the highlighting of several reports about a “talking horse” near the Giara di Gesturi, Sardinia. A small team was sent from Site Cerere and, after approaching and capturing the animal, was able to bring it to the aforementioned Site.
Interview 020-Alpha:
Interviewed: SCP-020-IT
Interviewer: Dr. Pascale
Premise: This interview was conducted at Site Cerere shortly after the recovery of SCP-020-IT
<Start Recording>
Dr. Pascale: Beginning of interview 020-Alpha. SCP-020-IT, confirm you can talk.
SCP-020-IT: I thought it was clear after I told you to (swear word in Danish)
Dr. Pascale: How did you acquire this capability?
SCP-020-IT: Straight to the point, uh?
Dr. Pascale: Please, answer.
SCP-020-IT: I was born like this.
Dr. Pascale: Then could you tell me how you were born?
SCP-020-IT: Well you know, when mommy horse and dad horse really love each other…
Dr. Pascale: I got the idea. You seem to be conscious of your capabilities, and also to have a good degree of knowledge and understanding of many topics, who taught you all of this?
SCP-020-IT: I learned everything myself. You know, living so long gets boring.
Dr. Pascale: What do you mean?
SCP-020-IT: Ahaha, you’re not that smart then, I thought you would have already understood that I can’t age like others of my kind. It’s a curse… I considered suicide more than once during this ████ years. However I once possessed a palace! I was held in the highest regard by your species, they made me take part at their political meetings from time to time! Those were good times. After the collapse however I understood I would have ended up in a circus or worse and I run, I traveled long actually, for centuries. But at the end I found a place in which my few peers still free lived. And you took that away from me as well.
<End Recording>
Addendum 020 B: In date 20/██/████, Dr. Alberto Vico, responsible for the containment of SCP-020-IT, after a testing session found an anonymous typewritten letter on his desk. The text was the following:
My congratulations, you managed to find the Horse! Finally, I nearly stopped believing; now I can finally rest forever. The Horse is the first Moment of the Holistic One, the first Moment of connection between all the parts of the One. Now you may not understand it well, but soon you will; the Horse will be the resonance chamber.
The other will be more difficult, they are scattered around, far from each other; the most ancient ones are hidden, some are moving again, others are going back home; of others all traces have been lost for years, Now it’s in your hands, and I can rest.
Do not let your guard down, even if everything seems alright: it’s not. Do not ignore the small details, consider everything, always. You will soon understand. Now you are missing too many elements, without them you can’t see everything. Remember, nothing is left to chance.
Everything is connected.
The security recordings show no one got close to the desk to deposit the letter. It seems to have appeared by itself on the desk in unknown circumstances, despite not possessing any anomalous characteristic.
Further investigations on the origin of the letter and its meaning are ongoing. Dr. Vico has been nominated head of Project Holism and related research.
SCP-020-IT claimed to not have any knowledge of the letter and its content.