SCP-PL-023

SCP-PL-023 in its non-anomalous phase, the object has been opened using a mechanical arm.

Item #: SCP-PL-023

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-PL-023 must be kept in a safe, the access to which is restricted to employees with Clearance Level 3 and above. Furthermore, the object should be tightly wrapped in plastic foil and only be moved using protective gloves.

Description: SCP-PL-023 is a dark red, hardcover book. When it is closed, it measures 25 [cm] in height and 17 [cm] in width; before entering the anomalous phase, it has 250 pages. All of its pages are blank up until it is opened by a human being, which results in the object entering the anomalous phase. The number of its pages is then dependent on the duration of the anomalous phase — it grows in direct proportion to the passing time.

Upon commencing the anomalous phase, SCP-PL-023 induces a trance-like state in the person interacting with it. This happens in less than one second. The person in a trance then turns the pages over to the first one. Just after that, the pages start to fill with contents relating to the tester’s experiences in SCP-PL-023-1. The handwriting and penmanship correspond to those typical for the tester, and the contents are written in first person, in black ink. The person touching SCP-PL-023 then remains in a trance and does not respond to any external stimuli, it is also impossible to stop the anomalous phase by taking the object away from the tester. To date, the only known way to leave SCP-PL-023-1 without any damage caused to the subject's consciousness is by dying inside said location. Within 10 [min] of the termination of the anomalous phase, the contents of SCP-PL-023 disappear. Until then, it is impossible to establish another interaction. Death of the tester’s body in our world stops the interaction.

During the anomalous phase, SCP-PL-023 does not react in any way to the touch of other persons, ceaselessly filling up with descriptions of the tester’s experiences in the same way as it would look if they wrote normally, except the ink shows up directly on the object’s pages. Therefore, it is impossible for two or more persons to stay in SCP-PL-023-1 at the same time. Testers have reported that their subconsciousness arrives in SCP-PL-023-1 in the same state as their bodies are during the interaction. This means that people holding a camera during the object’s anomalous phase arrive in SCP-PL-023-1 with an identical one. Despite this, all electronic devices become almost useless in the created world. This is evidenced by the following facts:

• All kinds of mobile phones cannot find a signal.
• Dictaphones and other recording devices only register white noise and cracking sounds.
• Photographs taken by cameras are distorted and blurred, the attached photo is the clearest photo that has been obtained so far.
• All recordings show only black and gray blots and TV static.
• GPS devices cannot define their current location.

One of the SCP-PL-023-3 instances. This photo was taken during the PL-023-2 experiment.

All items brought into SCP-PL-023-1 can be damaged inside it, however this doesn’t affect their real state. A theory has arisen that all equipment and items taken by testers into SCP-PL-023-1 are merely a product of SCP-PL-023’s anomaly and the consciousness of the person interacting with it, being a sort of projection of the original. This theory also suggests that taking photos inside SCP-PL-023-1 is possible due to a weak connection between it and our dimension. Information about the testers' actions is likely to be sent to SCP-PL-023’s pages in an identical manner.

The following descriptions have been prepared based on the testimonies of the testers taking part in the SCP-PL-023 experiments.

SCP-PL-023-1 is a world probably created by SCP-PL-023, based majorly on memories and knowledge of the person touching it. During each anomalous phase of the object, SCP-PL-023-1 looks different, which led to the conclusion that it is always created from scratch and its existence isn’t sustained after entering the non-anomalous phase. The appearance of the created world differs depending on the person touching the object, however all iterations have some common traits, as follows:

• It is always nighttime in SCP-PL-023-1.
• SCP-PL-023-1 consists of a town with an area of approximately 300 [km²] (this is an estimate obtained from a tester’s observations from a high vantage point) and a dense forest surrounding it, over which a thick fog forms, which makes it impossible to see its eventual limits.
• Inside SCP-PL-023-1, there is always SCP-PL-023-2 and multiple instances of SCP-PL-023-3. (This point has been revised after experiment PL-023-8.)
• SCP-PL-023-1 isn’t inhabited by any humans, and the only human-like entity there is SCP-PL-023-2.

SCP-PL-023-2 is an entity resembling a dark-haired Caucasian man, standing at 180 [cm] of height. It has no distinctive characteristics, and, due to the darkness in SCP-PL-023-1, its eye color is unknown. To date, in all of the SCP-PL-023-1 iterations, the entity was dressed in a black suit, resembling those made in the 1980s. So far, no case has been reported in which the entity would perform vocalization. In the majority of cases, SCP-PL-023-2 observes the tester from around 30 [m] (the distance has been estimated based on the testers’ testimonies), often smiling. There are recorded cases of the entity gesturing towards the probable center of the town with its palm. The purpose and motivation of SCP-PL-023-2's actions remain unknown.
Further information is available in the experiment logs.

SCP-PL-023-3 are unidentified creatures, roaming SCP-PL-023-1 in seemingly random directions, with no clear purpose. All instances have dark brown, sagging skin and unnaturally big, black eyes. None of the instances encountered by the testers so far did possess any other organs for receiving external stimuli, such as ears, nose or mouth. SCP-PL-023-3 can take many forms, from humanoid to [REDACTED], however all of them are compliant with the above-mentioned features. In all of the experiments so far, except the ones designated PL-023-4 and PL-023-8, instances of SCP-PL-023-3 immediately started following the tester upon noticing them, extending their upper limbs in their direction. The creatures do not react in any way to any obstacles or gestures made by the tester, furthermore, they seem to operate in a manner intended to distance them from SCP-PL-023-2 and, eventually, prompt them to commit suicide. SCP-PL-023-3 instances can be both harmed and killed using conventional methods, however their number in subsequent tests seems to remain the same. The origin of SCP-PL-023-3 remains unknown.
Further information is available in the experiment logs.

In the majority of cases, SCP-PL-023-1 iterations do not differ much from each other. Underneath, a list of unusual iterations can be found, alongside descriptions of the differences.

Experiment #	Description of the difference
PL-023-4	SCP-PL-023-3 ignored the tester’s presence, instead staring at the sky, where a super blood moon could be seen.
PL-023-7	All street lamps and lights inside buildings were off, and attempts of turning them back on were unsuccessful.
PL-023-8	The tester has not encountered any SCP-PL-023-3 instances on their way.

1. Experiment PL-023-1

Tester: D-1255, a sane, 27 years old man.

Purpose: Examination of SCP-PL-023.

Equipment: None.

Content appearing on SCP-PL-023: I opened my eyes and looked around. I was in a place resembling the town hall square of my hometown, except I was dressed in the same clothes as before I arrived there. Really weird place. I took a few steps in a random direction and I saw some figure. It was walking in one direction, slowly moving away from me.
“Excuse me!”, I shouted at it.
No response. Maybe they didn’t hear me.
I started jogging quickly and soon I was about 10 meters away from the figure. Then I saw it. It wasn’t human. Its skin was dark and unnaturally saggy, and the way it moved was… spooky. I was about to back out, but then it turned around. Its face… it only had those giant, black eyes, and nothing else. On top of that, it started walking in my direction, reaching out to me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared. I started running, but then I realized how fucked I was.

They were everywhere. Dozens of those creatures were walking all over the town hall square. Walking, some were crawling, because they had no legs. Some looked like giant spiders, and I can’t even begin to describe some others. But that’s not all. There was someone else there. Some guy in a suit. He was… smiling. In a quite spooky way, but he still looked more friendly than those monsters. I noticed that one of them walked past the guy, just passed by him. And he didn’t even flinch. Furthermore, when I blinked, he… disappeared.

But that wasn’t important, I had a bigger problem. These creatures were still chasing me, and some of them looked like snakes below the waist. Fuck, I hate snakes. I ran into one of the buildings in which the lights were still on and I started shouting and pleading for help. There must have been someone else there. At least, that’s what I thought.

However, when I reached the fifth floor and the only life forms I encountered were still just the monsters and the guy in a suit, I started going hysterical. What were they, what did they want? The more steps I heard behind me, the more questions were racing through my head. They were slow, yes, but they were also stubborn in their pursuit. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the door to the last apartment. I pressed the handle and opened it. Thank god, it wasn’t locked.

The apartment I entered was quite small, just one room with a roof window, a hall, a kitchen and a bathroom. Without much thought, I jumped to the window and opened it. A cold wind hit my face. I struggled up onto the window and carefully climbed onto the roof. I thought I was safe there.

Until I heard steps on the roof tiles.

I turned around sharply and I tripped over some protruding element, falling off the roof. Then, there was only darkness.

Result: The tester suddenly jolted awake from the trance and began screaming. He then noticed he was in the testing room, which visibly relieved him. When asked about his experiences while in trance, he described the exact same scenario as the one that appeared in SCP-PL-023.

2. Experiment PL-023-4

Tester: D-1693, a 32 years old man suffering from arachnophobia.

Purpose: Exploration of SCP-PL-023-1.

Equipment: A 900 lumen flashlight, powered by two AA batteries, and two spare AA batteries.

Content appearing on SCP-PL-023: I woke up on an empty street in a big city, in the middle of the night. The moonlight was pretty dim, so I didn’t see a lot.

I turned on the flashlight. Its light lit the street up enough for me to freely look around the area. I quickly regretted that action. Around me, there were a whole lot of those gross things that the doctor had warned me about. I almost dropped my flashlight. One of them was a giant fucking spider! I started yelling. Not screaming, not even yelling, just screeching horribly and running in the exact opposite direction, as far away from that thing as possible. I thought I was already a dead man, but… they weren’t following me. At all.

I stopped and looked at one of them again. It was looking up at the sky. And so were the rest of them. I looked up and immediately noticed that the moon was red, like during a total eclipse. It was… quite terrifying, alongside all these monsters next to me. I shook my head and looked in the direction I was previously running in. There was a guy in a suit standing there. He was waving at me and smiling in a rather scary way. Definitely too widely. Nevertheless, he still looked friendlier than those monsters looking up at the sky. I started walking up to him.

He also moved and disappeared behind the corner of some building. I started running, moving past all of the monsters, finally arriving at the street corner I previously saw him at. He was now standing on the next block, pointing his finger at the entrance to the building. I knew this wasn’t a good idea, but for some reason I couldn’t help but let my curiosity win.

Breathless, I arrived at the indicated entrance and slowly went inside. I got to a small, simple hall leading to a large room with a high ceiling. In the middle stood the guy. As soon as I stepped through the threshold, weird things started happening. His eyes flashed with red, and his mouth started dripping… I think it was blood. At that moment, I felt a burning pain in my chest, which made me double up. Then I heard steps, apparently he was walking up to me. Immediately after that he put his hand on my head and I felt something strange… like I was evaporating from my own body. This feeling quickly passed, though. I could hear the guy muttering under his breath:

“Damn, another unsuccessful attempt. Will I never get out of this place?”

That was when the pain intensified. I wanted to scream, but… I couldn’t. My body started to change, as if I suddenly lost all of my bones. I fell to the ground inertly. The last thing I saw was the dark brown, saggy skin on my hand. And then darkness.

Result: The tester’s body started twitching in a manner similar to an epilepsy attack, while foaming at the mouth. Then, it started leaking blood and the presumably already dead by then D-1693 stopped moving. The autopsy showed extensive damage to his internal organs, including a crushed heart and torn lungs. Just under the text written from D-1693’s point of view, a sentence appeared that read: “You cannot keep me here forever. I will find a suitable vessel eventually”. The entire text disappeared after 5 hours.

Dr. ██████’s note: I think it’s pretty clear what SCP-PL-023-2 was trying to do during Experiment PL-023-4. Wherever and whatever this world is, that entity doesn’t like it and is trying to escape it using the tester’s body. And, if my speculations are correct, it also explains the presence and activities of SCP-PL-023-3. Those abominations always try to push the testers away from SCP-PL-023-2, sometimes leading them to situations which made them jump from windows to escape them. They know that death is the only way of leaving that place. Those creatures are trying to save consecutive people from their own fate, and it’s the only way they can do it. By scaring them off. They have no mouth, so they can’t speak. Subsequent experiments’ purpose will be to establish contact with SCP-PL-023-2, since in the end, it turna out he can speak.

3. Experiment PL-023-9

Tester: Agent █████, a sane 33 years old man.

Purpose: Establishing contact with SCP-PL-023-2. The tester has been instructed to establish verbal contact with SCP-PL-023-2 and persuade the entity to give him information about SCP-PL-023-1 while avoiding contact with SCP-PL-023-3.

Equipment: A 900 lumen flashlight, powered by two AA batteries, two spare AA batteries and an assigned firearm to slow down SCP-PL-023-3’s pursuit.

Contents appearing on SCP-PL-023: I blinked several times and looked around me. Just as all the previous testers, I found myself in a city shrouded in the darkness of the night, namely on a street on the outskirts of the town. The street lights were working just fine, so it looked like the flashlight wouldn’t be of much use. I started walking in a random direction, scanning my surroundings for SCP-PL-023-2. He usually showed up soon after the tester’s arrival, so why would it be different this time? I quietly passed by several SCP-PL-023-3 instances, fortunately they didn’t have ears, so it was enough to keep behind them and they shouldn’t have disturbed me.

I only passed one block and I already saw him. He was standing in the middle of the next block, assisted by several SCP-PL-023-3 instances. From my perspective, it looked rather scary, I must say.

“Hello!”, I said loudly. “Can we have a word?”

The man in a suit looked at me in undisguised surprise, but he quickly assumed a neutral expression and pointed to a side street with his hand. Seeing this, the monsters immediately looked around and started approaching me. Ugh, I wanted to avoid that. I took out my weapon and unlocked it, and then aimed at one of the creatures and fired the shot. Fortunately, they were vulnerable to that. I got rid of the remaining few this way and ran after SCP-PL-023-2.

“Wait!”, I shouted at him. “I’m being sent by people who might help you get out of here! How long have you been here?”

The man in a suit slowed down slightly, still showing one direction with his hand. All signs pointed to him wanting to drag me to the same place as the previous testers.

“I won’t let you take my body, alright?”, I stopped and said loudly. “Now, if you could be so kind as to listen to me.”
Ignored again. This time, I heard steps behind me. I momentarily turned around and aimed at the SCP-PL-023-3s approaching me. A moment later, I shot several times and continued my pursuit. It was a shame several people couldn’t enter here at once. This made the whole deal way more difficult. Especially that I didn’t have a lot of ammo. One spare magazine, that was it.

My words did seem to influence him to a degree, though. He started walking towards the near outskirts of the city, even though he never ventured there in the previous experiments. Alas, this did not mean the end of my problems.

A while later, he passed by a sizable group of SCP-PL-023-3. There were at least eight of them, including two that were much bigger than the rest. I didn’t have much choice, I had to get rid of them, especially that they’ve already seen me. I shot twice without delay, sending two of them to the pavement, but the other ones were within thirty meters from me. Slightly agitated, I shot several more times, killing more instances. In agony, they looked actually sad, as in purposely reminding me that they were human once.

Then it happened. I felt roughened hands tightening around my throat from behind. This shit came from nowhere. Even though I knew what dying here results in, it wasn’t at all fun or unreal. Polar opposite of that, in fact. I tried to free myself, but this thing was surprisingly strong.

After a while the grip loosened, eventually disappearing completely and I could hear a thud. I coughed a few times and took a deep breath. Ah, salutary oxygen. I turned around quickly to check what actually happened and saw SCP-PL-023-2, hiding a small knife into a pocket in his jacket.

“Really?”, he asked, dripping with sarcasm. “You come here to «help» me and you almost get suffocated by this scum? You’re lucky that I’ve got to know their anatomy pretty well and can easily neutralize them.”

“Thanks. I was inattentive.” I muttered. “Anyway, yes. I was sent here to talk with you. Is there a safe place here? One that they won’t try to suffocate me and you won’t turn me into one of them?” I put special emphasis on the latter part of the sentence.

“«A safe place»? Please. There are these shells that were once human everywhere. And me. That’s all.”

“«Me»”, I repeated. “What… who are you?”

SCP-PL-023-2 looked at the distant forest shrouded in mist and sighed:

“Just a regular prisoner. A prisoner of this caricature of a world. For a very long time now.”

“A «regular prisoner» doesn’t turn people into horror movie monsters”, I said. “Why are you doing this? To get out?”

“I haven’t turned you into anything yet, appreciate that a bit”, he muttered, still looking at the forest. “There aren’t any holes in this thing. I’m trying to at least get my mind out of here, but… these bodies are too weak. They burst and decay when I try to pour my consciousness into them. I’ve had enough of this.”

“Who put you here? And why?”

“…I don’t know who”, he answered after a while. “But I suppose some people didn’t like my approach to things commonly called “magical” or “supernatural”. I wanted to use them to help people, for the betterment of society, not just for my own benefit and to make money. Because there were people like that too. So, when I proposed research into wider production of pills that somehow solved the problems of the person who swallowed them, I hit a wall. There were a lot of interested people, but everyone wanted to sell them for horrendously high prices. As it was me who had the pills, I refused and kept looking for people who shared my views. And so, I ended up like this. You read any books? Sometimes in books they imprison a great demon in some sort of vessel, because even the protagonist is too weak to defeat it. Apparently, I was a demon to them. Or someone inconvenient.” He laughed bitterly and looked down at his shoes. “Fabian warned me. I didn’t listen.”

“So you’re saying you’re the good guy?” I asked slowly.

“The world isn’t black and white. Maybe I’m just the lesser evil?” He shrugged. “Or the greater one? Who knows. Go away, before I stop being nice. And be warned, because you’re also not fit for the swap.”

“Someone else will come here later”, I answered. “I don’t know with what purpose or proposition yet, but I’m sure another person will appear here. Goodbye.”

With slight hesitation, I put the gun to my temple. I looked at my interlocutor one last time and pulled the trigger.

Result: The tester woke up from the trance without problem and confirmed the version of events recorded on SCP-PL-023's pages.

Dr. ██████’s note: I order further experiments to be suspended until a decision is made regarding the treatment of SCP-PL-023-2. Moreover, I recommend conducting historical research going back to the 1970s in order to find out the identity of being. It is currently unclear whether he is a human affected by SCP-PL-023 anomaly or a humanoid entity.