Department agents Byers, Richard, Samson, Lila.
Phenomenon class - Object
Hazard class - Visual (appears to be present within the text present on the object)
Physical description - Object appears to be a papyrus scroll with writing on the front. Language is not known, as reading the text causes harm to the reader (SEE CASUALTIES BELOW).
Casualties - Agents Byers, Samson.
Unofficial Containment/Safety Procedures - Object rolled up to obscure text, then placed in an opaque container. Said container is held within pre-archival visual-hazard containment locker.
END REPORT
Dr. Marylin scans over the report again whilst in the elevator to the 2nd floor of the building to be sure she has the details correct, particularly the causalities report. It's rare for a visual hazard to have such a drastic effect on the human mind, people are typically much more durable than that.
The elevator dings and the doors open, and she steps into the medical floor. Its situated like its own, small little clinic - a small waiting room with a receptionist, doors leading to other rooms with rest beds, medical equipment or the infirmary, and multiple full-time doctors and nurses. She greets the receptionist.
"Hi Roger. Dr. Heron sent for me, where's Agents Byers and Lila currently?" She asks. Rogers nods and taps at his computer.
"Makes sense he'd send for a psychologist, from what I know they're struggling to find anything indicative of injury." He scans over his computer screen. "Alright, looks Byers is in room I-7, and Lila is in I-8. Good luck!"
Marylin takes a hallway leading off to the left, heading towards the patient rooms. After a few moments of walking she realizes she can hear yelling from up ahead. She feels a spike of panic and quickens her steps. She turns into the patient hall, and sees what the commotions about. Doctors and nurses are clustered around a room down the hall. Marylin curse when she realizes its room I-7. She sprints over and grabs a doctor to demand to know whats going on.
"Its Byers." The doctor says. She glances at the room then back at Marylin. "Dr. Sage was giving him an EEG when suddenly his brain activity just... just stopped. There's nothing. Its like his brain just switched off. His automatic functions are fine, his lungs and heart are working, but he's brain dead." The doctor has to run off. Marylins jaw tightens and slips past the alarmed doctors, and stands in front of I-8. The room is creaked open, and another doctor she doesn't recognize is inside, examining Lila, who lays on a bed. Marylin steps in, and both look up at her.
"Dr. Marylin, psychologist." She says to the unrecognized doctor. "I've been assigned to help with Lila and... Byers." She says, a brief pause separating Byers name from the rest of the sentence. Lila watches Marylin, a bored expression on her face.
"I'm not gonna die yet, in case you're wondering." Lila states. She yawns, her attention drifting away from Marylin to nowhere in particular. The doctor takes Marylin to a far corner of the room to speak quietly with her.
"There's no physical abnormalities, at least that we can detect." The doctor says. He glances at Lila briefly then back at Marylin. "Byers went into brain-death a few minutes into EEG so we're nervous that's what caused it, somehow. Otherwise we don't know. I was sent here to keep an eye on Lila, but without know how Byers died then we're basically hoping to get lucky-"
"I can tell you guys how he died." Lila suddenly speaks up.Marylin and the doctor both look at her, look at each other, than look back.
"...how did he die, then?" Marylin asks, as she approaches and sits in a chair besides the bed. "Does it have something to do with the object you two were sent to retrieve?" Lila nods. She holds up her hand for a moment, and examines her fingers.
"Have you ever been reading a book," Lila begins. "Or watching a show, or something, and been so into the story, only for someone to spoiler the ending, the answer to all the secrets, and all the plot twists? It ruins the experience, right? Sure, it might still be enjoyable. But it doesn't feel the same. Its almost... boring. Sure, its fun to look back and see all the details and foreshadowing you missed but... it just isn't the same." Slowly she turns to look at Marylin. "Byers is gone. And I don't mean that figuratively in a 'he's dead but want to avoid saying that,' no I mean he's gone. He didn't die, he left. He decided there wasn't a point to sticking around here anymore so he left. And I... well I don't quite agree, but I get what he means. Because the object.... well to be frank, it spoils the ending. I won't tell you anymore about what that means, because you'll either burn up with curiosity even more than you currently are or, even worse, you'll actually check. Don't read it, there's no point to a story if you just skip to the end."
Slowly, Marylin nods. "Are you going to... 'leave,' as Byers did?" Lila shakes her head. "Well that's good... I can't promise nobodies going to try and read the scroll. I'll tell them what you told me though, if that helps. Would you like me to visit again? It can be nice having someone to talk to."
Phenomenon class - Object
Hazard class - Visual (hazardous recorded information).
Physical Description - Phenomenon B-8O3 appears to be a papyrus scroll with text written on its surface. Viewing this text causes the individual to begin showing signs of mental fatigue, boredom, and burnout, and can result in the individual becoming brain-dead, however it is believed that this brain-death occurs as a result of the individuals own consent, as a result of the other symptoms of the objects hazards. Due to a lack of aging, English text, and the scroll having no abnormal or usual durable (tests have shown it can be damaged like a normal scroll), it is believed that the object is either a translated recreation of an ancient item or a fabrication. The exact nature of the text on the front is unknown, however interviews with Agent Lila Harrison have indicated the text to contain information relating to;
Other proposals have been that the information present on the objects text is not itself the hazard, but rather visually seeing the text causes information of the above nature, or of the individuals future life and potentially death to be projected into their mind. This has not been proven however, and is suspected to be false.
Official Containment - Phenomenon is to be rolled up and contained within an opaque, cylindrical container. This container is then to be locked and placed in visual hazard storage locker GF-4. As the object cannot be analyzed without risking seeing the text, no testing nor direct analysis of the scroll is the be performed.
Additional notes - No you guys, we aren't testing to see if pictures transmit the hazard, or if copies do. That would risk human death, and what kind of monster would sacrifice human lives just to see the different ways a piece of paper can kill people? - Archival Specialist Sawyer C. Parker.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
141,249 Literary Works • 674,336 Reviews
Hi there! I see this is an SCP-inspired piece, nice! I love Sawyer’s initials at the end, how you snuck in a sly little homage to your inspiration for this piece.
I’m going to go through and point out some errors or things I would change, then give my thoughts on the piece overall. (I liked it!)
It’s clunky and awkward to use “present” twice like that, especially because the second use is extraneous regardless of what came before. Just say “present within the text on the object” or even just “present within the text”.
I’m assuming you were trying to sound extra formal with this description, and you succeeded, but the second use of present doesn’t need to happen.
“not” here should be “no”.
“causalities” should of course be “casualties”. I’m guessing autocorrect was the culprit here.
“into” should be “onto” and the second half should be “It’s situated like its own small little clinic” because that first “it’s” is short for “it is”.
Is the person named Roger or Rogers? Unless his name is Roger Rogers, this is a minor error.
should be “looks like Byers”
“commotions” should be “commotion’s” since it’s short for “commotion is”
Should be “curses” and “it’s” (again, short for it is)
For the same reason as above, it should be “what’s” and “It’s” here.
Also, dialogue and dialogue tags are part of the same sentence. As a result, you should have a comma instead of a period and shouldn’t capitalize “the”.
So it would be:
“It’s Byers,” the doctor says.
Similarly, this should be “‘Dr. Marylin, psychologist,’ she says to the”
Also, “unrecognized” is a slightly weird word to use here. I understand what you’re going for, but I would try “doctor who she didn’t recognize” or something instead. This is because unrecognized has another meaning, which is “not acknowledged as valuable or valid”.
Possessive apostrophe time! This time the apostrophe isn’t short for “is” but it is necessary here. That’s “Marylin’s jaw tightens”.
Also, I don’t think you mean to say that her jaw alone slipped past the alarmed doctors, but rather herself. So it should be “Marylin’s jaw tightens and she slips past”
Same thing about period to comma and not capitalizing “she” here. Also, the ellipse does the job for you and that last clause (“a brief pause separating Byers’ name from the rest of the sentence”) is unnecessary. If it weren’t unnecessary though, there would still be a possessive apostrophe missing from “Byers”. Since Byers ends with an S, the apostrophe just goes after the S without an extra S included.
I think you get the idea by now, but this should have a comma after “wondering” instead of a period.
Same thing here.
should be “nobody’s”
Possessive apostrophe time! Should be “object’s”
“without risk of seeing the text” would work better here.
Should be “to be performed”.
Alright, so what did I think of the piece overall? Well, as I already mentioned I liked it.
I haven’t read enough SCP or creepypastas to really know if the object here is inspired by anything specific, but I thought it was a great concept either way. I especially found it interesting that it is likely a translated recreation. I liked Lila’s character a lot.
This was a fun piece to read! I hope all my grammatical corrections don’t mislead you, I really did have a good time reading this.
Have a good one yourself!