The SCP Experience - Going off the Rails | SCP-716

Episode Date: June 26, 2021

SCP Foundation EUCLID class object, SCP-716: Going off the Rails Written By: LurkD  #scp #drscp #scpstories #scpexplained Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. Bien-a-boree, embarked and profite. Embarque and celebrate. Rigolet.

Publié. Savoy. Admirate. And profite. Villaray, the voice that we love that we love. I open to try and look at it again. It's starting to make more sense. Looks clear than before. I can make out a few sentences. In the land of ash, and old rusty worm slithers and hungry head glares. Dreamers all aboard. Take a seat when the maw shuts. Dreamers all aboard. Finally, sunrise. I shuffle out from the pile of tattered hardcover books and try and get my bearings. The nights are far too long in this place and far too dark. I can barely see my hands in front of my face when the light dies out. That's why we can't travel at night.

As the night sky bleeds to deep blue, I can allow my eyes to adjust again. The landscape remains unchanged. I stand on a pile of worn books packed into an open train car. This train car is one of many, one of hundreds. In fact, it just stretches straight ahead from one horizon to the other. If this sun is like ours, that means that the train is heading due south. The noise is almost unbearable. The grinding and shrieking of metal are never ending as the entire rusty streak of train cars

barrels through this gray waste land. Not even a shrub or outcrop in either direction. I can't even see the tracks below without the dust being kicked up. It's either dust or ash. I can't tell which. When the foundation assigned us to investigate, they sent us through the front engine, which was stationary. It was sitting in a muddied mire in some humid southern swamp land and with only eight corroded cars attached to it, I felt like I needed a technical shot just from looking at it. There were six of us then, a security team of five and a lady from research and acquisitions. There was a small home nearby. The entire family went missing in one night, but we were not here to retrieve bodies. We thought we'd be eaten alive by mosquitoes,

but as we got closer to the site, they backed off. It was dead quiet, with hardly anything living around the parked train. We went through the front just fine. There were no components on the damn engine, just a hollow shell. Hell, if I'm I knew how it got there. Looks as though it was stripped for parts. Next was a train car of rotted timbers, some of which appeared to be oozing some kind of sickly sap, more of a pus than a passenger car. I remember one of the security agents getting jumpy and shooting one of the passengers right in the face when it turned to look at him. We all froze waiting for a reaction, but nothing. Looked like he shot a mummified man sitting in his seat with clothes too decomposed

to tell what they were, tattered black rags across his withered frame, shrink wrapped in a crispy gray skin, but it had a moldy briefcase with rusty latches in his lap. There were several others sitting in seats spread out all over the train car. Commuters? One of the members mumbled. It looked back at him with hollowed eyes and a furrowed expression like it had just had its day ruined. Then picked up the case and tossed it at our feet. I finally broke the silence after a full minute. Pick it up and take it back to the rally point. I ordered to the agent in the back. He was relieved to do so and hustled back through the engine to get out. I was glad he was able to get off when he did,

because that's when we thought the whole train moved forward. It was such a jolt that we all came crashing down like dominoes right in the aisle. When we stood back up, we could see that we were somewhere else entirely. That was yesterday. Well, yesterday in train time, not regular time. Regular time, it's been like two, maybe three days. I'm not really sure. The sun is getting brighter.

It's blinding. It takes up half of the sky, and is as bright as a flare, now that I can actually see. I look at the books in the pile I've been laying on, all bound in a sort of stained burlap cloth, each one with the same title, but I can't read it. Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. The inside is, well, I can't make sense of the language,

or the characters either, Cyrillic or maybe Hindi. Characters I'm just not familiar with at all. They seem to change when I glance back at them. Something anti-mimetic, likely. I close it up and find a place in my vest to store it. I hear Michelle as she starts coughing. She's not getting better.

Not since she fell into that open tanker car filled with only God knows what. You're awake. Feel any better? I ask loudly. I have to shout over the noise. Not hardly. I can move, though. She gets up on wobbly legs. Can you see the engine? No. I squint hard down the endless cars through the wind.

It's not there. At least I can't see it. I can still see a little black smoke ahead, but that's all. I remove the radio from my hip and key it up. Zeta 5, this is Zeta 1. We have daylight and are going to continue toward extraction. You copy? This is Zeta 1. We are unable to hear you. If you can hear us, we are moving south. I still have blue asset with me.

Why do you still use that thing? Michelle grabs her laptop case and clambers up on top of the pile. Her raspy voice is getting more noticeable. Because it's smart to. We keep talking. We keep communicating. But you can't understand each other. That doesn't mean they can't hear us. Come on. We have daylight to burn. There has to be at least 100 cars to the harassed. You going to carry that thing all the way back? She tucks the case under her arm. It's recording everything.

We just can't. Michelle stops and coughs into her sleeve. It's that same black stuff as yesterday. We both look at each other concerned. But there was no time to dwell on it. Over the pile of books, ended in the next train car. All these train cars are unique in their own right.

Some more memorable than others. We were able to pass over the tops of 40 rusty cars in the long morning. It's best to travel on top rather than through if we can. I thought the long night would help us rest, but I feel just as tired as I did yesterday. There is one car coming up with no roof. I motioned to Michelle that we have to hop down. She nods. Her sleeves are stained black with her coughing. No point in keeping it hidden now. Instead, I turn my attention to the jump up ahead. I can't see inside for some reason. Even with the huge sun overhead, the shadows are too deep. It'll be a blind jump. We'll go together.

I grab her hand and we look at one another for a moment. We're the last two. We jump. We fall and pass through the dust and shadows. There is a weightlessness to the space inside the car. Michelle and I hold on to one another as I try to move my way forward. I can feel the sides of the train car as I pull along. I can't feel the floor though. Finally, I can touch the other side. There's a ladder. I grab hold of the first rung and pull. It's slow going, but I am making progress. Michelle feels like dead weight at this point, but I keep pulling. Finally, we break through the shadow stuff and I take a full breath of air. Was I not breathing before? I pull up Michelle. but I can feel her grip has loosened.

I pull harder and arm surfaces, than the top of her head. But suddenly she lets go. Her hand opens up and she falls away from me. Something is slippery across her skin. I try my best, but I can't hold on to her. She fades away into the darkness. Another 60 cars later and the sun is crossed over towards the other side. I carry Michelle's equipment with me.

She's gone. I still can't see the engine. Just a straight path towards the horizon. I think about jumping off. I think about what happened to my... second in command Zeta 2 when he fell. Disappearing into the dusty clouds turned up by the screeching wheels. Nobody could see the body. I think about what else is ahead. Animal transport cars filled with bloated stalks of twitching tumors. Flat beds with burning cars chained down. Tankers

of sloshing effluence with a smell that lingers on my tongue instead of my nose. This is an endurance in hell. I've been at this for hours. A full day probably. A train day. Much longer than the hundred cars I wanted to accomplish. I can see still see the plume of black smoke in the distance. Doesn't look any smaller or larger than it did earlier. With the sun almost touching the other side of the world, I key up the radio. Zeta 1. Light is going to be gone in a bit. I'm going to find a car to stop at. I think I crossed 200, maybe 300 total for this cycle. Lost blue asset. Just me now. I have her equipment. If that's worth anything. I go to key up one last time, but I have nothing left to say. This is probably a little

day four for me. Or is it five? I should be thirsty. I should be almost dying of thirst, in fact. But I feel nothing. I feel empty, but I can still keep moving. Just a few more cars for the day. Really, I'm just scouting for a place to hunker down when the sun is gone. It's too dark to move at night. I come across a passenger car with an open vent. As I hop down, I nearly fall through the wooden floor. My foot breaks through, but I'm able to pull it free. All I see is dust and the spinning axle holding the train car up. The glass windows are all shattered on the inside. The seats are ripped and moldy.

I doubt anyone is going to ask to see my tickets. I sit down right as the sun falls over the edge. I feel the book in my best. I open to try and look at it again. It's starting to make more sense. Looks clear than before. I can make out a few sentences. In the land of ash,

and old rusty worm slithers, and hungry head glares. Dreamers all aboard. Take a seat when the mosh. Shuts, dreamers all aboard. I've lost track of time. I've only been here since yesterday. Regular time, I think. Streaks of orange light shift to purple, then deep blue just before the sky is swallowed in black. The light is almost out now. I'm so tired. I can wait here. I can rest here. Maybe even sleep. I key the radio up one last time before it goes completely black in the car. Static.

But there is also something faint behind the noise. I press my ear into the radio. I press my ear into the I can barely hear it. A train whistle. SCP 716 is a large locomotive and a variable number of cars, between 8 and 20 on average. Both the locomotive and cars appear to be in an advanced state of neglect. Physical damage dealt to SCP 716 appears to slowly regenerate over time. However, it maintains an appearance of extreme neglect and rust. SCP 716 can be physically moved with difficulty. However, the locomotive appears to be unable to function wrong.

unable to function normally and appears to be missing many critical parts. SCP-716 exhibits a select form of inconsistent topography, while appearing to have a set number of rail cars from outside observation. The train exhibits an apparently unlimited amount of cars when entered. Almost all of these cars are enclosed and appear to be of random types, passenger tanker, animal transport, mail, and others. Many of them exhibit other anomalous properties. Some notable and recurring cars are a horse transport car with horse corpses hanging from ropes made of sheep tendon, a tanker car filled with a mixture of crude oil and human vial, a large transport car filled with stacks of keys made of many different materials.

SCP-716 is also capable of two forms of transport. To begin with, it can travel and move in a manner consistent with a locomotive of similar dimensions, despite the lack of vital parts, any form of fuel or conductor. While it appears to prefer travel, traveling on current or former rail tracks, SCP 716, is capable of overland movement as well, in a manner similar to SCP-1489. The second transportation movement form, exhibited by SCP 716,

has only been observed with human subjects on board. The probability of triggering this mode appears to be largely random, but is more common in cases of groups of five or more subjects. Subjects report that SCP 716 will suddenly shift and begin to move, rapidly accelerating to top speed. Outside observation will show that regardless of subject reports and receive data, SCP 716 remains completely still. Once SCP 716 begins this form of transportation, movement, subjects become unrecoverable. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're listening on Spotify, don't forget to hit that follow button to get notified every time a new episode is released. Also,

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