The SCP Experience - Homesickness | SCP-2397

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Want to listen ad-free? Try it FREE for 7 days here: patreon.com/TheSCPExperience SCP Foundation SAFE class object, SCP-2397: Homesickness  This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2397 and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Author: Cyrus Spears * * * DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #thescpexperience #scp #scpfoundation #scpencounters #securecontainprotect #scpstories #scpexplained #whatisscp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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love that we could not remember how he ended up on the old dirt road that led back to his family home. The shivering rows of brown cornstalks ran down the length of the road on either side of him. The sky was blue.

Uncannily blue. It stretched over the road like the top of a glass dome. He felt sort of like a bug, caught underneath a teacup, although he could not understand why. It was just that sort of feeling. There was not a cloud in the sky, but there was no sight of the sun either. It was cold, maybe colder than it should have been for autumn. At least, he vaguely remembered that it should be autumn. Otherwise, the corn stalks would be green and bursting, ready to be stripped of their offerings.

Home was just down the road, wasn't it? The heel of his boot rested in the divot of a pothole that was deep enough to collect water at the bottom, even though he could not remember the last time it had rained. He moved his heel back and forth, digging a little into the mud. He had to get home. He wasn't sure why. It was an overwhelming words that aided him from the inside, like there was a creature sitting just behind his ribs, holding his heart and twisting it every which way like an orchard worker

trying to pick an apple off its branch. He had tried everything, hadn't he? He had tried calling. He had tried writing. But letters were sent back unopened, and calls went straight to voicemail. He tried to picture the last letter that he sent. All he could remember was a long white envelope, but everything across the front looked like gibberish in his mind's eye.

All the letters were scrambled or upside down, and he could not even picture the stamp. But he remembered sending it, and he remembered that he promised to visit. He promised that he was going to check up on every old family friend, and he was going to stick around this time. The temperature kept steadily dropping. The longer he sat there, the more Martin shivered. Even his heavy faux fur-lined flannel jacket was not enough to shield him against the elements. The cold sank down into his bones to gnaw on them with steel teeth that tore right through

his flesh. He was not sure why he was wearing such a heavy coat in autumn, and in Iowa, of all places. He could not remember the last time it had gotten so cold so early in the year. His mother might have an answer for it, and she might have soup waiting for him on the table. The thought was enough to bring him to his feet. Chunks of meat cozied up to big, generous hunks of vegetables all stewing in a thick broth that warmed your guts as soon as it slid down your esophagus. His legs wobbled a bit as he stood, and there was nothing to grab onto.

Martin swayed and looked out towards the road. It was all flat as far as the eye could see. he thought he saw the edges of his childhood home in the very distance, that two-story brick wonder where he had lived all his life. All of a sudden, Martin had vivid memories of tearing up and down the stairs with his brother, yowling like a pair of barnyard cats. He remembered how their mother would appear with a wooden spoon to whack them both over the backs of their hands.

Although he could not remember her face. It was smooth and blank, just a slate of warm sunspotted beige. Her curling brown hair sprung from the sides of the bun she had pulled it into for the sake of her housework. But that was all he could see. Even when she spoke, the words that came out did not make any sense. It was all garbled, like it was being spoken through the end of a cardboard tube.

His brother had a similar face, creamy white and deliriously pink from running around. He had blonde strands of hair that stuck up in every direction from static and wind, but there was nothing more memorable than that. Even so, Martin had the overwhelming urge to see him again, to check up on him and make sure he was doing well. He could not remember what his brother was up to these days, but his parents would know.

All he had to do was get to the family home. Martin began his journey back down the road. Every step ached. His knees wobbled a bit, but he pressed on. He felt every crevice being pressed into his soul, and he thought, vaguely, that he could probably use some new shoes. Birds called to each other overhead, barely heard over the sound of rustling cornstalks

as a cold breeze ripped through their abandoned rows. Goldfinches, for sure. He knew that call anywhere. They used to gather at his mother's bird feeder, only to scatter at the shadow of a hawk. Martin looked around to see if he could spot one, but there was not a bird to be seen. Nothing flitting across the sky, nothing pecking at the dry dirt cornrows, or hopping across the road. There were not any trees that he could see where they might hide, and yet their calls were incredibly close.

He shook his head and kept walking, one of life's greater mysteries, the ability of a small bird to conceal itself from predators. He stumbled on another pothole. He wondered how much longer he had before he reached his parents' home. The house did not get any closer, but he probably had not been walking for as long as he imagined. It was difficult, after all. His legs were so heavy. Every step sent another jolt of dull, aching pain up his thighs and into his hips.

It was a bone-deep exhaustion, like he had been walking, for days. His back felt like someone had picked up a cement block and taken a swing at the center of his spine. In fact, the more he focused on his body, the more off it felt. It was as if some of his bones were sliding around in ways that they were not meant to, with broken ends grinding against one another and his kneecaps popping in and out of place. It hurt. It really hurt. He was surprised by how much agony he was in if he was. If he was, he was in, if he was. really stopped to think about it. He stumbled on another pothole and fell, crashing to his knees and crying out in pain as he caught himself on his palms. They were scraped up and torn. His fingers

were bruised and his thumb was skewed to the side as if it had been pulled out of joint. Martin clenched his teeth and took a deep breath, rolling over onto his side to pop his thumb back into place. The joint reconnected with a sick wet pop, and he swallowed her. hard, gasping out and trying not to cry in the middle of the road. He adjusted himself again and ended up rolling onto his back. More pain shot up to his skull, and he yelled into the sky, although it was drowned out by a rising cacophony of goldfinch calls. He lost track of how long he had been laying there. He stretched his arm out and pulled it back around to glance at his watch. The torn sleeve of his flannel jacket covered the old thing, and he had to be a little thing. And he

had to push it up. It was a dusty old number and an analog at that. He thought he had a digital watch, but this one looked familiar somehow. It must have been his father's. The watch face was busted up, with the spider-web fracture spread across the glass, obscuring half the numbers, except where it was missing a few shards. Some of the cracks were stained red, and so was the brass dial where the ticking hands could be adjusted. The number were nonsensical, upside down and twisted in odd directions. Martin shook his wrist and blinked a few times, but nothing changed on the watch face. A wave of urgency crashed into him, more pressing than before.

He had to get home. Martin rolled himself over onto his side and then onto his stomach, pushing himself up until he was on his knees. His kneecaps popped underneath the pressure and he ground his teeth against the pain, but he managed to drag his feet up underneath him and push up until he was standing once again. The ground was cold. Everything was getting colder by the second. Martin glanced down,

but the flared legs of his dirty jeans were covering most of his feet. The denim jeans were in terrible shape. The knees had been torn out, and there were tears down the side, exposing his skin. No wonder he was cold. There were rust-colored stains on one side right above a huge game. ash. The fabric was stiff, like it had been soaked in paint. He dragged one hand down over the stain, and that was when he noticed one nail that was barely hanging on. Martin pulled his hand around

and held it up to the light. The light was coming from everywhere. The sun was still nowhere to be seen. Not a dash of color interrupted the stretch of endless blue to signal that sunset was coming, or anything else. Not a drop of moisture had collected enough to be. to form a single fluffy cloud. In fact, if anything, the cold was dry. It made his mouth feel like cotton, and his throat was parched. He would have loved some water, but he knew that his mother would have some. The torn nail was pale. It stopped from falling off altogether by the little strip of skin over the cuticle, and it flopped out uselessly. Martin grimaced and pinched the edge. He tugged the nail free, and it hurt like a bitch, but did not bleed very much.

A little blood oozed out from the torn cuticle, and he tossed the broken nail down to the dirt. It fluttered like a helicopter, spinning towards the road. Martin pulled his eyes away and focused on his shadowy house in the distance. It was not even clear enough to be categorized as a silhouette, just a dark, hazy shape that vaguely looked like the peaked roof of his childhood. home. But he had to get there. He knew that, and he was so close. If he could see it, that meant he was close. The cornfields, after all, were familiar. He had a vivid memory of running through them in the summer, tripping over fallen stalks and humps of dirt. The leaves sliced up his arms

like an Easter ham one year, and showering it hurt like a bitch for a whole month. Home. Almost home. Martin kept walking. He kept his eyes on the road for the most part, looking out for more potholes. His toes were cold enough inside his thin boots, but he thought they were going to freeze. It was a straight shot to the house, so he lost nothing by taking his time

and watching out for himself. It felt like hours, but it could not have been that long. Nothing changed in the sky. Martin pushed his hands into his pockets to try and ward off some of the biting chill that nibbled at his fingertips. His previously dislocated thumb and the finger that had lost the nail both throbbed, but he blotted out the pain with thoughts of his mother's soup.

That was what he was looking forward to the most. He was almost ashamed to admit it, but he would be so excited to just be home that it did not matter what waited for him, whether it was a warm hug, some gin from the cabinet, some soup or some fresh bread, some fresh peach preserves or else. Martin's boots skated over the edge of a deep hole, and he pitched forward. He only saved himself by spinning around, allowing himself to fall backwards.

He landed on his tailbone and screamed because the pain that shot up to the back of his skull was too much. He sliced an expletive through his teeth and swallowed a few more as he forced himself to breathe through his nose. The cold air made his nostrils dry as a bone. He could feel something trickling down his upper lip, and he thought it was snot. He rubbed his jacket sleeve over his flaking nostrils, but it did little to absorb the mess. His nose kept flowing, Martin hawked, spitting a glob of phlegm onto the dirt in front of him.

It was bright red. Martin furrowed his brow. The blood gushing down his lip coated his chin, and he searched his pockets for something to stuff up his nostrils. He found an old piece of paper and crumpled. it up tight, plugging up one nostril and shooting another bright red wad of snot and blood out the other. He turned back around and crawled over to the hole that he had nearly fallen into. It was no regular pothole, that was for sure. He found himself staring down into over a mile's worth of darkness. It was impossible to see the very bottom, and freezing

air shot up the hole like breath from a monster's gullet. Fear struck Martin in the belly and made his stomach turn as he crawled as close as he dared, enough so that he could peer over the edge and try to see down. He had no idea what he was looking at, although somewhere in the back of his head he thought, mine shaft. A mine shaft? This close to his house? Strange to think about. Maybe not impossible. Although he did not think his mother would have let them go running around as much as she did if she thought certain death was nearby. Martin squinted, as if that could help him see and sent a vocal call down. Hello?

He flung his voice down into the tunnel. It echoed back at him, and somewhere behind him, the gold finches screeched. Another memory hit him, more vivid than anything he had been experiencing so far. He had fallen once before, and it was down a hole as dark as this one. He had not been watching where he was going, but then again, everything had been a little different, flattered, colder, bleaker, darker? Had it been dark when he started walking home? His fingers were frozen, and even the blood on his upper lip felt stiff.

He rubbed at his face, and the blood flaked off into his hand, and he tried to think of what it brought him here. He had been wearing better shoes then, better boots, ones that did not have any holes in the bottom. But when he fell, his clothes had been ruined. Was that what it was? He had broken or sprained something. Maybe it had just been cracked.

He remembered hitting the bottom of the hole and screaming at the top of his lungs. His scream had echoed back at him, mocking, and no one had come to his aid. At least, he did not remember anyone coming. He remembered seeing a few big lights attached to hard hats peering down. He had called out for help,

but one by one they had disappeared. No rope, no peasant. Pullies, no nothing. They had abandoned him. Why had they done that? The memories caused another flash of pain to rocket over his skull. They were immediately blotted out, like a picture in watercolors being left out in the rain. It all just bled away, and he was left with a muddy blank scene, staring up at the sky, endlessly blue, not a single interruption. And his only thought had been that he needed to get home. There had been clothes at the bottom of the hole, and he remembered putting them on because they were warmer than what he had. The boots were a little loose and the

soles were thin, but better than his own, which were somehow full of blood. Had he climbed out? There had been wood or something embedded in the rock and dirt. Maybe he had clawed his way out and left a few nails behind. He remembered the splitting pain in his hands, but it was still washed over by the warmer or pleasant memories. Go home. All right, he would go home. Martin was not going to risk falling again, whatever else he did. He crawled around the edge of the hole, keeping his eyes on its inky black depths, as if they had the power to drag him down by just existing. The dirt edges crumbled underneath his hands, and each time the dirt went skittering down, he shivered. It made no sound. It never hit the bottom. Not that he could hear.

He did not know how deep the hole was. He just knew that he had to get home before the dark closed in. He felt like he had been walking for days, but the sun had not even set yet. The house was getting closer, though, he was certain. He just needed to stop lollygagging. He needed to pick up the pace. It didn't matter how much pain he was in.

When he got home, his mother would have some medicine for him to take. She always kept the medicine cabinet stocked full. Another jab of pain in his back, right up to his name. Martin winced. He finally made it to the other side of the deep mine shaft opening. Martin paused, allowing himself a moment to soak up his victory, and he pushed himself into a sitting position. He looked down at his feet and grimaced at the crusted, disgusting state

his wide-bottomed denim jeans were in. They were frayed and torn and caked in blood or paint, whatever it was. He tugged them up and revealed his boots, which were in dismal condition, and looked like they had come out of a 1970 Sears catalog. It had honestly been a terrible idea to replace his own with those sorry copies. Martin unlaced, though, muttering under his breath as he worked, his voice sounded all congested with the paper still stuffed up his nose. Martin tugged off one boot and hurled it down into the hole.

Back to where he had gotten it from, he supposed. It made no difference. He had walked these roads barefoot so many times as a child. He would probably make better progress that way. He took off the other shoe and threw it down after its twin. He peeled off his socks, which were crusty and full of holes. He balled them up and tossed them down too, finally letting his bare feet air out.

They were black and blue and swollen like they had been crushed. His toenails were black and some of them had fallen off. Some of them were split down the middle, oozing pale green infection. His heels were cracked, like he had been walking for days and days before he had ever discovered the boots. Martin shook his head. He really needed a bath. He wished he had a phone where he could call his mother and ask for her to have one drawn when he got home. But thankfully, the house was not that far away.

Martin pulled the crinkled piece of paper out of his nose and unfolded it. It was soaked through with blood, but he could still make out some of the words. They looked like they had been typed up with an old-fashioned typewriter. Sorry, son, I was scared. An echo. Come back. You'd like it here. Not home. Some semblance. The rest was too obscure for him to make out. A shiver ran up Martin's spine and he bawled the paper back up in his trembling hands. He did not know what to do with it.

Throwing it down into the pit just seemed wrong somehow. He ended up stuffing it back into his jeans pocket. It wasn't like he could do any more harm to his already ruined clothes. Martin waited for a little while, staring at the house in the distance. Finally, he stood back up, wobbling a bit on his ruined feet. Without the boots, they hurt even more. Every step was like walking along knife points. He kept going.

He had no choice. But he had walked this road a thousand times, maybe a million times. The cornstalk shuddered, and he remembered what it was like to be a kid, to be afraid of what might be lurking in the rows, to be afraid of going into the fields after dark. One time, his brother, who still did not have a face in his memories, dared him to go. He did not remember why. He only remembered hiding in the barn and pretending that he had.

memories that were a million miles away, memories that he was unable to touch, as faint and fuzzy as the roof of his childhood home against the sky. The shadow was almost purple, as if illuminated by dusk, but the Midwest blue remained uninterrupted. He supposed that he should be grateful, because once the sun set, it was going to get even colder.

The flannel jacket probably wasn't his. He wished he had another. The buttons were broken, and the best he could do was hug his arms around his chest to try and beat back the chill. At some point, Martin caught himself slowing down. Exhaustion had settled in again, making every step feel heavy, making his hips ache and his shoulders hunch forward. He decided to sit down for a rest. It wasn't that far now anyway. It couldn't be.

Martin could not remember how he had ended up on the old. dirt road, but he knew that he was almost home. His hands were folded in his lap, and the heel of his barefoot rested against the divot of a pothole that had caved its way into the middle of the road. He dug his swollen heel a little deeper into the mud, even though it hurt, like a needle was being shoved into the center of his soul. The mud was cold and filled back up with water as as he pulled his heel back. His fingernails were torn, and some of them looked like they had fallen off. That was strange, he thought. He could not remember how they had gotten to be that way, but he was markedly unconcerned. A little bandage and a bit of neosporin would fix him right up,

and he knew that his mother had both of those in her medicine cabinet. The sky was a calm, uninterrupted blue. On either side of him, dry cornstalks shivered as the fingers of a cold autumn breeze dragged its way through the broken rows. Martin smiled as he gathered up his legs to push himself up into a standing position. The air smelled fresh and clean, and the sound of shuddering corn husks reminded him of days gone by. It was sweet, sentimental. He was going to be glad to be home. He could not be far out either. He had walked that road a thousand times as a kid. In his sense, it was walking down a proverbial memory lane. Putin pushed his hands into his pockets of his flannel jacket and continued walking, above his head.

Although he could not see them, Goldfinches cried out their mating calls. Soon, he would be home. SCP 2397 is a square region of land, 1.3 kilometers to a side, located several miles outside of the small town in Alaska. Human subjects within SCP 2397 invariably perceive it as being a part of the U.S. state of Iowa. Subject's perception of SCP 2397 appear to be otherwise normal. Observer standing outside of the item's perimeter do not experience any of its effects. In addition to this perceptual anomaly, other abnormal phenomena sometimes occur within SCP 2397. In the past, these phenomena have included small patches of Andropogun Gerardii and other prairie grasses not normally found in the region.

the regular appearance of corn husks within the northeastern corner of SCP 2397. The sound of Cardwellis Tristus, American Goldfinch calls. No physical or visual evidence of the species' presence within SCP 2397 has been detected. A strong urge among human subjects to go home or to speak with family members. Feelings of a sense of vastness and distance, often described as uncomfortable. The land within SCP 2397 consists largely of tundra. A rudimentary dirt road runs through SCP 2397, terminating at the collapsed remains of a small house near the region's center.

Examination of the house has revealed no anomalous properties. Several open mining shafts, suspected to date from the mining efforts in the area, have been found within the area. A foundation investigation of these shafts revealed a set of heavily decayed men's clothing, consistent with 1970s fashions at the bottom of one of the shafts. At the time of recovery, 23 Iowa Pleistocene snail shells were found within the hood of the parka. Identification for an Alaska resident by the name of Kevin S.

was recovered along with the clothing. Records confirmed that Kevin had resided within the town, working at the local convenience store until his disappearance in 1973. Local residents reported being unsurprised by his disappearance. often expressing the belief that he had finally returned to Iowa, where he claimed to have been born. Foundation investigations have revealed no records of Kevin prior to his arrival in the Alaska Territory in 1948.