The SCP Experience - Sloth's Pit | SCP-4040

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

When a covert team locates a legendary, shifting sinkhole deep in the Wisconsin woods, they discover too late that it feeds on fear, memory, and imagination — and falling into it means plunging into a nightmare with no bottom. This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-4040 and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Author: Matt Doggett * * * 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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but I'm tired of walking. How long do we have to keep going? Can't we stop and take a little break? I'm hungry. I'd like some water too. Do you ever

shut the hell up? Gunter asked the man in the orange jumpsuit, who followed along behind us as we worked our way through the woods. I mean, maybe if you shut up for five minutes, you wouldn't be tired. Maybe if you guys weren't such assholes, I wouldn't be bitching so much. I glanced over at Peyton, who rolled her eyes. The four of us were on a seldom used dirt road in the middle of the Wisconsin woods. The relatively wide trail allowed enough room to walk two by two. But of course, the D-class we'd been assigned for the mission kept following.

behind until the proximity collar around his neck gave him a little shock to make him keep up. I glanced over my shoulder at Gunter, a tall, meaty guy with a thin beard. He met my gaze and mouthed, I'm going to kill him, shook my head and pointed at my chest. Not if I do first. I was joking, of course, but I thought Gunter might have been serious. And if I was being honest, I probably wouldn't have put up much resistance if Gunter decided to kill Colvin. I was tired of his incessant bitching. He was a small, weasly guy with a shaved head, a missing left pinky finger, and a nasty scar on the right side of his scalp above his ear. All three of us, me, Baton, and Gunter, had all made it clear to our commanding officer that we didn't want to babysit a D-Class

on this mission. But that's the thing about the chain of command. You really don't have much of a say. You do what you're told. We kept walking as the afternoon crept toward evening. The summer was in full swing, meaning I was sweating like a bastard in all my gear and with my backpack on. Flies and mosquitoes kept pace with us, feasting and buzzing, only adding to the annoyance that Colvin had generated the first five minutes on the trail. The redded road eventually petered out, and we were forced to walk single file again. Colvin kept asking about what we were doing, so eventually, mostly to keep Gunter from killing him, I gave him a bit of the backstory. We're looking for a giant hole in the ground called Sloth's Pit.

According to local folklore, it was formed in 1890 under the house of a man named Jackson Slav, for whom the pit is named after. The legend says that it swallowed his entire house with him, his wife, and his son inside. None of them were ever seen again. Wait, Colvin said. Why was his house out in the middle of the woods? It wasn't. It was on the edge of town.

But, the story goes, the pit disappeared shortly after it formed, then it apparently reappeared out here in the woods somewhere. Several people over the years have reported finding it, but none of them could ever locate it again. Why are you telling him this stuff? Gunter asked. It's urban legend stuff, I said. Everyone who lives around here knows this stuff.

None of them really take it seriously, though. Besides, he keeps them quiet. I can hear you guys, Colvin complained. Shut up. This came from Peyton, who was on point. She stopped walking and raised a hand, prompting all of us to stop behind her. What's happening? Are we taking a break? Gunter spun around and slapped a hand over Colvin's mouth.

Shut up. I peered ahead, looking over Peyton's shoulder, but all I could see was more woods. The agent half turned and urged me forward with a bemused look on her face. I pulled my sidearm out of its holster and moved the few steps to Peyton. As I moved, a strange thing happened. It was as though I had stepped through some kind of invisible barrier between where I'd been standing and where Peyton stood. Because as soon as I got up next to her,

I could see the huge pit in the ground some 50 yards ahead. Peyton grabbed my left arm. We found it. Sloth's pit was roughly circular and 100 feet across. It didn't appear to be. man-made, and the sides were of rough dirt and rock as far down as we could see. It sat in the middle of a clearing surrounded by thick woods, and as soon as we stepped foot into that clearing, it was impossible to see the trail we'd just come in on, as if the woods

had shifted in to close the gap. Any noises also ceased as soon as we got close. All the birds and insects and squirrels that had been active in the forest either stayed away from the hole or their sound was somehow suppressed by it. I figured it was the former because there was a notable lack of flies and mosquitoes buzzing around. The pit was clearly anomalous, which was why we'd add such a hard time finding it. We weren't the first.

The foundation had been looking for sloth's pit ever since rumors of its existence reached curious ears nearly ten years ago. But, as we'd been briefed, tales concerning the pit had been told in the nearby communities for much longer. years ago, a couple of foundation agents had stumbled upon it and had tried to radio their location in, but they couldn't ever reach anyone. Eventually, one of the agents decided to hike out to lead a containment team back to the pit, but he found it impossible to locate the anomaly a second time. Eventually, after about a week, the second agent stumbled back into civilization. Having expended

his supplies, he'd had no choice but to leave the pit. But he tried to mark it. He'd tried to mark his way by cutting symbols into trees on his way out. After he recovered, he tried to lead another containment team to the place, but again, they had no luck. That's why we came equipped with all kinds of gadgets to try and mark the location of the pit. And that's just what we got to doing once we secured the perimeter and made sure there was no immediate danger around the huge hole on the ground. I sat on the north side of the hole and tried to radio command. Not surprisingly, there was no answer. Peyton turned on three different beacons

that each used a different kind of technology. We were hoping one of them would work and lead the containment team out here. Meanwhile, Gunter was busy configuring a device that he would drop down into the pit to see how deep it was. He hunched over his computer while Colvin sat nearby,

eating beef jerky and drinking water, mercifully quiet, thanks to his full mouth. I moved a few feet, and tried the radio again. Nothing. I moved again, but this time I angled toward the edge of the pit. It was almost impossible to resist the urge

to look down into its inky depths. As I got closer, stepping through Shinhai plants, I saw a single wooden step just a couple of feet from the edge. Just one boxy wooden step, looking as if it had been severed from the front of some shed

and placed here for some unknown purpose. I recalled this from the briefing, The two agents who initially found the hole said that when they stood on the step and looked into the pit, they saw their worst nightmares. I knew that eventually I'd have to stand on that step as part of the experiment. But the thought of seeing my worst fears manifest caused my hands to go clammy and my mouth to go dry. As I backed away from the step, I finally put coherent thoughts to the odd way I'd been feeling ever since we came to Sloth's Pit. It was a surreal feeling, like I was in a particularly vivid dream. I kept trying the radio from different spots as I made my way around the pit.

About halfway around, I saw Gunter step to the edge and toss one of his devices in. By the time I made it back to my starting point where we'd set up a little camp, I asked Gunter if the device had worked. He shook his head. It must have been broken, because according to this, it's still falling. Still? How long has it been since you dropped it in? 23 minutes and 19 seconds. Wow. I mean, it technically could be possible. It wouldn't even have reached the center of the earth yet. Gunter shrugged.

True. I'm about to set up one that uses a laser to measure. I could use your help. Any luck with the radio? Nope, no contact, just static. I paused, glancing over at Colvin. He was sitting on a long. He was sitting on a log about 20 yards away, staring over at Peyton like a starving dog, looking at a juicy steak. Gunter followed my gaze and shook his head. This guy, we're going to have to tie him up at night. I'm afraid he'll try something. I nodded. Good idea. He gives me the creeps. Hey! Gunter called, startling Colvin. Why don't you give us a hand? With what? Just get your ass up and help us. Begrudgingly, Colvin got to his feet and slogged over to us as Gunter readied his device.

The tool was a laser measuring system connected to four ropes. Gunter affixed the two ropes to the ground with stakes, while Colvin and I walked around the pit with the other two. As we rounded the opposite side, we dragged the device out over the middle of the pit. It wasn't too heavy, so I had no problem carrying the two ropes myself. I didn't particularly want Colvin with me, but it was better than him ogling Peyton all the time. Once we were directly across from Gunter, I pulled the two ropes as tight as possible and adjusted them, so the device was pointing straight down into the hole. I was vaguely aware of Colvin wandering off around the side of the pit as I worked to stake the ropes down.

Gunter was busy remotely adjusting the gyroscope in the device to get the laser pointing straight down, and I didn't notice where Colvin was until I was finished. I looked over just as he stepped under the wooden stair near the edge of Sloth's Pit. By the time I shouted at him, he was already staring down with dinner plate eyes and a gaping mouth, caught up in whatever vision he was having. I ran toward him, but he started screaming before I was even close.

I threw myself at him, trying to tackle him off the step, but it was as if he'd become a statue. I bounced off him and collapsed to my knees. knees, touching the step with one hand. Before I could pull my hand away, movement started from inside the pit. I couldn't keep myself from looking at the hole, which was suddenly brimming with writhing cotton-mouthed snakes. Although Colvin was still screaming, the terror that possessed me drowned out his screams as I started to hyperventilate. In the middle of the pit, a teenage boy wearing a swimsuit emerged, as if floating on the snakes. Dozens

of the vipers bit him, but he was already dead. His skin was sallow and swollen, with pus and blood leaking from the bites. I knew the boy. He'd been my best friend as a teenager. His name was Quinton, and I had watched him die when I was 14. We'd been heading down to a swimming hole when Quentin stumbled into a ball of water moccasins. He panicked and started thrashing around on the shore near the swimming hole. He received so many bites, he was dead by the time I came back with help. The memory has haunted me. ever since. Now, here it was again, only this time it was worse. There were thousands more snakes, and Quentin looked as if he'd been dead and rotting for years. Yet he opened his eyes

and looked right at me. As my lungs spasmed, I took in less breath with each inhale. I felt myself growing faint, yet unable to look away. Quentin started crawling across the pit of writhing snakes toward me. Each serpent he passed struck out at him. They ripped at his flesh. They ripped at his flesh, so by the time he made it near the edge of the pit, his rotting skin was hanging off his bones in dozens of places. He came to the side of the pit and crawled onto the ground. Then I felt someone jerked me away from the stair, and the whole scene disappeared. The panic lessened quickly, but Colvin was still screaming. I looked over to see that Gunter was wrestling with the man a few feet away, on the other side of the wooden step.

Peyton was next to me, so I guessed she was the one who'd pulled me back to reality. Seeing that I was okay, Payton got busy preparing a sedative in a syringe as she walked over to the two men. She stuck the needle into Colvin's neck and depressed the plunger. After a few long moments, the man's thrashing eased up. After a few more moments, he fell unconscious. Christ! I said, huffing, looking toward the pit again. Gunter shook his head while Peyton glared at me.

Technically, this whole thing was my fault. I'll have to write this up, you know, she said. Yeah, yeah, Gunter replied. What the hell are we going to do with him? Sun's going down. Keep him sedated all night. Tie him up. Whoever's on watch can look into his tent every so often.

Fine with me, I said. Yeah, Gunter put in. We all paused, getting our breath back. You okay? Peyton asked me. I looked from the sunset. back to the pit. No, I said.

Not really. Hours passed, and we still hadn't come any closer to understanding anything about the pit. The laser device didn't give us any solid readings. Instead, it fritzed out every time Gunter tried to use it. We sent a couple of drones into the pit, but we soon lost contact with them and presumed they had fallen down to the bottom of the pit, if there was a bottom. We also tried to send a drone back out to the nearest foundation outpost, but the thing just quit working as soon as it was about 100 feet from the pit.

We kept Colvin sedated during our shifts. I had taken the first shift from 8 to 12. I'd been off shift for a couple of hours when I heard the commotion. Thanks to the strange surreal sensation I'd been feeling, I was sure it was a dream at first. I sat up in my tent, feeling like I wasn't fully in my body. the pit full of snakes again sent a jolt of terror through me. But the fact that it had been nothing but a manifestation in my head gave me some little comfort. Shortly after the incident, I had asked Gunter and Peyton if they'd seen anything strange during that time. They both said

no. The pit had remained empty. If that was all it could do, make me see the things that weren't there, I could deal with that, even if those things had been haunting me for nearly 20 years. Sitting in my dark tent, I listened, hearing a grunt of effort from nearby. Then Colvin started screaming, and I knew something bad was happening. I tossed my sleeping bag off, grabbed my sidearm, and unzipped my tent. But before I could move out, I saw what was happening. And it caused an immense stone of fear to form inside me, keeping me from moving for several crucial moments.

From where I was, peering through my open tent flap, I could see the entire pit, and it was no longer. and it was no longer just a hole. It was filled to the brim with distorted naked humans, mostly their arms and heads and torsos. They were injured, some of them half rotten. Their eyes were sunken, their mouths open and silent screams. These bodies, hundreds of them, writhed and scrambled,

as if trying to escape the pit. In fact, some of them had. Off on the left side of the hole, I saw several of these humans dragging Colvin and Gunter toward the edge by their legs. It was as if these beings had been melted together, because there was no discerning individual people in the mass that had stretched out to grab the two men. Gunter, scrabbling at the ground, cried for help, his voice tight with panic.

Finally seeing what I had to do, I managed to lift the stone of fear enough to get up and run heavily toward my co-worker. As I passed Peyton's tent, I saw her staring out at the scene in shock. Before I could get to Colvin and Gunter, the pit bee was. Things succeeded, dragging both men into the pit. As soon as they cleared the edge, the mass of melted together bodies dropped down and quickly disappeared into the dark depths. I came to a halt at the edge and peered down, seeing no sign of anything or anyone.

Peyton came up next to me, and we both stood there, looking down. As my mind reeled, I focused too much on the darkness. I started to see snakes down there, looping and slithering and rubbing around the each other. But when I blinked, they were gone. My mind was playing tricks on me, or the pit was. Finally, Hayden grabbed my arm and dragged me away. We have to get help. How? I asked, forcing myself to look away from the hole. Our radios and cell phones don't work. And if we go for help, there's no guarantee we'll be able to find it again. Well, what the hell are we supposed to do? I don't know. Let me think a minute. I shut my eyes.

trying to gather my thoughts despite the fog of fear that fought against me. Peyton went silent, but I could still sense her beside me. Next, two things happened at once. I felt something wrap around my right ankle. I heard Peyton gasp in surprise. My eyes shot open, and I looked down to see a thick, dark snake wrapped around my ankle. My eyes shifted to Peyton, and I saw that she was looking over her shoulder toward the pit. She, too, had a snake wrapped around one leg.

I shifted my gaze again and looked back toward the pit, but I couldn't see the hole in the ground anymore, because there was a writhing wall of snakes between us and it. They loomed, slithering, and hissing. And I saw that the snakes grabbing our ankles led back into this looming mass. The snake around my ankle tightened and then yanked my leg out from under me. Peyton hit the ground a moment later beside me. We scrabbled at the ground as the snakes pulled us toward the pit. I scratched, divvets in the dirt, pulled up rudely.

and handfuls of grass and even managed to slow myself momentarily by grabbing onto a rock. But the rock soon came out of the ground, and I was pulled over the edge. And then I was falling, and Peyton was falling next to me, although it was soon too dark to see. I could hear her, I could hear her screaming, and we fell. 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.

Get the ground hard, and for a moment I was sure that I'd broken every bone in my body. But the pain was short-lived, and I found myself lying on the ground in the dark at the bottom of the pit, feeling amazingly unharmed. I reached out and found Peyton's arm, squeezing her and asking. Are you okay? Yeah, I don't know how, but I am. We had to have been falling for almost an hour. It was true. We had been falling for a long time.

After the first minute or so, we'd both stopped screaming. We occasionally yelled out over the sound of rushing air to make sure the other was there. At some point, the snakes had disappeared. I guessed they had served their purpose by pulling us into the hole. I got to my knees and felt around on the ground for some clue as to where we were. A moment later, the sound was. of a match striking erupted from nearby, along with the sudden light of a small flame. By the light of the match, I could see an old man's haggard face.

Whatever you do, don't think, he said in a raspy voice. He then eased the match into an old-fashioned kerosene lantern. Once he lit the wick and lowered the glass shade, the light grew stronger, allowing us to see more of the pit. I gasped, seeing both Colvin and Gunter nearby. They were half buried face up in the ground, with strange, pulsating roots reaching up through the dirt and terminating in their bodies. The roots were faintly luminescent, with little glowing specks of green and blue, traveling along semi-translucent veins from the two bodies and down into the dirt. Their eyes were open, staring up as if looking for the night sky. But their skin was devoid of all life, and their chests did not move. Just keep your minds clear, the old man said, walking over to the two men.

He wore an ancient brown suit that was stained with dirt and infested with holes. What does that mean? I asked. It means, if you think about more bad stuff happening, you just might make it come true. But the pit is busy with these two, so we have a little time. I tried to save them, but the pit is getting too strong. and your presence here has weakened me significantly. Peyton and I shared a look through the gloom. The dirted my feet moved,

and a moment later, a root emerged, prodding around as it came toward my foot. I grunted and took a quick step back, my mind filling with fear as I imagined becoming like Gunter and Colvin. The old man shot a gnarled hand out to point at me. Clear your head! Think of nothing! Just focus on your breathing,

or the sound of your blood in your ears. I forced my eyes shut. and tried to clear my head. But memories of Quentin's death immediately sprang to life. I opened my eyes to see hundreds of snakes slithering out of newly formed holes in the ground. Panic tightened my chest as I felt the snakes, and the root prodig at my foot.

I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath, realizing with a bolt of clarity that if I didn't get my fears under control, Quentin's death wouldn't be the only tragedy to come from that incident. My life was on the line now, and so was Paton's. With the breath in, I imagined all the snakes, both here and back then, dispersing. As I breathed out, I eased my mental fist, knowing that to flex my imagination was to make things worse. I had never been into meditation, but now I tried my best to focus only on my breathing and nothing else.

No worries, no doubts, no fears, no hope, no love, nothing but nothing. The sensation of the snakes at my feet slowly faded, but I wasn't sure if it was because I was focusing on my breath to the exclusion of all else, or because they actually were fading away, disappearing as I removed the pit's power. I don't know how much time passed before the old man finally said something, maybe five minutes, maybe 30. While he spoke, I kept my eyes closed and just barely registered what he was saying in a distant sort of way. You all need to stay away from here. I've been fighting against this bit. Since I opened it up, I don't even know how many years ago. I tried to make it so no one can find it twice.

And everything was going fine until some of your colleagues showed up. I'll tell you this. If you don't want to cause a catastrophe, do not send anyone else to find this place. The bid feeds off of attention and imagination and fear. If it gets powerful enough, It will open up in the middle of a town or a city. And what do you think will happen then? If it gets that much power, it might just swallow the world.

I finally opened my eyes. You're Jackson Sloth. That's right. And this is my own personal hell. It's my own weight to bear. But I can't keep carrying that weight if your people keep trying to study the bit. The only way to protect the world from this thing is to forget about it. That's the only option.

How do you know it's our people? Peyton asked. I hear what goes on around the bit. I listen, but I can't communicate unless you're down here with me. Kind of a catch-22. The bit wants to pull people down here. But when they're down here, if I can keep them alive, I can tell them what they need to know. Your wife and child, I said, recalling the story I told Colvin earlier.

What happened to them? Jackson shook his head and grimaced. The first victims of the pit. I looked over at Gunter and Colvin. I'm sorry. You said you opened the pit? Peyton asked. How did you do that?

Jackson World on Peyton. You think I'm going to tell you that? Why? So you can make a pit of your own? Even if I knew exactly how I'd done it. Which I don't. Not really. I wouldn't tell you.

This thing needs to die with me. If I can never die. Now, will you do what I ask? Will you stop sending people? Yes, but only if we can get back and talk to our superiors. How do we get out of here? I've got one more trick up my sleeve. It'll take some doing, but I think I can manage it

and hold the pit off for a little while longer, as long as your people don't come looking for it again. We have resources, Peyton said. We can keep people out of these woods. Will that help? You have no idea how much that will help. Maybe I can even end this thing. Maybe the pit and I can finally stop this struggle.

That would be heavenly. You have our word, Peyton said. Now, how do we get out of here? Jackson smiled. Get ready, he shut his eyes. The ground beneath our feet rumbled and then ripped open. Peyton and I plunged into the earth, falling again. Falling and falling and falling.

Nearly half an hour passed when we saw light far below us. The light grew and grew as we fell. And pretty soon, I saw that we were headed toward a bright blue sky, but we were falling toward the sky, which made no sense. We flew up through a hole in the ground and landed beside it on rich-smelling ground. Somehow, the fall hadn't broken any bones. It hadn't really even hurt that much. It took a moment for me to get my bearings after the confusion of flying up through the hole. When I finally managed to get it together, I stood up and helped Peyton to her feet.

We peered around at the unfamiliar surroundings. We were in the middle of a rainforest with large, lush plants and an extremely humid environment. And sure what else to do, we trudged through the rainforest, eventually coming upon a trail. The trail led us to a town where we learned we were in China. We'd gone all the way through the earth and ended up on the other side of the world. With the help of the locals, we contacted the foundation and gave them our location. They wired us some money and told us to get lodging somewhere while they arranged transport. I wasn't looking forward to traveling back to America.

It would be a long trip, but I focused on the bright side. At least we wouldn't be falling. SCP 4040 is a sinkhole of indeterminate depth, located within Sloth's Forest of Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin. It has been measured to be 100 feet wide and possesses a single wooden step in front of it. SCP 4040's precise location is not known, and any record of its whereabouts should be immediately and permanently erased. Dron exploration of SCP 4040 has proven infeasible, as radio signals fail to travel more than 90 feet into the sinkhole, and fully automated drones have failed to return.

Estimating the depth of SCP 4040 with laser rangefinders, as well as with less sophisticated methods, has also proved inconclusive. By the order of the O5 Council, no further attempts are to be made to locate Sloth's pit. A fence around Sloth's forest is currently being erected to ensure that no one else stumbles upon the location in the future.