The SCP Experience - The Chains Are Weakening | SCP-5999

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Want to listen ad-free? Try it FREE for 7 days here: patreon.com/TheSCPExperience SCP Foundation CONTAINED class object, SCP-5999: The Chains Are Weakening This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5999 and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Author: Matt Doggett Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewDoggettAuthor/ Website/Newsletter sign up: matthewdoggettauthor.com New Book Releases: https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-G-Doggett/e/B08FD5378Z 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

There was something about October that I loved. I'd never been a big fan of Halloween as a holiday, but everything about the month struck me as melancholy in the best way possible. I didn't believe that ghosts, goblins, demons, or other worldly monsters came across the thin veil to play tricks on the living. As far as I was concerned, that was all little more than fiction. I believed in the smell of wood smoke and decomposing leaves. The crisp chill in the air and the way the wind sounded as it traveled around my modest home.

This was why I took a nightly walk for the entire month of October, before the weather turned too cold to walk comfortably. It was on one of these nightly walks, on October 30th, that my life changed forever. There was a stretch of woodland between my neighborhood and the one adjoining it. I'd seen for sale signs on that stretch of woodland on and off over the years, but there seemed to be no takers. The city hadn't bothered to install the streetlight along the stretch either, which made it one long stretch of darkness.

But it was a safe neighborhood, and I'd never had any problems before. So when I heard the sound of a vehicle coming down the street behind me, I didn't think anything of it. I was on the sidewalk after all. The vehicle passed, and I could see it was some kind of dark SUV. Those were common enough around these parts, almost as common as trucks. It disappeared around the dark bend, the noise beginning to fade. But then I heard the screech of tires as the vehicle turned around, probably at the intersection just around the bend.

Still thinking little of it, I continued on, complacent and without so much as a pocket knife on me. The SUV didn't come rushing on me, nor did it stop quickly. Its headlights prompted me to raise a hand as it came to a slow stop at the curve, as if its occupants wanted to ask for directions. The front passenger window rolled down as I stepped forward, moving beyond the bright headlights and dropping my hand. I opened my mouth to ask, How can I help you?

But I didn't get the words out. There was an insistent pop, like a BB gun. going off, and I felt something hit my chest. Looking down, I saw a dart there, and I quickly pulled it out. Turning to run, I found that my feet were heavy, legs going rubbery. I heard a couple of doors opened behind me. Then there were hands on me, pulling me back, shoving me into the SUV while I fought ineffectually with my newly weak arms and legs. The door shut. The engine Reved, consciousness faded, pushed myself off of a dirt floor with shaking arms and a throbbing head. A dim light bulb threw light along the narrow brick hallway, allowing me to see a set

of rickety-looking wooden stairs up ahead. The chains are weakening, a voice in my head said. I shook it off as nonsense, something left over from a dream I couldn't remember. As I got to my knees, I heard a groan from behind me. If I'd been able to jump, I would have. But I was so groggy that the only indication of surprise I managed came in the form of a slight widening of my eyes as I looked behind me. A woman dressed in jeans and a now dirty gray sweater was pushing herself up off the floor. A dozen feet behind her stood a large metal door with no handle on this side.

The woman's pretty face was marred by dirt, stuck to her right cheek and temple, which she went to brush off just before she noticed me. Her eyes widened, and she got uneasily to her feet, moving back to the door. Strands of her shoulder-length wavy brown hair fell over her face. She pressed her back up against the door and tucked those strands behind her ears as she stared. I was still sitting on my knees, half turned toward her. I made no move. Who are you? she asked.

Edgar, I said, feeling the small bump in my chest where the dart had struck me. What are you doing here? I have no idea. It went like that for a little while before she realized I wasn't the one who'd done this to her. She told me her name was Emma, and that she'd been abducted, much as I had, on a walk around her neighborhood. Neither of us had a phone or any other personal possessions on us, other than our clothes. We tried half-heartedly to open the big metal door, but it was plain to see that it wouldn't open from this side. So after several minutes of that, I pointed to the stairs.

I guess that's where we need to go. I know, Emma said. But I really don't want to. I didn't want to either, but I was curious. Maybe it was the residual effects of whatever drug they'd used on me, but I felt oddly calm. Little did I know then, the terror I would soon experience. Lazzangue sur-gely, Pucance-Moyerned for 15 minutes.

We'd say that's the hour of dojo. Preet a pleasure with Leo Jo. The casino in line that proposes the more recent machines-a-sou and the games of casino in direct. Profite of 50 tours gratu on Big Bas Bonanza. Without exigance of misgents and with the payments instantane. Hey! I've got! Woo-hoo!

Scenture the pleasure! Play-O-JO-Joh! 18-8 and plus, 1-Depo SOULOSULEM, 50 tours gratis on the machine-a-soubeck-bas-on-a-dunas. Depos minimum of $10. Veigh, I'm doing to fashion responsible. The conditions apply. The door at the top of the stairs opened into a wine cellar.

Dozens of racks lined the walls and crowded the brick cellar. I didn't know anything about wine, but the bottles looked old and expensive. Emma and I grabbed one to use as a weapon should anything happen. Then we made our way to another staircase. This one newer and more steadily built than the one we'd traversed from the strange tunnel. We stepped into a large kitchen with dated but modern appliances. Everything from the fridge to the microwave looked like it had been brand new in the late 90s or early 2000s. The house itself was clearly much older, but it had been well kept.

Still, there was no hiding the Tudor-style architecture that had been prevalent from the middle of the 19th century to World War II. Both Emma and I spotted an arched window at the side of the kitchen at the same time. We rushed over to it, pulling the dusty curtains aside, only to see that there was some kind of heavy-duty wood on the other side. Shoving me roughly aside in her panicked haste, Emma grasped the window latch with her free hand. I stepped away, knowing that we wouldn't get the board off the window without some serious tools.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. In the brief moment of awareness before I turned my head, I was certain that the person coming toward me was a woman. that she was nude and that she was badly injured with several bleeding gashes on her arms, legs, and torso. Even that momentary half glimpse sent the hairs on my neck standing on end and my skin tightening and prickling. I turned my head, fully prepared to scream out in terror, but as I put my eyes directly on the woman, she disappeared.

The chains are weakening, I thought with a mounting sense of hysteria. Then I caught myself, wondering where the hell that thought had come from. and what it meant. Before I had more than a moment to dwell on these back-to-back strange occurrences, a tortured scream erupted from elsewhere in the house. It was a man's scream. I turned toward Emma, who was sitting against the wall under the barricaded window, sobbing and clutching her bottle of wine.

Knowing she would be no help, I took off, thinking that there were other people in here with us. Although I hadn't been in a fight with anyone since high school, I thought that if there was a little, ever a time to fight for my life, this was it. So I ran toward the screaming, determined to help my fellow captive by assaulting his assailant. Maybe the assailant would have some keys to the place. As I moved through the house, I came to realize that it wasn't an ordinary house. Although the wine cellar and tunnel should have clued me into this fact much earlier, it was a mansion.

I ran up the stairs as the man continued to scream. In the second floor hallway, I found the source of the noise in an open bedroom. I entered with a bottle of wine clutched by the neck and held over one shoulder, but there was no assailant. Only a middle-aged man in jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, writhing on the bed while he screamed. Wake up! I said, stepping close.

He continued his tortured convulsions. I reached out and shook him by the shoulder. Wake up, man. Still no response. Thinking maybe he had a phone or some other indication of who he was, or where we were, I turned to the nightstand next to the bed and reached for the drawer. I pulled the drawer open and scrambled back as two gouged eyeballs rolled toward the front with the movement. Still carrying my wine bottle as a weapon, I ran out into the hall,

once again seeing the nude and injured woman out of the corner of my eye. Only this time she was close. Whipping my head toward her had the desired effect, once again making her disappear. I ran down to the end of the hall and parted the curtains there, revealing yet another board outside the window. We were trapped. A woman's moan sounded as if spoken from directly behind me. I spun around, briefly seeing the dead woman once again before she disappeared. With my mind revolting against my new reality, I ran into an unoccupied bedroom and slammed the door, locking the door behind me before throwing myself and the wine bottle down in the bed.

I jammed a dusty pillow over my head and tried to ignore the screams coming from down the hall. And the pained moans coming from the woman, who I was sure stood next to my bed, staring down at me. Hands grasped my arms and legs, pulling me onto my back. I stared up with the six shrouded figures standing over my bed, unable to see their faces. Struggling against them, I tried to break free as the panic mounted. Some far away part of me realized I could no longer hear screaming from elsewhere in the house. But my own voice soon tore through the mansion as I screamed for help. There was one shadowy figure in charge of each one of my limbs, leaving two free.

These two cloaked figures stood next to the bed. One of them reached a hand into its robe, a robe that seemed to be made of darkness, and pulled out a knife with a curved blade and an ornate silver and gold handle. Help! I screamed. Somebody help me! The figure raised the knife over me as the other one leaned forward and pulled my shirt and Windbreaker up to reveal my chest and stomach.

The chains are weakening. All six figures chanted in unison. The figure with a knife sent the blade down into my left arm at the joint. The pain was like nothing I'd ever felt before. I screamed so loud I was sure I popped a couple of blood vessels in my eyes. I stared at the arm as the figure. I was sure it was a man. If it was human, pulled the knife out.

Blood welled out of the nasty gash, but my attention was quickly drawn. drawn away as the man positioned the knife over my left leg. Remembering the wine bottle, I looked around for it, seeing it near my right leg. The figure holding my left hand to the bed had let up slightly, probably because the limb was half useless now. I jerked the limb from the figure's grasp and whipped it at the figure holding my right arm down. I hit him in the head with my hand, prompting him to jerk away slightly.

It was what I'd been hoping would happen. I jerked my right arm away and grabbed the wine bottle, even as the figure with a knife I had the blade into my left leg, screaming, I slammed the bottle into the knife lever's unseen face. The bottle broke, and thick red liquid spilled to the floor. Suddenly, I was alone in the room. All six figures were gone, but I was still bleeding and in terrible pain. Holding the broken wine bottleneck, I got out of bed and limped out of the room, gasping

in pain as I went. I was pretty sure it wasn't wine that had been in the bottle. It looked an awful lot like blood to me. I moved down the hall and glanced into the room where I'd seen the man earlier. He was there on the bed, but he was no longer alive. His arms and legs had been broken and folded under his back. His torso had been torn open, and his guts removed, left in a mess on the bed. The chains are weakening, an inner voice said.

Screw the chains, I said, feeling sick with pain. I went back downstairs and found Emma. She, too, was dead, her mutilated body lying on the dining room table. Her arms had been cut off at the elbows and her legs at the knees. The limbs were in a bloody pile at the foot of the table. As I limped up to the table, I became aware of a hissing sound coming from a nearby vent.

I looked over toward the sound and saw faint lines of cloudy vapor coming out of the vent. Within two breaths, I felt a tightness in my chest. My nose started to run. I limped toward the kitchen, trying to get back down to the cellar, but I found I could no longer breathe. I dropped the broken wine bottleneck and stumbled against a nearby wall, sliding down to sit on the floor as I tried to pull in a breath.

My mouth fell open and I started to drool. Then I started twitching as my vision closed in. A voice inside screaming, pleading, not wanting to die like this. But another voice in. inside kept saying the same thing. The chains are weakening. I've been trapped in this mansion ever since. Men in hazmat suits came and took my body away sometime after I died, along with the bodies of the six other people who'd been in the house with me. I had only known about Emma and the man, and so I must assume that the other four had already been killed before I went upstairs.

It was only after I died and became a part of this place that I realized what chains were weakening. I saw what the chains hold, and it terrified me so much that I was proud in a way to have given my life to keep that unholy beast bound. And once a year, on Halloween, I must do my part to make sure the beast doesn't escape. I must make sure the chains do not break. I'm not sure why, maybe because I hit the figure with the wine bottle filled with blood. But now I'm the one who wields the knife. I take no pleasure in these ritual sacrifices, but I do not.

I do them. I do them because I know what's at stake. I do them because I now believe in goblins and demons and otherworldly monsters. But most of all, I believe in ghosts. After all, the Department of Analytics has been tasked with the annual procurement of seven civilians to witness procedure sevenfold. They are to be promptly delivered to the Albright Manor on October 30th. Their biological profiles are to be submitted to the medical department no less than three weeks beforehand for analysis. Each witness must be sedated such that they awaken at approximately midnight on October 31st. Procedure sevenfold typically runs its course before sunrise. All entrances to the Albright Manor have been sealed, barred, and boarded up. The sole exception

is the underground shaft used to deposit each witness. It is concealed within the house's cellar. The chains remain taught. On November 1st, a cleanup crew shall be dismayed. to remove the remains of every sacrifice, if indeed it is possible. If difficulties are experienced during the retrieval, all bodies are to be considered the possession of the Albright manner. They will be integrated into future events. Successfully retrieved corpses are to be incinerated in the crematorium behind the property.