The SCP Experience - The Monstrous Punishment | SCP-610

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

Dr. SCP brings you SCP Foundation KETER class object, SCP-610: The Monstrous Punishment. This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-610, and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #drscp #scp #scpfoundation #doctorscp #scpencounters #securecontainprotect #scpstories #scpexplained #whatisscp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Not through the black hood that's over my head. We're on a dirt road. That much is clear. Every time we hit a bump, and I smash into the person next to me. I can hear several low voices speaking in Russian, but I can't quite make out the words. I doubt I could, even if my Russian was halfway decent, not over the noise of the truck. I have no idea how many people are riding with me, but I'm fairly confident that they all have hoods over their heads and binds around their arms and legs, just like me.

I'm certain I'm being driven to my death. I have a vague hope that it will be a labor camp, but that may be a fate worse than death. No, it's better that it ends quickly. At least that would be a mercy. Drag us out of the truck, line us up, shove a Kalashnikov in our faces, and pull the trigger. Easy.

As the jarring ride continues, I find myself yearning for such a swift end, but I'm not hopeful. Even though I'm American, I've spent enough time in Eastern Europe to know how this is likely to go. A swift death would be too easy. We're about to be made an example of. My thoughts turned to my sister back in Tennessee. And my ex-wife, living somewhere in France last time I heard from her.

I won't be leaving any kids behind, thank goodness. Although I do have one hell of a life insurance policy that will pay out, My sister's kids will be going to college. That's for sure. I take solace in the fact. But without a body to show for it, the insurance company will drag their feet. And if there's one thing I'm sure of,

it's that the authorities will never find my body. Hell, the authorities are the ones doing this to me. I don't know exactly where we are, but my best guess is somewhere in Siberia. I could be way off on that one, But we definitely haven't left Russia. I know that much. Russians keep their dirty laundry within their own borders.

Loud murmurs begin as the truck slows to a stop. The engine shuts off, and I hear two doors open and shut from the front of the vehicle. Suddenly, the darkness inside my mask gets a little brighter. Our two escorts must have flipped up the canvas flap at the back of the personnel truck. Move it, move it. I hear a man saying in Russian. I feel a steely hand grab my arm and yank me. I try to keep my feet under me, but I can't see anything,

so I trip and fall face-first out of the back of the truck, turning instinctually so I don't break my nose on the ground. Instead, my shoulder and the side of my head take the impact. Two men laugh at me. One of them kicks me and tells me to get up. I do as I'm told. A hand grabs my black hood and yanks it off. I squint as sunlight pierces.

my retinas, or in a small clearing, large Siberian pine and fir trees stand like mute witnesses all around us. I see a copse of silver birch trees off in the distance. I see rocks and fallen branches and trees all around. What I don't see is the entrance to a labor camp, or a mass grave waiting nearby to consume our soon-to-be dead bodies and hold our secrets for eternity. My relief is short-lived. I look around and see that I'm with four other men and two women, seven of us total. They all seem to be coming to the same conclusion as I am,

glancing around with hood-matted hair, looking for clues as to our fate. I look at the two armed escorts. One of them has an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. The other holds an RMB-93 pump-action shotgun, a nasty looking weapon that's long been a favorite of the Russian police. The one with the AK is standing close to me. His shaved head and stretched skin make him look like a walking skeleton.

He smiles at me, revealing a jacko-lantern smile of brown, rotting teeth. American? He says, poking me in the chest with the barrel of his Kalashnikov. I say nothing. Nonetheless, the walking skeleton looks at his pump-action conference. and laughs. He says something about me being his first American. The rest of the captives seem to study me with vague disgust, as they don't want to die with an American. Skeleton man, still laughing, hits me in the stomach with the gunstock. I double over, gasping for air. While I'm doubled over,

I hear the other escort, the one with the shotgun, talking to the captives, explaining something. I make out the words, food, water, safety, and killed, but I can't make out much more than that. I look up as the two armed men walk back toward the front of the truck. They get in, slam the doors, and start it up. By the time the pain in my stomach fades enough for me to stand up straight, the truck is gone, leaving only a ghostly reminder of its presence in the dust floating above the road. The others are already working on their bonds, hopping toward trees with sharp branches, or rocks that look as if they have an edge.

I do the same. It takes me several minutes to break through the rope around my wrists, using the nub of a branch on a fir tree. I find a promising rock and sit down to work on the rope around my ankles. A shadow falls over me, and I pause my work, looking up at the man standing nearby. He's an older man with a gray beard and the kind of sad brown eyes that always make me think of an old dog I had

that died when I was a kid. I nodded him, warily. He smiles down at me and holds up a sharp rock that puts mine to shame. He holds it out, offering it to me. I toss my own rock away and take his, nodding my thanks. So, you're American, yes? He asks in English, soaked in a thick Russian accent. Yes, I am.

But my parents were born in Russia. Ah, the man says, shaking his head sorrowfully. You wanted to see the motherland? That's why you're here? Something like that, I say, cutting through the last thread, holding the rope around my ankles. I am Lev, the man says, reaching down to help me up off the ground. Max, I say, stretching out my legs as I stand up. I keep the sharp rock in my left hand.

I may need it. Nice to meet you, Lev. Max? Short for Maxim? I nod. Ah, so your parents are Russian, he exclaimed. slapping me on the back. I smile half-heartedly. Not sure how this man can seem so happy at this moment. Maybe he's just glad he didn't get a bullet to the head. Do you know where we are, Lev?

I ask as the rest of the captives free themselves from their ropes. Lev shakes his head. Could you understand what the soldier said? He asks me. No, that was my next question. He said that if we try to follow the road, we will be killed. They have guards on the road back that way several kilometers. He also said that if we head that way, Lev points east, then we will find food, water, and safety. And do you believe him? I ask. Absolutely not. But we don't have much of a choice. I say we head in any direction, but down the road. I agree, I say. Pick a direction and let's go. We're just lucky at summer. We'd be dead by tomorrow if it's was winner. You would be dead. The rest of us are Russian. We love the cold. Lev turns for me,

calling out to the others. He explains to them in Russian what our plan is. The two women and two of the men agree readily. But the third man starts arguing with Lev, pointing in the direction the soldier said we should go. They argue for several minutes before the other man storms off into the woods. He wants to go the way the soldier said, Leve tells me. He is a fool. I shrug, looking into the sky. It looks like early afternoon to me. We have some daylight left.

The rest of us start off heading west while the lone man heads east. We don't get very far before we hear a terrible scream coming from the east. We freeze. Levin and I look at each other. Then we look back the way we came as the sound of crashing footsteps reverberates off the trees. It takes me a moment to realize that there's more than one pair of footsteps making the noise. I've been holding the rock left gave me,

and I switch it from my left hand to my right. The man screams again and starts gibbering in Russian as the footsteps get closer. I peer into the woods, still unable to see him. Then he's there, shooting out from behind a dense grouping of silver birds' trees, and there's someone following him, or something. My heart leaps as the deformed human figure comes into view, chasing the man.

It's wearing tattered clothing, and every visible inch of skin is wavy and distorted, as if there's thick scar tissue all over. It has a small and knobby third arm growing out from under its left arm, and its face is the stuff of nightmares, mouth wide and drooling, teeth seeming to grow in every direction, black eyes set deep in folds of deformed flesh. We all watch as the creature leaps onto the running, jibbering Russian man,

tackling him to the ground. The two of them struggle, but it's clear that the creature has the upper hand. I think of running over to help the man, but something about the creature sets all kinds of alarms off in my head. Some deep and ancient survival instinct tells me to stay away from that thing. Something crashes in the forest behind us, and one of the women in our group screams. I twist around to see a half dozen or more deformed humanoids

running at us through the woods. I don't think. I just run. I angle out, away from the man and the creature still struggling on the ground. I run as far and as long as I run. I can. I run until my lungs feel like they're going to explode, and a pain in my side makes any more running impossible. I stop and find that I'm all alone in the forest. I hear nothing but birds and the scrabbling of small forest animals. I still have the sharp rock in my hand, and I heft it, taking comfort in its weight. My stomach growls, reminding me that I haven't

eaten in at least 12 hours. I was on my way back to my hotel from a restaurant when I was the man snatched me off the street and knocked me out. And now, here I am, running through the forest from unspeakable monsters. This is what I get for investigating the disappearance of Russian journalists over the last decade. I thought they wouldn't touch me since I was American. I was wrong. The one article I wrote must have been enough to get their attention. I should have taken precautions. How could I have been so stupid? My lungs finally feel like they aren't on fire anymore, and the pain in my side is fading away. Now that I'm not breathing heavily, I can hear the sound of running water ahead of me, a stream. I suddenly realize how thirsty I am and start off

toward the sound. I walk up a hill and come to its crest, which looks out over the stream below, and I freeze. On the other side of the stream is what looks like a clearing, but I quickly realize it's not a natural one. The trees and the ground in a rough 50-yard radius are covered with some skin-colored substance, like a thick fungus. But it's not a fungus, and it's not just skin-colored. It is skin. In the center of the area, leaning up against a tree, coating the tree is a deformed figure that resembles a melted action figure if that action figure was big enough to spread its plastic over a 50-yard radius. The figure against the tree, which is really no more than a blob with eyes and a mouth, looks up at me. As it sees me, little tentacles on its amorphous body

undulate excitedly. All across the area of this creature's melted, deformed skin, tentacles stand up and move. I dry heave, have nothing to throw up. I force. my stomach to stop convulsing as I turn around, thinking I need to get as far away from here as possible. Leve is standing behind me. I recognize his clothes and the gray beard on his face, but the rest of him is no longer recognizable. His head has turned into a bulbous mash of scar tissue, and he has little tentacles growing out of his arms. Arms that are reaching out for me. I try to move back, but Lev grabs me. His kind eyes lost in folds of drooping flesh. And as he touches me. I know that there's no getting out of this one. I can almost feel the disease transferred to me

from his flesh. I can feel the maddening pain of deformity, as if tentacles are already trying to sprout from my skin. I look around at the woods and see a small army of these deformed creatures. I'm willing to bet that all those disappeared journalists are here somewhere, hidden inside these animalistic creatures doomed to live like this as punishment for standing up to the powers that be. As I turn my back to what was once Lev, I see folds of flesh on his neck splitting open, tearing apart as blood trickles down. A small hand emerges from the bloody hole in his neck and reaches toward me, beckoning me to join. SCP 610 appears to be a contagious skin disease with symptoms including rash, itching,

and increased skin sensitivity. The disease causes blemishes resembling heavy scar tissue to form in the chest and arm areas, spreading to the legs and back, and then consuming the victim completely. Exposure to high temperatures vastly decreases the time for the contagion to spread, and complete infections have been recorded occurring in as little as five minutes. After the completion of the infection occurs, the victim's life functions will cease for approximately three minutes, after which time they will restart at two to three times the activity rate of a normal human.

Following this, the scar tissue on the victims will start to move of its own accord and grow at a rapid rate. Subjects observed in this stage of infection have been recorded as growing three or more limbs of a type, such as arms or legs. The head may become misshapen, elongated, or widen out, and parts of the subject may split open from which additional branches of flesh will grow. Under unknown conditions, an infected individual will cease moving and place itself in a location it deem suitable where it roots itself. The fleshy growth on the victim will then begin to spread itself across all surrounding objects and consume them. It is assumed that this behavior is to create an area hospitable to continued growth of the other infected.