The SCP Experience - The Rock People | SCP-2822

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

SCP Foundation EUCLID class object, SCP-2822: The Rock People This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2822, 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

Welcome to aboard Via Rai, Embarked and Profite. Embarked and celebrate. Rigolet. Publié. Savoré. Admirate. And profite. Villaray, the voice that we love.

A few years back, a guy from West Virginia decided to run for president. He didn't have a snowball's chance in hell, of course. But he said something on the campaign trail that perfectly summed up what it's like to live here. In the double V, you get three choices to make a living, digging coal, slinging dope, or joining the military. He neglected to mention that there's usually some overlap between those three occupations. West Virginia is full of folk who have dabbled their hands in all three trades, in no particular order.

But my family has always stuck to mining. As long as there's been minerals and people to exploit, there has been an interest in the mines. I never met either of my grandfathers. The mines chewed them up and spat them out before I was born. My daddy worked in the dirt and the muck from sunup to sundown. He would come home covered in black, except for the unmarred streaks of white, where he wore his goggles and helmet. Daddy spoke of dark caverns and strange noises,

missing miners, and strange animals that words could not describe. None of that scared me as much as the toil the minds took on daddy's body. Crippled by the time he was 30, riddled with black lung before he was 40, and dead just shy of 50. Like me, my kids never got to meet their sweet, hardworking grandfather. I think about him every time I climb into my dozer, today being no different. I've got an old, grainy picture from the 80s of him on the left side of my console. A photo of my wife and two boys, with our third in her belly, sits on the right.

The image is only a couple months old. I swap a new one out every year, but it was captured by a relic of an old Polaroid. Digital might be better, but with all the shaking and quaking that comes from strip mining, papers a lot harder to break than an iPhone. Like my daddy and his before him, I work sunup to sundown. The memories of Daddy at the end, lying in a hospital bed looking two decades older than he was, kept me mining above the ground. I took courses and got licenses to never waste away in those cold, dark depths.

Strip mining is a hundred times safer than traditional mining. I want to live long enough to see my kids actually get out of the mines, even if it means leaving West Virginia. I want to be the first Hoyt and generations to meet his grandbabies. That's not to say that strip mining doesn't take its toll, both in the body and the soul. Today, I'm one of a half-dozen men driving earth-movers and drills in a makeshift convoy. The road leading up to the mountains was hastily built. The trees hacked have been hacked away with chainsaws and machines dozed over the rolling countryside

until nothing but flat dirt remains. Our path is nothing but gravel and broken earth. A car would never be able to make it. And even the foreman's fancy four-wheel truck is going slow, leading the slow formation of earth-movers up the slope. We're much slower, but our treads handle the rough bit of road with no problem. The sound of the diesel engines is all-consuming, devouring any other noise that might be present. But I don't think there's anything left to make a peep. Although the hills were once alive with songs of animals, they've either moved on or have been paved over along with the land.

land. As we clear the road, I look onward at the valley looming before us. If you ain't ever been to West Virginia, if you never venture beyond the highways and our little croppings of towns, you don't know how wonderful this state can be. The majestic Appalachians offer beauty on par with any other wonder in the world. The mountain before me is pristine and untouched by man until now. Its raised peak reaches into a pure blue sky, with big looming clouds. just begging for some artist to capture it onto paper. It breaks my heart to think of what the mountain will be reduced to. Even now, the clear mountain air is thick with clouds of our diesel. That's what people don't understand about coal mining. They think us miners ain't nothing more

than a bunch of rednecks, destroying our lands to spit in the face of progress. We know that the mountains are growing emptier, that we have to kill more of our precious land to get to the coal. Trust me, we know this better than any outsider. But what choice do we have? That's where the political voices on TV get it all wrong. It's not cleaner fuel that we're afraid of, or being replaced by cheaper machines as time and technology leave us behind. No, what scares us is a dinner table with no food.

If you had no other choice but to destroy something you love, to save something you love the most, what would you do? Once again, my eyes drift to the two pictures beside my console. Raising my hand to my lips, I kiss my fingers, the same way I do every time before the start of a shift. I place the kiss on Daddy, then reach over and tap my wife, my two boys, and my yet-to-be-born daughter. If this is the cost of feeding my family, then I'll gladly break my heart.

My ritual done, I slide my gloves on over my chapped and start. scarred hands. I kicked the dozer into gear, and it lurches forward. The other drivers break away, heading to the designated clearing that the foreman had gone over the night before. I lower the blade as I arrive at the base of the mountain. My rig shakes and jolts as I plunge into the centuries-old earth, untouched by man all this time, now suddenly gouged and cut through. As I always do when I'm the first to take a chunk out of a mountain, I close my hunt. It makes it a little easier. Not much, but a little.

An inhuman scream rips through the air, louder than any machine. It pierces through my earplugs. My eyes snap open as my dozer twists to one side, bending the blade. Something splashes across my window. It's a black liquid, heavy like tar. The screen continues, indecipherable and ancient. It makes me feel insignificant. and my body starts to shake as the dozer suddenly lurches to a stop.

I fiddle with the gears and put myself in reverse, but the machine refuses to respond. I stare at the sludge on my window and wonder what it is. It looks like oil. I'm no geologist, but I've been strip mining long enough to know that it's not. Oil is something you have to drill miles beneath the crust to get at. And in all my years ripping minerals from the ground, I've never seen anything like it. A smell drifts through the cabin, and I'm reminded of the heavy stench of blood from when Ma would clean a deer for supper. The scream stops, but not before it gets everyone's attention.

All of the other earthmovers have stopped. The drivers hopping down and heading in my direction. Even the foreman is stepping away from his fancy truck and following them. For once, not barking orders. Taking a cue from them, I unfastened myself from my seat. and hop down for my rig to join them. We gather around and stare at the mounds of gouged and broken earth. One rock has been split down the middle by my blade.

The gaping hole is leaking the same black gunk that stained my window. A murmur rises as everyone begins speculating, then one of the rocks moves, lifting up from the ground. I must be imagining it, but no. A collective gasp rises up from all of us. They see it too. It's like staring at one of those old magic eyes as an image places itself together. Some of the rocks look different than the others.

The minerals are older and darker, filled with more striations than the other rocks. They almost form a shape like clouds when you take the time to look up at the sky. The rock looks to be the size of a man with two mitten-like hands. A smaller, rounder rock serves as a makeshift head. Once I see that, it becomes easier to see the legs of the thing. They've been crushed by my blade, shattered, and leaking the same black substance. The hole in its center now looks like someone's rammed a sword through its stony guts. Another roar yanks my attention up and away from the strange and grisly sight.

Rocks are rolling down the mountain straight at us. I can feel my eyes bulge in my skull, and I yell at the top of my lungs. Rock slide! I'm already running, not stopping to see who's listening. A surge of bodies crushes around me as we all dash for safety. The earth shakes at my feet with a loud collision and lifts me into the air. I fly several feet and collapse onto the ground with a heavy thud and forget how to breathe for a few moments.

When my breath finally returns to me, I cough and suck in a mouthful of dirt. Standing, my eyes sting from the fog of dirt and dust that have swallowed us up. The stench of blood is thicker in the air than before. I try to wipe the grit from my eyes and cough some more, stumbling forward like a drunk. It takes a minute until I can see. But other shadows rise up, coughing from the ground. Thank God I'm not the only survivor. But as the dirt settles and the air clears, I see that we're not without casualties.

the freshly fallen rock debris are smeared chunks of blood and gore that used to be men. Men I've worked with for years. Men who have families like I do. People who I sat and drank beer and talked basketball during our scant off hours. I bend over and gag. My breakfast comes out in hot, vicious chunks until my stomach is as empty as my heart. I stumble and nearly fall, but managed to remain standing on quivering knees and wipe my men. What the hell happened?

We weren't working with explosives today. The earth movers shouldn't have been enough to cause a rock slide. And even if they had, it should have happened at the start. It was like the mountain had waited until we had huddled close together before it struck without mercy. The rocks start to twitch, and we immediately rush forward. There must be survivors beneath the rubble. One of the rocks launches itself away from the pile as we get close. It flies straight at the nearest miner, taking his head off at the shoulders.

There's a spray of blood as the rock and severed head crash down next to each other. The rocks are alive. It's as impossible as it is undeniable. They roll and tumble across the ground of their own free will. Some are the size of my fist, and others, bigger cars. One massive chunk of earth teeters on the edge as it rises, then falls, crushing two miners as they turn to flee. The foreman runs toward his truck, but a wave of smaller rocks wash over him and takes his legs out from under him.

More join in, pelting him from all angles until his blood flows across the ground. The dozer! I realize that it's my only chance at escape. The only thing that can offer me protection, I rush up the side and get the door open when something grabs me by my ankle and squeezes. There's a pop, and I scream as bone and muscle shatter. I cling desperately to the side of the dozer, trying to reach for the ignition. My hand grips around something, but then I'm pulled into the air and land hard on my stomach. Something lets go of my now useless left leg and grabs me by the right.

It drags me across the dirt, gravel cutting into my flesh as it does. Raising my head, I look towards the piece of paper in my hand. It's the picture of my family. Tears fall down my face as I squeeze it tight and crumple it into my fist. I have to survive. I have to live through this somehow. My body flips, and I land hard on my back. Pushing through the pain in my leg, I managed to sit myself up. My mouth drops. It's another thing like the one I hit. It stands on two legs of marble and stands twice as high as a man. I try to scurry away, but the smaller rocks encircle me like sharks. They keep me trapped between the damaged dozer and the smashed remains of the other miners.

The creature walks towards the one that I killed. It reaches into the hole in its abdomen, though the action is grotesque to watch. It's gentle and patient as it rifles through the corpse. It pulls something out and turns toward me. It's a smaller creature. This one no longer than my arm. Its body has been reduced to rubble.

It moves its tiny head once before lying still. It rears back its head and roars. How it makes the sound with no mouth, I don't know. But the earth itself shakes with its inhuman sorrow. It's like the mountain itself is enraged. Fear engulfs me. Then breaks as a realization dawns on me. I killed it.

It's mate and its child. I killed them both. I glanced down at the picture of my family. And sobs break through my lips. My heart is filled with pity and regret. But I don't waste my words apologize. As a father myself, I know what I would do to the man that intruded in my home and killed my wife and child, and I know there's nothing I can say or do to stop it.

It takes its time lumbering toward me. I keep my eyes on my family as its leg presses against my head. As my vision is obscured, I keep my wife and children in my mind, even as my face collapses against the weight, cutting off my screen. SCP 2822 is the collective designation for two populations of rock-based anomalous entities, SCP 2822-A and SCP 2822-B. SCP 2822-A are humanoid entities comprised of tightly packed, crushed stone calcite gravel, standing approximately 30 centimeters in height.

The chemical makeup of SCP 2822-A is consistent with that of sedimentary rock sap taken from the initial discovery site. SCP 2822-A individuals lack digits and facial features and do not appear to be capable of verbal communication. SCP 2822-a are able to move autonomously using bipedal locomotion, but tend to remain stationary for long periods of time. SCP 2822 instances do not appear to need any form of sustenance. SCP 2822-B are mineral solids of various shapes and sizes which universally demonstrate independent

locomotion, usually through rolling. When in the presence of other SCP 2822-B instances, SCP 2822-B engage in social behaviors common to domesticated animal livestock, currently 36 specimens of SCP 2822-B have been identified and tagged. Lazzangue surgellied, powerance-moid for 15 minutes. We'd say that's the

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