The SCP Experience - To Hell and Back | SCP-5572

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Want to listen ad-free? Try it FREE for 7 days here: patreon.com/TheSCPExperience SCP Foundation ESOTERIC class object, SCP-5572 This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5572 and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Author: Matt D. * * * 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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responsible. The conditions beat and hiss as the strength drains from me. My eyelids feel like they're lined with sandpaper. My legs feel like they have sharks biting them. And the feeble, irregular beating of my heart feels like a couple of rats fighting in my rib cage. Dr. Thompson stands next to my hospital bed, sniffling and muttering as he dabbs his eyes with a tissue.

Why? For the love of God, why? He asks. You know why? I managed to croak. You know goddamn well why. If there's a chance, I have to take it. This is crazy, Thompson says, tiny teeth gleaming as he grimaces. Crazy!

I feel myself slipping away. But a jolt of rage surfs on one last wave of adrenaline as my body fights against the inevitable. I jerk upright and grab Thompson by the lapels of his white lab. coat. Don't you let them put it on my gravestone, I say, growling the words into his wet, cheeked face. Don't you let them do it? Thompson shakes his head, fat cheeks flapping with violent motion. I won't, I won't. You have my word. It's the least I can do. I let him go, and collapsed back onto the bed. My body's last Hail Mary fading as the two fighting rats in my chest suddenly bite into each other's necks and then fall down dead. I sigh one last time as death takes me. Consciousness,

or something like it, comes back to me. It takes several moments of bleary, fearful delirium before I realize that I'm falling. I look down, only to see a roughly circular tunnel of poorly lit rock surrounding me, the craggy walls constantly shifting as I fall. Directly under my feet, there's nothing but blackness. As the rock walls of the tunnel pass me with all the quickness of an express train, I glimpse little veins of lava, providing what limited light there is. Something catches my eye, and I hold up my right hand, realizing with little surprise that there's no flesh on my hand. No skin, no muscle, no tendons or veins or anything. My hand is pure bone. How the bones are held together is something I can't explain.

I don't care to at the moment. I look over at my other hand and see it's the same. Then I look down. I'm wearing a suit. It's one I recognize for my closet. My burial suit. I can't see the rest of my body, thanks to the suit. But now that I'm becoming more aware of my new self,

I can feel that I'm nothing but a skeleton. The strange thing is, the fact that I can feel. And that means that I can experience. that I can experience pain. What a crock of shit. Then again, I know where I'm headed. What would hell be without the ability to feel pain? I keep falling for what seems like a long time.

So long, I grow bored. Obviously, they didn't bury me with my phone, so I have little to do to pass the time. Thinking to experiment, I bring my sharp right finger up to my right eye socket. I ease the finger into the socket and feel around, experiencing only minor discomfort. But when I shove the finger deeper inside, I grunt in pain and pull the bony appendage back out. Half my vision goes blurry, and it takes some blinking to get it back to normal.

Even though I don't have any eyeballs, and I sure as hell don't have eyelids. This is some weird shit. Finally, the tunnel opens up. And I find myself falling into a massive red-tinted cavern. It must be nearly 1500 feet from rocky floor to craggy ceiling. As I fall toward the floor, I gaze around, seeing that the cave extends in all directions as far as I can see. This must be it.

Hell. Angry volcano spew lava here and there. Rivers of molten rock twist through the barren landscape. Random pits of fire seem to provide much, seem to provide most of the lighting. Torrents of steam erupt from holes in the floor. I'm getting closer to the ground now, and I can see all kinds of activity. It's easy to see there's a war going on. Skeletons and demons duke it out with every weapon humans ever made. I expected something like this, but seeing it for myself sends a chill

up my spine. It's just my luck that I'm about to land in the middle of a skeleton on demon battle. Of course, I have no weapon on me. The ground rushes up to meet me as I try and fail to change direction. A hulking, red-skinned demon with black eyes, curving horns, goat legs, and a giant wooden club is directly below me. Just before I smash into his back, I hope the impact will at least knock him down for a few seconds. That would at least give me a chance. No such luck. I bounce off him like I'm a twig that fell from a tree. The demon takes out three attacking skeletons with one swipe of his club,

before turning to look at me as I lay in a pile of loose cloth and bones on the floor. Fresh meat, the demon growls. Not so fast, someone yells from behind me. I turn my skinless head and peer at a massive tank that comes lurching over a hill made of human bones and lava rock. A huge skeleton in a tattered World War II-era U.S. Army uniform, rides atop the gun turret that shifts to aim at the demon. Before the beast looming over me can react, the tank fires.

The booming concussion sweeps over me, clattering my bones together like I'm a wind chime in a violent storm. At the same moment, the top half of the demon explodes, showering me with fetid, sulfurous meat. Hop on! The huge skeleton shouts, somehow still managing to hold a cigar between his clobbering. clamped teeth as he does.

The turret spins with steady, mechanical precision, as the gunner inside finds a new target. I climb to my feet and jump onto the tank without it stopping. A wave of skeleton infantry runs behind the tank. Most of them wear some kind of clothing, but there's little uniformity. I see troops in all different eras of battle uniform, from fur pelts and British Empire Red to Union Army Blue and Modern Battle Dement. and modern battle dress. Other skeletons wear suits

or even street clothes. They grin with determination, carrying various weapons from close quarters bludgeon's and swords, and up to marvels of modern murder like AR-15s and grenade launchers. At first, I don't know what the objective is, but then I see demons lurching out of trenches up ahead,

running away from the rushing onslaught. We've got them on the run! The guy on the turret shouts. Let's take those trenches, troops. I notice he's wearing general stripes as I settled down next to him, taking in the scenery, trying to come to grips with the fact that I'm actually in hell. And there's actually a war going on down here.

I've worked for the SCP Foundation for a long time, but this is by far the weirdest thing I've ever seen. I realize quickly that I need to get a grip on the rules before I go charging off on my mission. What happens if we die? I ask the general. He turns his head and stares with dark sockets at me, as if he forgot I was here.

Oh, new blood. Welcome to hell. He shouts, then laughs, somehow propelling cigar smoke out of his non-existent lungs. Don't you know? You're already dead. I know that. I say. What happens if we get hit down here? Do we respawn or something?

Respawn? The general says, What the hell does that mean? I'm guessing you're one of us poor bastards who didn't have rest in peace put on your gravestone. Otherwise, you would be in one of the lower circles with the rest of the people who actually deserve to rot in hell. I already know all this stuff,

but the general seems like a bloviator. So I let him go as the tank rolls to a stop up against the trench that is now full of skeleton troops. We both hop off the tank and into the trench. Behind us, the tank rolls over the trench and heads off, presumably to pursue the fleeing demons. As we walk through the trench, feet squelching on black fowl smelling demon blood, I ask him again, so what if we get hit and die down here? Huh? Oh, well, that's easy. In that case, we're stuck down here whether we deserve it or not.

You get hit, you're automatically transferred to the second circle. And from there, As eternity unravels before you like some endless desert road, you'll make your way down through all the circles. Great, I say, I step on something hard, and a scream erupts from under my foot. I peer down to see a man's face in the dirt, complete with skin and eyes and teeth, and all those things the living normally associate with a face. The man, who seems to be stuck in the ground,

screams at me in some language I don't understand. The general looks down. See? That's what happens. He's stuck in the second circle. It only gets worse from there. Oh, I say lamely. But! The general says, shoving a thick, bony finger into my chest. If we win this war, we'll earn the right to rest in peace.

If we take over this circle of hell, we can end our suffering and escape this hellhole. How would I go about finding someone down here? I ask, interrupting this circle of hell-whole. interrupting the general's laughter at his use of hellhole. Somehow, even though his bone features don't move, the general's face becomes serious. What? Who? Her name is Shanna Camden.

The general pulls his cigar out and taps the ash off, which lands on the man's face in the ground. Follow me, he says after a moment, turning to walk down the trench. There's a flurry of activity around us as more troops and supplies flood the area. I wonder how many times this trench has changed hands, because I see both demon parts and skeleton parts scattered around. We reach an underground bunker where a command post has been hastily constructed. Several skeletons in military garb have crudely drawn maps on a wooden table.

They straighten up as the general enters. Before they can salute or say, sir, the general says, None of that shit. Give me a sensitive. Where's our sensitive? The gentleman dressed in a pantsuit steps forward. Right here, she says. Ah, good. I want you to find someone called Shanna Camden, the general says. See what you can do.

If she's one of us, I can find her. The woman says, stepping over into a corner and turning her back to us. A sensitive? I ask. Psychic, the general whispers. But I hate that word. Too touchy-feely for me. The general steps toward the table with the table.

the maps, but I stop him by asking, why are you helping me? The general pauses, looking at me as if in surprise. You killed yourself to get down here, didn't you? How'd you know that? I know what fresh blood looks like. People who drop down here and realized there is a hell for the first time, but you already knew. I could see it on your face, or lack of. So it wasn't hard to put the rest together once you told me you were looking for a woman. You love her, right? Yeah, I say. I do. Even if she doesn't love me back.

The general waves a dismissive hand at that. No matter. True love is true love, whether it's reciprocated or not. And who the hell am I to stand in the way of it? He pauses. Just do me a favor and kill any demons you run into along the way, would you? Yes, sir, I say. No problem.

You sure this is the only way? I've been down here since eight years. The cowboy skeleton says as we stand next to the tunnel. What year is it now up there? 2024, I say. The cowboy skeleton, who told me his name was Bryant, whistles appreciatively even though he has no lips. Holy shit.

I've been dead a long time. But the point I'm trying to make is that I know hell like the back of my damn horse's head. He gestures at his skeleton horse, standing nearby behind a spire of black rock jutting from the ground. He gives the hand-drawn map back to me and says, This is the quickest way. Otherwise, you can go through the mountains, but that's where the bulk of the fighting is taking place.

Better to go under the mountains. It's safer, right? I ask. Bryant's bones creak as he laughs. This is hell, boy. Nothing's safe. If you make it to the other side, I'll be as surprised as the day I found a rattler in my boot by sticking my foot in there without looking. And I was plenty surprised that day.

My last day on Earth. Now get going. I got important stuff to do for the cause. I fold the map back up and put it in my inside jacket pocket. It has been several hours since I left the general back in the trenches. He sent me off with a sawed-off pump shotgun, which I haven't fired yet, the map and some tips about how to be. not to die in hell. He also called in a favor to get Bryant to take me to this very spot. But from

here, I'm on my own. Bryant saunteres on bowed legs back to his horse while I stare into the tunnel that slants down into the black earth and apparently runs underneath the obsidian mountains that loom before me. I watch as Bryant gets on his horse and rides back the way we came. He waves once. I wave back, then I'm alone. After gathering myself for a moment, I stepped down into the tunnel. Almost immediately, I hear something scratching through the loose gravel in the darkness ahead. For the first time since coming down to hell, I feel a tinge of regret. Is it really worth all this? I ask myself.

Then I remember the last time I saw Shanna. I replayed the experience in my head, as whatever is down in the tunnel continues to scratch. around. I think about the look on her face as we parted ways for the last time, and about how her death came as a surprise to everyone at the foundation. She was found dead in her bed from an apparent aneurysm. I only found out after her funeral that she had volunteered to have something called an ethereal camera surgically implanted, another one of those strange SCP experiments that was kept under the radar. She and several other researchers, had agreed to have the cameras implanted nearly five years ago, just in case they died.

The idea was to record and transmit back something akin to video from the afterlife. Apparently, these cameras were little more than tiny, anomalous implants that only started working when someone died. The mechanics of how her camera worked are beyond me, but I saw the footage that it broadcast back. I saw a glimpse of hell before the camera stopped working. It was enough for me. I knew I had to come down here and find her.

I take a deep breath into my non-existent lungs and then start down into the tunnel. It's pitch dark, and my feet crunch on lava rocks, and what I presume are bones because of the clattering noise they make. The scrabbling sound has stopped, which doesn't bode well for me. Hoping my non-existent eyes will adjust, I keep going, holding the shotgun in both hands.

hands, ready to fire. Three pairs of closely spaced red eyes appear off to my right. I whipped the shotgun that way but I don't fire. Then the growling starts. My eyes are adjusting, allowing me to pick out the shape of a huge, three-headed dog, a hellhound. They bear their teeth at me, huge fangs that look serrated and strong enough to snap through bone. Steaming saliva drips, sizzling on the rocks and bones below. The Hellhound pounces. I fire and drop to my knees. The shotgun blows the middle head off, causing the other two heads to yelp in pain as they fly over me and crash into the wall. Throwing myself forward and twisting, I get ready to fire again as they charge me. I pump the action and fire again, this time blowing one of its legs off. Still, it comes at me, limping, wounds, spewing

black blood. I work with a pump and fire again, blasting another head away. Finally, the beast retreats, limping back toward the tunnel entrance to lick its wounds somewhere. I get back to my feet and look deeper into the tunnel, trying to remember how long Bryant said it was. Did he say 50 miles? I wonder aloud. God, I hope not. I trudged forward, pulling shells out of my suit pocket and shoving them into the shotgun to replace the three-eye fire. fired. It's going to be a long goddamn day. Fifty miles later, I crawl out of the tunnel, seeing in the distance a half-destroyed city that looks like it belongs in medieval Europe. The sounds of artillery and sporadic gunfire come from the city. There's an army jeep with

a couple of skeletons sitting in it, facing away from me. They haven't seen me yet. My shotgun is gone, lost after I was swallowed by a huge worm demon. I used. I used, used the shotgun to blast out of the huge beast's vile stomach, but in my mad scramble through wretched viscera, I lost the weapon. Once out of that mess, I lost my left hand when a human centipede attacked me. This wasn't one like from the movie, though. It was still made of humans, linked in the most disgusting way possible. But their limbs had been chopped off,

and large centipede legs had been sewn on. The thing's mouth was larger, as if the man at the head of the centipede had undergone some type of hideous surgery to widen his mouth. Two fang-like limbs jutted from either side of his jaw, and he used them to snag my left hand. Only when he clamped down on my wrist was I able to get away by sacrificing my hand. The pain was immense, just as excruciating as losing a hand back on earth, I would guess. After that, I was home free. If you don't count the hand spiders, the intestine snakes, and the area of the tunnel where I had to crawl through while things brushed up against me.

Now that I'm out of the tunnel, and I can see the city where Shanna supposedly is, I feel a sense of uplifting joy that gives me a jolt of much-needed energy. Hey! I shout. The two skeletons in the Army Jeep spin around and look at me. Help! I need your help! The driver jumps out and jogs over. He's wearing a moment.

modern battle uniform and it feels like he should have a mustache you back that's right i say getting to my feet up in he says general told us about you we've pretty much got things wrapped up with the demons just waiting on a formal surrender so we'll take you to your girl really i say a mixture of fright and excitement burbling as i climb into the back of the jeep so you won what happens next no one really knows, the driver says, starting the engine. This has never happened before. The demons have never lost. Some people say we'll get to go back to earth to live our lives over again.

Others say we'll go to heaven. Some people say that we'll finally get to rest in peace. Even though our gravestones or urns don't say those specific words. Wow, I say. We're driving toward the city now, and I notice that the sounds of artillery and gunfire have grown more sporadic. I look down and see some weapons on the floor next to me. There's a Thompson machine gun,

an old-school bayonet, a hatchet, and a weapon I've never actually seen anywhere but in museums. It's a flail, a heavy, spiked metal ball attached by chain to a wooden handle. The two guys chat up front, talking about what they would do if they were sent back to live again. Pretty soon, we're in the city, darting through the rubble-strewn streets.

Everywhere I look, there are demons. Most of them are dead, but some of them are held captive on their knees, surrounded by skeletons with automatic weapons. The deeper into the city we go, the more skeleton troops we see. There are tens of thousands of them. We pull to a stop in front of a massive Gothic church.

The doors are open, skeletons rushing around. This must be the headquarters. Of course, Shanna would be here. She was always in the middle of the action. This is it? I asked. Yeah, she's in there, the driver says. Better make it quick, because I don't know how long we have. I look down at the flail on the floor. I reach for it and wrap my skeletal fingers around the handle.

But then something familiar catches my eye at the church entrance. I look over and see a skeleton in the tatters of a bright pink dress. It's a dress I recognize because Shanna was wearing it in the casket the last time I saw her. She was always one to go against the grain. She didn't want her funeral to be a drab affair, so she led by example,

by having her will state that she should be buried in her favorite party dress. Even though she's just a skeleton, and I don't have any internal organs, I can feel my heart yearn for her. It doesn't take much to picture her as she was. knockout gorgeous with silky block locks, delicate olive skin,

and a figure fit for a magazine cover. She's walking toward the Jeep, deep in conversation with a man and dress blues with a bunch of medals on his chest. She doesn't even notice me sitting in the Jeep, even though she's now just 10 feet away. This is what you came here for, I tell myself. It's now or never.

Shanna? I say. She stops right next to the Jeep, staring at me. There's no recognition on her face, not for a long moment. Then it's there, and it's every bit as satisfying as I imagined. Beck? She says, rage poisoning my name. My right hand, my only hand, is still on the flail. I whip it up and send the spiked ball flying towards Shanna's skeleton face. The heavy weapon crashes into her in a dusty explosion of bone. It's so satisfying, so fucking good.

It's what I've been wanting to do ever since she rejected me that day after work. I remember the last time I saw Shanna. I replayed the experience in my head as she falls to the ground beside the Jeep. I think about the look on her face as we parted ways for the last time she was alive. She was lying on her bed, and I was stepping away with the syringe in my hand, having just injected her with an untraceable compound I'd stolen from the foundation. I thought then that killing her would be enough. But as she faded away, the look of pure contempt on her face was enough to haunt my dreams.

I wanted nothing more than to smash that face to a million pieces, but I knew I couldn't if I wanted to stay out of prison. No, it had to look like death by natural causes. Her death came as a surprise to everyone at the foundation, everyone but me. I knew the truth, and I held it close like an old friend. Then I learned that she was in hell, and I knew I was in hell. I had to come down and finish the job. The guys are shouting at me as I jump out of the jeep

and bring the flail down on her skull again, shattering what's left of it. I loved you! I screamed at her. I fucking loved you, you bitch! Then I'm floating somehow. I'm floating. And so are all the other skeletons.

But not Shanna, because she's dead. I killed her just in time. I'm sucked up into the ceiling, experiencing the reverse of my trip down. to hell. I'm pulled through a tunnel. At first, there are a bunch of us skeletons together, but then we all get siphoned off into different tunnels as we barrel upward toward earth. Everything goes dark for a moment, dark and silent. I feel nothing. Then I feel everything. I'm

lying down somewhere dark, pitch black. I suck in a breath and try to sit up, But I whack my head on something padded, but hard underneath. Lying back down, I inhale sharply as pain from my left wrist becomes apparent. Bringing my hands up over my stomach, I feel with the fingers of my right hand. My left arm ends at the wrist, which is bleeding profusely from a nasty wound. No! I scream, trying to sit up again. But there's no room.

I try to roll to my right, but I hit a wall. I roll to my left, same thing. I feel with my feet, my dread growing with each dead end. I'm trapped, and the air is thin. So thin, I'm starting to panic. Then it hits me. I know exactly where I am. I was sent back to earth.

But I doubt anyone will ever know because I'm in my coffin. I'm in my grave. And I know that six feet above me, my gravestone is missing three crucial words. Rest in peace. SCP 5572 is an afterlife phenomenon manifesting when currently unspecified characteristics are met. It is only certain that one of the triggers for an SCP 5572 activation event to occur is the lack of the phrase, rest in peace, written within the proximity of an individual's burial site.

The corpse of an individual buried within such a site is transported to a previously unknown reality, hereby referred to as SCP 5572 Prime, also known as Hell. The Foundation has only been able to gather limited information on 5572 Prime and can therefore not expound on its anomalous characteristics. Further experimentation is ongoing.