SCP-823: Carnival of Horrors
SCP-823:
Carnival of Horrors
A THEME PARK was spread out before me. Not just any old theme park—this one appeared to be abandoned. I wasn’t sure why, but fun, lively music resounded through the air even though no one was there. That alone gave it a nightmarish feel. I actually thought I was dreaming and pinched my cheeks, only to have them sting.
I looked around me. Theme parks weren’t exactly places I went to a great deal. I could only vaguely remember when my parents took me as a child to a certain famous theme park that built a branch in Japan. Nevertheless, I saw them enough on TV to tell that this was one.
As a large-scale theme park, it appeared to have all of the usual attractions (was that the right word?) I might expect to find. There was a rollercoaster in the center for the thrill chasers. Then there was a Ferris wheel, a haunted house, a merry-go-round, and a teacups ride… Painted in primary colors to delight children, these attractions looked strangely faded and worn.
All of the attractions and stalls that entered my sight were rotting away, rust corroding the metal parts. The handful of benches I noticed were filled with holes or broken down the middle. Fruit flies buzzed around the fountain, which was filled with either lichen or sludge.
Overall, the place was in ruins. And as I first suspected, not a soul was to be found. Not even Iris or that yappy Dr. Bright were with me anymore. Taking that into consideration, I began to form an inkling of what happened.
I’d gone inside another pictured, hadn’t I? Right before my vision switched to this scenery, I’d touched that photograph Dr. Bright held out to me. What if that served as the trigger, making me go into the picture just as I had the previous night with the room covered in blood? The idea that I could enter photos was nothing more than a theory proposed by Dr. Bright, and I still didn’t get how that worked… But assuming that was what happened helped ease my nerves some. Scientific formulas and mathematical equations might not be able to prove this anomalous occurrence, but this wasn’t my first time experiencing it. I knew how to get back this time, too.
When Iris touched the image of me in the picture last night, I returned to her room—I was drawn back to her. I had no choice but to believe she would pull me back the same way again. Looking up at the sky, I tried shouting her name countless times.
But she didn’t help.
She didn’t even call back.
I started to get nervous. I swung my head wildly like a lost child, calling out for her as if I were searching for my mom. But no matter how long I waited, there was no sign of me returning to that lab.
What should I do? I was suddenly in a bind. I felt like the world before me was going black.
It didn’t seem like I was in any imminent danger, but I couldn’t simply stand there forever. In the worst-case scenario, it wouldn’t be too long before I started to starve.
Although the mysterious theme park looked like desolate ruins, it was nonetheless a creation of the modern, civilized world. It wasn’t as if I was dumped in a jungle or desert. For the time being, I needed to get out, find someone, borrow their phone, and call for help. If this was a developed country, the police or whatever form of law enforcement they had ought to be able to help me out. Fortunately, the translation collar was still fixed about my neck, so communication shouldn’t be a problem. I wasn’t sure if the device would work if this wasn’t an English-speaking country, but lucky for me, English was said to be the international language…
Anyway, I was going to find someone and borrow their phone. Then I was going to call someone dependable. Having decided on my course of action, one that admittedly relied far too heavily on the benevolence of others, I found the confidence I needed to take my first step.
“Freeze!” yelled a deep voice, as something hard pushed up against my back.
***
“Slowly raise your hands,” the terrifying voice ordered from behind me. Unfamiliar with such situations, I foolishly tried to turn around out of habit.
Raised in the gun-free society of Japan, it wasn’t drilled into me to immediately do as told when someone said, “Raise your hands.” Alas, my actions proved all too rash.
Sounding like a beast, the person behind me roared something incomprehensible to the translation collar. He flung me to the ground and was straddling me a second later. He pulled my arms behind me and tied them behind my back. A moment later, my entire body was struck with unbelievably sharp pangs of pain. I cried out in agony.
“Shut your trap!” he snapped sternly. Scared, I fell silent.
Someone was sitting astride my back, putting all his weight on me. If that weren’t bad enough, he was applying pressure with something lumpy, maybe his knees. Damn, that really hurt…! The places I scraped on my cheeks and lips when I was knocked over stung, making it hard to form any coherent sentences.
What was going on? What was this? I was so confused!
“Huh? Isn’t he Class D?” came the surprised voice of a flippant-sounding young man. Something hard (was it the muzzle of a gun?) was pushed firmly against my head, preventing me from looking up to see what the owner of the voice looked like.
“You’re right, that is their uniform. Huh?” the person on my back (a middle-aged man, seemingly) responded. From the sound of it, several people had surrounded me during the course of all this. Their voices flew back and forth over my head for a while. “That’s strange. I didn’t think any Class Ds were sent on this mission.”
“But that’s our uniform. Look, you can see the Foundation logo,” the flippant-sounding man said as he flipped up the collar of my khaki workwear. Apparently, the Foundation’s logo was printed on it somewhere around there.
Seeing that, the man plunked on my back exclaimed in surprise, “Well I’ll be… Wait, I’ll contact the Foundation. It’s possible this Class D is a survivor from another team we weren’t advised about. Likely we aren’t the first to investigate the Carnival of Horrors.”
The Carnival of Horrors…? Yeah, that didn’t inspire confidence.
“Damn! I can’t establish a connection. What the hell is going on? Can either of you get through on your radios?”
“No good here, Sir. Honestly, I don’t see why we don’t just ask him. Push comes to shove, we can shoot the Class D twerp if he does anything suspicious.”
“He might be Class D, but a human life is still a human life. I don’t think we should treat him like a consumable resource. For the record, I can’t get through either, Commander.”
That last voice belonged to a young woman. All of them seemed to be speaking in English, but thanks to my translation collar, I was able to make out what they were saying.
“All right… C’mon, on your feet.”
The weight of the person sitting astride my back let up. I guess the “Commander” climbed off of me. After having him weighing down on my lungs, I couldn’t help but cough as I slowly stood up. Although it was a bit late now, I held my hands up as I rose.
“Huh? Isn’t he just a kid…?” the owner of the flippant voice said, suspiciously furrowing his brow. Apparently, he had been standing right in front of me the whole time. His fuzzy hair was the color of carrots, and freckles speckled his baby-faced features. A Caucasian man, probably in his late twenties. His clothing was something a soldier might wear—he was clearly in the armed forces.
The man was wearing a camouflage jacket and matching pants. His helmet was in a similar print. There was a pouch and handgun strapped to his waist. Some model of machine gun was slung over his shoulder. I wasn’t sure why, but he had leather straps wrapped over his body fitted with countless shells of ammo.
“A lot of Asians look younger than they are,” came the crisp woman’s voice. When I turned to face her, I saw she was a woman in her early twenties wearing essentially the same attire as the man with the flippant voice. She had dark brown skin and dark eyes with a bluish tinge. Her black hair was tightly tied back. I have no idea what they represented, but I noticed heart tattoos on both of her hands peeking out of her jacket. She was keeping a lookout, hiding in the shadows of one of the flower gardens. Though there wasn’t a flower to be seen, there. The mounds of reddish-brown dirt indicated the flowers either withered away or were never planted to begin with, but the planters were scattered throughout the park.
“Nah, he really is just a boy. I can tell by the way he’s acting. I’d say he’s about the same age as my kid back home,” the person referred to as “Commander” said with a groan.
The commander was a brawny giant of a man who came across as overall harsh. His hair and eyes were the color of the desert. A deep crease ran across his brow along with a scar. Clad in military fatigues, with a helmet identical to the other two, he was outfitted pretty similarly at a glance. Yet all of his guns were broken in—they showed the nicks and wear of use. It gave the impression he was no stranger to the battlefield.
These three were the only ones near me, but all of them were overpowering in a way I had never experienced in my peaceful high school life. They gave off dangerous vibes. The air felt heavy.
“Who are you? Are you with the SCP Foundation?” the commander asked on behalf of the unit in a tone that broached no nonsense.
Pathetic as it was, I started trembling as I answered incoherently. I think I stuttered something as shaky as a child first learning to speak. I only managed something along the lines of stringing out my name, Iris’s name, and Dr. Bright’s name… But it had a dramatic effect.
The commander groaned with disgust. “Dr. Bright?”
As if those were the magic words, the tension in the air suddenly dissipated, replaced with apathy. It was as if they thought remaining wary of me was a stupid waste of energy.
“That man’s shenanigans can be a pain in the ass. I bet he deployed a Class D outfitted with observation equipment since he couldn’t participate in the survey. Unauthorized, I’ll wager,” the commander groaned.
“Now that you mention it, I got the feeling he was chomping at the bit to come,” mentioned the flippant man.
“A troublesome ally can be far worse than any foe,” the woman said.
All three spat their baleful comments before turning to me with sympathy in their eyes. And then they said things along the lines of, “You’ve had it rough, haven’t you?”
Huh? What was this all about…? What was so horrible about Dr. Bright? I didn’t know what was going on, but it filled me with foreboding. I got the feeling I should be a little more careful about dealing with that mad scientist, going forward…
***
A bit later…
As things worked out, it was ultimately decided that I would move out with these three. They claimed they were soldiers in service of the Foundation Task Force Rho-71, AKA, the “Origami Toads.”
The SCP Foundation employed countless such task forces (just like in the military), which were dispatched to deal with emergencies. It commanded vast military forces equipped with cutting-edge weaponry, enough that it could easily neutralize an entire area the size of a small town.
Come to think of it, wasn’t the SCP Foundation a massive secret organization that covered the entire world…? It sounded so absurd—like something out of a manga—that it made me want to laugh, but the three before me were obviously trained soldiers. The guns they were equipped with were probably the real deal.
Nonetheless, the commander claimed sardonically that their guns wouldn’t do them a bit of good against a truly dangerous SCP object. Even so, any of them could probably break my neck in a matter of seconds, so I had no choice but to quietly do as they said.
They seemed to think I was a Class D dispatched on a whim by Dr. Bright. They let me off pretty much unscathed since we were on the same side, and allowed me to accompany them. Their attitude toward me softened and they actually treated me fairly well. They were surprisingly nice people.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what the deal was with Class D personnel… Iris never did give me a proper explanation, so I didn’t know what their classification entailed. Although I was curious, this didn’t seem like the right time to ask. The three soldiers were quietly making their way through the theme park as they whispered or made various signals.
They let me move with them, but they had no intention of protecting me. Their brisk pace seemed to say, “We’ll leave you behind in a heartbeat if you can’t keep up.” I was a normal high schooler; naturally, I never went through boot camp. Just struggling to keep from getting left behind had me winded.
“…Commander, why don’t we take a quick breather?” The woman soldier saluted before offering that proposal, out of concern for me.
“I personally think we should pull out. This place gives me the heebie-jeebies. For an amusement park, it isn’t very amusing. The whole place is like one big haunted house.” Rather than the commander, it was the young soldier who responded, taking the lead with a harsh grimace on his face. They never told me their names, so their roles were the only way I could distinguish them.
“Hmmm.”
The commander came to a halt and called into his walkie-talkie several times.
“I still can’t get through. If at all possible, I would like to rendezvous with the rest of the unit. If we don’t find anyone after sweeping the area, I’ll consider pulling out,” the commander said.
From the sound of it, other members of their squad were sent here as well. I could only assume as much from the snippets of their conversation I happened to overhear. But for some reason or other, they got split up and were currently in the middle of wandering this abandoned theme park, trying to regroup. But why? Why were fully outfitted soldiers sent to such a forlorn, decrepit theme park?
“I take it you weren’t told anything,” the female soldier kindly indicated, assuming as much from my perplexed expression. She sounded polite, treated me with consideration, and was a woman besides. The combination somehow reminded me of Iris.
I wondered what Iris was doing at the moment. Why was she leaving me in the photo (I thought) instead of pulling me back out? Was there also trouble on the other side—the world outside of the photo?
I was merely growing apprehensive and a little lonely, but the woman soldier mistook the look on my face for fear. In an attempt to bolster my courage, she offered me a heartening smile. “It’ll be okay. We’re professionals, trained to handle any situation. I’m sure you’ll make it back safe and sound.”
“Even if he does, the only thing waiting for him back there is his own execution. The kid’s Class D,” the young soldier said ominously, laughing as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
Execution? What was he talking about…?
“Hey, cut the chitchat,” the commander snapped at the two like a schoolteacher. A moment later, he sighed. “Don’t forget we’re in the middle of a mission. But I have to admit, we won’t get anywhere walking around aimlessly. That open café will serve as base while we take a quick break,” he said, jutting his chin toward a place that certainly resembled one. Out of business for ages, the creepy store was reduced to a jumble of tables and chairs, the tattered and torn tablecloths fluttering like the hands of the deceased.
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up for a good cup of coffee…but at least we can use it as shelter while we try to get our radios up again. If at all possible, I want to make contact with the others. If it doesn’t seem feasible, we’ll resort to more primitive methods, like burning some of this crap to send smoke signals.”
The two younger soldiers saluted and barked, “Yes, sir!” in unison.
What a relief! I was glad to hear we were going to take a break. Utterly exhausted simply from following them, it was music to my ears. The soles of my feet started aching quite a while ago.
“You don’t seem to know anything, so I’m going to quickly fill you in.” The woman soldier slowed to match my pace. Her eyes were fixed on the other two, who rushed ahead to the open café. They began rummaging through the chairs—probably to find ones with the structural integrity to support a person’s weight, so they could sit and rest.
“This theme park is SCP-823, also known as the Carnival of Horrors. The entire park is a dangerous SCP object with the Object Class: Euclid.”
The entire park was an SCP object, an anomalous place that surpassed all logic…? It didn’t seem like one so far. It was creepy, but only because it was in ruins.
“That’s right. At a glance, it looks no different from an abandoned theme park you could find anywhere,” she agreed.
I didn’t think you could find something like this just anywhere, but I didn’t disagree out loud. She was only explaining out of the kindness of her heart, and I wanted to learn as much as I could. If I remained ignorant, my fear and anxiety would only increase.
***
The woman soldier spoke in an emotionless voice that reminded me of a TV announcer. “It was shut down and abandoned after several violent events resulting in the deaths of park attendees. To be precise, 231 attendees were killed, and another seven injured or maimed.”
I could barely believe my ears. That was a huge disaster… The number of lives lost here was in the triple digits. Why? How in the world did that happen?
“Every one of the deaths was bizarre. For instance, the unicorn on the merry-go-round broke from its support beam and plunged toward an attendee standing in front of it. The attendee died, impaled by the unicorn’s horn.”
It was hard to believe she seriously meant someone actually died in such an implausible way. What would get put down on the death certificate? “Died instantly due to impalement by unicorn?” What would he tell everyone when he got to the other side? But seriously, this was no joking matter.
“For reasons unknown, an attendee on the freefall ride ‘Scream Machine’ removed his safety harness and jumped off. The gondola car was set to rise and fall vertically—and it was no different, that day. It pounded him until he was as flat as a pancake,” she said, and continued with yet another story, one that would dissuade me from ever wanting to visit another theme park so long as I lived.
“If the nature of the accidents was limited to those examples, they could be attributed to design flaws in the attractions… However, there were other incidents. Stranger ones.”
Talking must have joggled her memory, for she quickly moved from one incident to the next. “For example, a couple on the teacups ride inexplicably melted while it was spinning at high speeds… When the ride came to a stop, the cup was full of their boiling blood.”
That was definitely crazy. There was no rational explanation for that.
I was starting to understand why the park had earned its Euclid classification.
“There was also an instance where a ride operator saw all of the passengers on the Ferris wheel turn into infants when it suddenly spun backwards one rotation. It proceeded to resume turning in the correct direction, but at an accelerated speed. This time, all of the passengers disembarked as seniors,” she said, adding that several of them consequentially passed away due to old age.
There was no hope of rationalizing something like that. I was smack in the middle of a theme park where such strange things happened one after the next. Overcome with horror, I began to tremble.
Afraid she went too far when she saw me shaking in my boots, the woman soldier covered her mouth with both hands and fell silent. She flashed me a quick look with her eyes that seemed to say, “I’m sorry.”
“These aren’t the most pleasant stories to hear, are they…? Anyway, the theme park shut down after there was a slew of such incidents. Since its closure, pretty much all of the tourists and urban explorers who occasionally wander in here have fallen prey to it and died. Not even the Foundation knows exactly how many victims it has claimed.”
Why would anyone wander into such an obviously dangerous theme park? I’d be way too scared to go anywhere near it.
“Well, some foolish kids like it for the thrill, since it’s a famous horror spot. It’s also located by a rather densely populated town. Some people try to slip through as a shortcut.”
The commander grunted. “That’s precisely why the SCP Foundation can’t wipe it off the face of the Earth with an air strike, even though it’s an obviously dangerous SCP object. It’d take a toll on the civilian population and surrounding town.” He was happy to join in the conversation now that he’d found some decent chairs. He offered one to the lady soldier and even one to me before he plunked down.
“The Foundation’s immediate containment protocol to keep people away is to purchase all of the land and buildings surrounding the Carnival of Horrors—this theme park—to physically seal it off from the outside world. That, and establish a media blackout. But I think that’s not near enough, personally,” he said.
“The Foundation’s motto is to Secure, Contain, and Protect,” said the woman. “Just because it’s dangerous doesn’t mean we can destroy any SCP object at the drop of a hat… But I feel like I’m preaching to the choir.”
Oh, wow! There was an idiom I recognized! I bet the translation collar converted the English idiom to a Japanese equivalent. Horribly off-topic to think about it at that moment, though.
The commander didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t paying attention. He continued the serious conversation with the woman soldier. “I realize we can’t just eradicate the thing, but we’re still striving to analyze the anomalous events that occur within the Carnival of Horrors and devise countermeasures to neutralize them. That’s why we were dispatched. We’re to assess the situation and learn as much as possible about the Carnival of Horrors.”
Although the woman soldier agreed with him, she weakly shook her head. “But so far, it feels like we’ve been grasping at straws… To top it off, we were somehow separated from the rest of the unit. We’re cut off from the outside, too, since none of our radios work. It’s like we’re stranded in this theme park. What is the plan from here, Commander?”
“I’m still working on it. As I’ve said, it’s been my priority to regroup, but this is starting to smell fishy… It might be wise to pull out while we still can,” the commander admitted, slightly contorting his dependable, rock-hard face with regret. He let out a heavy sigh.
The next moment, the sound of screams and gunfire filled the air.
***
The soldiers reacted with lightning speed. Startled by the roaring bangs, I blanked out like an idiot.
The woman soldier grabbed my head. “Duck,” she screamed—and flung me to the floor.
Meanwhile, the commander readied the machine gun formerly slung over his shoulder. He crouched low to take cover behind the barricade (When did they build that thing?) made of a pile of tables and chairs.
“Let’s hear a sitrep!” the commander ordered.
I have no idea how he got there so quickly, but the flippant soldier was a good distance away from us, scanning the area. As the commander issued his order, he gave the thumbs up as if to say, “Okay!” He pulled a pair of binoculars from the pocket where he stored them in his fatigues and homed in on the direction of the sound.
“This is bad, sir!” The blood drained from his face. He crouched in the shadows of the flower garden—one of many in the park—that was right by the open café. “Several missing team members spotted! Located at 10 o’clock by the…what do you call those? House of Mirrors? Anyway, they appear to be engaged with something by that building!”
“Can you get a visual on what they’re fighting?” the commander asked harshly, but the flippant soldier only briefly replied, “Negative!”
Throughout all of this, the woman soldier held my head pressed against the ground. My eyes were swirling in confusion. Although I’m sure she meant to protect me from the danger of a stray bullet, it felt like my skull was going to crack after getting smashed to the ground so many times in one day.
“Wh-what should we do?” the woman soldier asked the commander. She whispered, “Stay down,” before creeping over towards her superior.
The commander contemplated the situation, a deep crease running down his brow for a moment or two before he reached his decision. He ordered, “We can’t abandon our allies. Men, battle positions. We’re going to rescue them. Advance toward the House of Mirrors using the gardens and buildings for cover.”
The younger two replied, “Yes, sir!” with looks of determination on their faces. They were real soldiers. On the other hand, I couldn’t even pick myself up off the floor. Terror held me down, a physical weight. I felt humiliated—I was even trembling. I completely lost myself to the pressure of a true battlefield, a place unlike anything in video games and manga.
“……” The woman’s mouth trembled partially open as if she wanted to say something, but she didn’t have the time to coddle me. Their operation was quickly underway.
With unbelievable speed, the three set out. Within a few blinks of the eye, they were disappearing into the distance. I guess they went to the House of Mirrors, off to fight an unknown something.
Wh-what should I do…? They really did leave me behind like it was nothing. None of them ever told me to “Come,” and I would probably just get in their way if I tagged along… Would it be best to stick with them after all?
The idea of getting abandoned in a place like this was disheartening. But still, the screams and gunshots we just heard resounded across my mind, drowning me in a sense of unfamiliar terror. If I went with them, I could face even greater horrors. After all, this entire place was an SCP object, an anomalous land from Hell.
Honestly, I wanted to wait it out with my head buried in my knees, but I doubted that would actually solve anything. For a while, all I could do was let my jumbled mess of incoherent thoughts and emotions fly every which way…as I wondered why I had to go through this living hell, and what I should do next.
Out of the blue, a sound came from nearby. I near jumped out of my skin. It sounded like something sharp was scraping against metal. I hesitantly turned to see what it was and nearly dropped my jaw.
The shape of an arrow was etched onto the floor of the open café. My memory wasn’t the most reliable at the moment, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t there a minute ago. Graffiti had been scribbled with unnatural suddenness across the floor. Finding it strange, I crawled over—ever so cautiously—to examine the arrow.
I was dumbstruck! Not only was there an arrow, but also a single word…seemingly carved into the ground with a screw. The word…?
“GO!”
Was it telling me to proceed in the direction of the arrow? To top it off, it was signed “Iris Thompson.”
***
“Iris Thompson” was written in English, so I wasn’t entirely sure if I was reading it right. But I think it spelled Iris’s full name…maybe?
Iris, the mysterious Girl in the Photos… A girl deemed an SCP object, doomed to an unfortunate fate. Did she manage to manipulate the photo-world (I assumed the inside of this theme park was in a photo) to leave me that message?
As I fell into silent contemplation for a spell, I waited to see if she would carve another message (or at least I assumed the first one was from her). None were forthcoming. On the other hand, the area suddenly became extremely noisy. The various rides throughout the park randomly turned on. The rollercoaster’s empty cars roared as they raced along the track; the teacups spun wildly. The speakers set all over the park blasted jaunty music that conveyed no sense of joy—only horror.
Bereft of workers or attendees as far as I could see, it was as if the theme park itself had awakened from slumber. Everything turned on at once. The majority of the attractions were worn from age and use; they cracked with each movement, making horrible grinding sounds that assaulted my ears. The sound of screams and gunfire grew louder, mixing with the music and creaking rides.
I thought I heard familiar voices among the screams. Filled with uneasiness, I slowly rose. My entire body hurt, but not enough to keep from moving.
I could have sworn those last screams belonged to the three soldiers from earlier… Rather than kill me on the spot as a stranger who screamed “suspicious,” they were kind enough to let me stick with them and bring me up to speed. Were those good-natured people facing a hopeless struggle?
That didn’t sit well with me. I had no idea what I could do to help, but I wanted to repay them at least a little for the kindness they showed me. And seeing as the arrow also happened to point in the direction of their screams, I had all the reasons I needed to head over there.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I could do, but at least I knew this was what I wanted to do. If that arrow was a message from Iris, I could expect to find some glimmer of hope by doing what it said. After all, Iris was my ally. I only just recently met her, so I knew it wasn’t terribly rational, but I knew it in my gut.
As the cacophony spread around me, I gingerly tiptoed in the direction indicated by the arrow. Compared to the soldiers, the way I moved was outright pathetic.
The sound of the screams came from across a large building (obviously a souvenir shop gone under) not far from the open café. Upon reaching the store, I decided to hide behind the building and assess the situation.
What was going on? Were those soldiers all right? I hoped to find the answers to all the questions racing through my head.
The sight I beheld only served to throw me into greater confusion.
***
“Aaagh! Eeeyaaaaa! Eeeeyaaaaargh…!” one of the three soldiers—the flippant one—screamed so hard that his voice cracked, spraying machine gun fire wildly. His entire body shuddered from the recoil. The bullets roared so loudly that I thought my eardrums were going to burst.
Along with the peal of the machine gun’s rapid fire, the sound of something shattering echoed throughout the air. There was a fair bit of distance between us, so I didn’t have a good view. But from what I could see of the backside of the flippant soldier, he was firing at the House of Mirrors directly in front of him.
Each burst of shells gouged out chunks of the House of Mirrors’ walls, which collapsed to the ground. The bullets marred and shattered countless mirrors on the other side. Glistening, the shards of glass shined as they danced through the air.
Apparently, the machine gun packed quite a punch. Just one of those things was enough to make the building look like flimsy Swiss cheese ready to topple. With a loud bang, the bright-colored sign proclaiming “House of Mirrors” fell to the ground.
Arriving to the scene a bit late, the other two—the commander and the woman soldier—looked like they were trying to talk to him, despite cringing over his abnormal behavior. It was impossible to make out what they were saying clear over by the souvenir shop. Of a mind to draw closer, I was about to take my first step, when…
“What the hell?! What the hell was that?!” The sound of the flippant soldier’s shouting made my pulse race. He must have been shouting at the top of his lungs for me to hear him with such clarity.
“He was devoured, inside the freaking mirror! By some goddamned monster! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! ███ had a wife and son! This is bullshit!” the flippant soldier screamed, mentioning a squad member by name as he continued to fire wildly.
Completely unhinged, he barely acknowledged the other two calling out to him. A trained soldier in his own right, he’d come across as calm and collected in this eerie theme park…until now. So what in the world had he seen? What had he witnessed that was capable of rattling, warping, and ultimately unhinging his mind?
He continued firing his machine gun until he completely unloaded the clip. Even then, he continued to scream and cry, oblivious that he was out of ammo, long since burning through it all. It was a bit quieter without the rapid-fire bangs of his machine gun, allowing me to barely catch what the other two were saying.
“Hey, what happened? Calm down and tell me. What did you see?” the commander asked in a calm yet slightly strained voice.
Snapping back to his senses, the flippant soldier was about to respond to the commander. But before he could, something wrapped around his neck. I have no idea what the heck it was. I could only describe it as some sort of murky liquid from out of this world. It wrapped around the flippant soldier like a frog’s tongue, binding him.
“……?!”
By the time the soldiers responded, it was too late. The next moment, the flippant soldier was being dragged into the House of Mirrors at lightning speed.
“Eeeyaaagh…!” His scream hung in the air, slowly fading away.
I was able to see what became of him. It looked like the flippant soldier was absorbed into one of the mirrors inside the House of Mirrors…and vanished.
Was that really what I’d just seen? It didn’t make any sense.
However, the next anomaly was already waiting for us, leaving me no time to puzzle over the last. Not all that far off, it was visible from my perspective. The creature was approaching the commander and woman soldier, who were left standing before the House of Mirrors. With their eyes stuck on where they last beheld their team member, they were in too great a state of mental disarray to notice it.
The thing walking toward the two soldiers appeared to be someone in a mascot suit. It went to show all theme parks and amusement parks had their own mascots… It had a creepy design that resembled a caricature of a gaudy pink hippo, its mask distorted, as if warped under extreme heat. It was sluggishly hobbling over to the soldiers.
The thing might have been able to pass off as cute once, but something about it didn’t feel right. At the top of my lungs, I warned the two soldiers to look out to their right. They glanced at me in surprise for a split second before turning toward the mascot with their guns in position. However, they didn’t immediately open fire.
This was the park mascot. There was a possibility someone was inside that suit. And no matter how suspicious a person might seem, it wasn’t in their nature to shoot on sight as long as that possibility remained.
The commander demanded in a harsh voice, “Who are you?! Don’t come any closer! If you’re human, answer me! If you don’t do as I say, we will not hesitate to shoot!”
Unfortunately, that was a painfully careless response. Inside the uncharted territory of the SCP object “Carnival of Horrors,” we were essentially in the belly of an unfathomable monster… There was no telling what dangers awaited those who didn’t act quickly. It wasn’t as though they were unaware of that fact, but their common sense—their human nature—made them hesitant to pull the trigger the moment their eyes fell on the mascot. And that wasn’t good.
***
As if in response to the commander’s questions, the hippo mascot howled in an eerie voice. In contrast to its hippo-like appearance, it had the piercing screech of a demonic bird.
“KREEEEE!”
As it screeched, it began to charge with the speed of a great beast. It was hard to believe the hippo mascot had moved so lethargically until that moment. Barely able to follow it with my eyes, it moved with the speed of a professional baseball player’s pitch.
But with a gasp, the commander barely managed to react in time, quickly firing his machine gun at the creature. A moment later, the woman soldier shot a flurry of bullets from her own machine gun, which she held pressed against her hip. Not a shot missed. The mascot was showered in a spray of direct hits. But it didn’t stop. Hardly even flinching, it kept charging forward. There wasn’t so much as a single hole marring the surface of the suit.
The machine guns each of these soldiers carried were powerful enough to tear apart the House of Mirrors, yet the hippo mascot never wavered or dropped speed as it closed in on the commander.
“Wha—?!” the seasoned soldier cried, eyes bulging in surprise for a split second.
The next moment, the mascot thrust out its hand (front leg?) and snapped his neck.
It was over in seconds.
In the blink of an eye, the middle-aged man—the commander—lost his life. We’d been conversing only minutes ago. I saw him go down with my own two eyes, but it was over so fast, I was struggling to process what happened. He was dead? Killed? By a hippo mascot…?
“Aah! Waaaah!” the woman soldier screamed in terror, hitting the mascot with point-blank rapid fire. Even then, it didn’t seem to have an effect… It was like she was shooting at a hallucination.
“Stop—run!” The commander mustered the last of his strength, defying death despite his broken neck, to force out those two words. With tears welling in her eyes, the woman soldier gave an anguished nod. Following the commander’s final order, she took off running.
It was probably sheer coincidence, but she was racing toward me. Completely unmanned, her eyes were imbued with fear… Behind her, the hippo mascot plucked off the commander’s head as if it were picking grass. In a fountain of blood, his decapitated body swayed as it fell back to the ground.
That was about when the woman soldier reached me, her eyes growing round as she finally noticed me. Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, she firmly grabbed hold of my hand.
“Come with me! It’s too dangerous here! We need to run for it!” she practically screamed hysterically as she dragged me with her. I had no choice but to go along, desperately struggling not to trip or stumble.
The woman soldier held my wrist so tightly it felt like my hand was going to fall off. If I could feel pain, it meant this wasn’t a dream. But the situation felt more like a nightmare than anything…
There was a strange sound that piqued my curiosity, so I chanced a quick look over my shoulder. What I beheld was so trippy, I wanted to burst out into hysterical laughter. The hippo mascot drew the commander’s decapitated head toward its mouth as if to give a kiss. Then it appeared to be blowing air into the head.
As it did, I could barely believe my eyes as the commander’s head began to blow up like a balloon. His rough, gnarled, yet handsome face inflated dramatically. His eyes popped out of their sockets and dangled. The hippo mascot tied off its masterpiece—a grotesque, human balloon—with string. Having completed its task, it wandered off somewhere, the balloon bobbing airily on the string.
Save for the flesh and gore, it could have been any theme park mascot anywhere.
It was insane…all of it. In that theme park, none of the natural laws applied.
***
The horrors only continued from there. The theme park—the Carnival of Horrors—had slaughtered over 200 people, and now it revealed its true nature. It showed us one terrifying attraction after the next. Each one was a nightmare that claimed lives in horrible tragedies. They were so atrocious and cruel, it made me nauseous… I never wanted to set foot in another theme park so long as I lived.
There were several decapitated corpses riding the rollercoaster with the sign “Thriller Chiller.” Some must have died a long time ago; their bodies were rotten and festering. But then others were still fresh… Outfitted in the same fatigues as the soldiers, I could only assume they were the missing team members.
At the exit of another ride with the sign reading “Tunnel of Love,” piles of bodies were merged at multiple points as if fused together. There was also the merry-go-round, rotating endlessly with bodies skewered on the support beams. Chunks of flesh that looked like human innards were frying on grills at food stalls. Tormented expressions haunted the faces of the men and women trapped under the oddly red-tinged ice of the skating rink… And those were only a few of the things we saw.
It felt like a sick joke as the numerous attractions appeared before us no matter where we walked, filling us with a wealth of dark emotions each time. After seeing more horrors than I could take, my mind started to grow numb.
Faring no better than I, the woman soldier probably didn’t even realize she was still holding my hand anymore. She quietly muttered to herself, “This is Hell. This is Hell on Earth… I want to go home. I want to go home. I want home!”
Eventually, she swayed and collapsed to the ground, her knees crumbling under her, more from mental fatigue than physical. With her hand still wrapped around my wrist, I fell to my knees with her. That seemed to remind her of my presence, for the woman looked at me in mild surprise.
“███…” the woman said, calling someone’s name before tears began streaming down her cheeks. She sat and cried, sniffling like that for a while.
Unable to call her name, unsure of how to comfort her, and lacking the strength or energy to do anything, I simply sat there in a daze. I couldn’t even cry. It all felt so horribly surreal.
The only things I felt were surges of nausea. Instead of crying, I went behind a nearby bush to empty the contents of my stomach. Panting as I vomited, my entire body trembled, and my eyesight dimmed. The strangely calm part in the back of my head analyzed my sorry state as if it were happening to someone else. It made an almost academic observation: So this is what happens when a person is truly pushed to the limit. After panting for a while, I raised my head to find the woman soldier looking at me.
“…Here,” she said, sounding dead and empty as she removed a bottle from her secured waist pack to offer it to me. It was mineral water. I guess she wanted me to rinse out my mouth.
I gratefully filled my mouth with the water, gargled, and spat it back out. I didn’t even have the strength to swallow it down. I was so sick of it all.
“I wonder if we’re the only survivors,” the woman soldier (come to think of it, I still didn’t know her name) whispered half-heartedly as she gently patted my back.
“I don’t want to end my life here, not in this stupid theme park… Mom, Dad, ███, I want to see you… I can’t take it! I can’t! I can’t,” she cried, in an increasingly incoherent train of thought. After hanging her head between her shoulders for a minute, she popped back up with a look of determination.
She faced me head on and leaned forward to grab my hand tightly again. “Let’s get out of here. Since the commander is dead, that would make me the highest-ranking officer among those who infiltrated the Carnival of Horrors. I am the commanding officer here now. So follow my orders.” Her voice cracked but was clear with determination.
“We are going to head toward the main entrance, the one we used when first infiltrating the theme park. I don’t know if we can make it out…but all we can do is run in the hope that we can,” she said, and then added as an afterthought that fighting wasn’t exactly an option.
“What in the world are SCP objects, anyway…? Why do monstrosities like these exist? What the heck are they? What was God thinking when he made them? Ha ha! There is a theory that even God is an SCP object,” the woman said, laughing as if it were a hilarious joke, but she might simply have been on the verge of cracking completely.
“Hey, kid… If I die on the way, and you still manage to get out of here alive, I’d like you to tell Mom, Dad, and ███ back home about what happened to me.”
███? I repeated the word that sounded like a name, bringing a faint smile to her lips.
“My younger brother. Even though you’re different ages and races, you remind me of him. It’s probably my mind playing tricks on me, but I guess that’s why I couldn’t help but take you under my wing.”
The two of us rose, hand-in-hand.
“My family and I were refugees. We were chased from our first home, so we’ve had to rely on each other to get by. But my parents sustained injuries in the war that have left them bedridden, and my brother is still too young to work long hours. I’m the one and only lifeline for my entire family… That’s why I don’t want to die,” she whispered, her eyes looking out into the distance.
“My life insurance will go to them if I die, but I’m not sure it will be enough to support a family of three forever… That’s what has me so worried and scared. Kid, I don’t even know your name, but please check on my family as much as you can in my stead,” she asked, her head lowered solemnly as we slowly trudged on.
“And if there are any problems, please help them… I know this might be challenging for you as a Class D, since you never know if you’ll live to see tomorrow, but you’re my only hope and prayer.”
She brought the heart tattoo on the hand not holding mine—her right—to just above her heart… As if offering a prayer, she said, “God, please don’t let this cruel world bring further harm upon my loved ones.”
Those were the last words I ever heard the anonymous woman say.
***
Before I knew it, my surroundings shifted. Something warm embraced my body, and a second later, I was somewhere else entirely. I’d grown familiar with that sensation. I knew what had happened. Iris pulled me out of the photo.
After blinking several times, I looked around me. I was back in Dr. Bright’s messy lab. It was exactly the same as before I strayed (seems like a decent word to describe it) into that eerie theme park, the Carnival of Horrors.
I made it back! As that fact sank in, my knees gave out from under me. I was so relieved that I sunk down helplessly to the ground and nearly burst into tears. The realization I might not have made it back was overwhelming.
Strictly speaking, Dr. Bright’s lab—a laboratory run by the SCP Foundation—was still like another world to me, so it wasn’t like I’d truly made it back to my normal life. But I’d just been in a terrifying, nightmarish place. A place where I could lose my life at any second. Compared to that, an otaku’s room filled with comics and video games was like Heaven on Earth.
“███? Are you okay? I’m so sorry!” Iris exclaimed, staring into my eyes worriedly.
Struck with such fondness—even love—at the sight of her, I nearly gave her a hug. But still suffering the aftereffects of my terror, I wasn’t able to lift a finger. Trembling, I took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself. The nightmare was over. It was supposed to be over. I could relax now.
“Well done! My, you were great out there! I would have joined you if I could. Alas, I had to give up when it became evident I couldn’t—not that it kept me from trying! Ah, but after so many failures, I had to face facts. Too bad, so sad!” Dr. Bright spoke with unsettling enthusiasm as they swiveled in their chair before the workbench of junk to face me. That painfully bright red dress flared out as they turned.
“The experiments are far from over, but it would appear my hypothesis that only you can enter the photos was correct! I would love to experience the sensation myself, so I’m going to present Immortality to you as a reward for doing such a fabulous job! Congratulazioni!”
Even though I’m pretty sure they said “congratulations,” either Dr. Bright’s pronunciation was funky, or the word was translated to sound weird. Acting goofy as ever, the mad scientist gave a big grin as they removed the necklace resting on their bosom in the blink of an eye and approached me.
I could swear I saw that necklace somewhere before… Oh yeah, it was the antique brooch near me when I very first appeared in this bizarre research site. It appeared to be a rather expensive piece. A bunch of diamonds surrounded an oval, crimson gem—perhaps a ruby. The chain and brooch itself were either white gold or platinum.
Seeing this, Iris made a face of disgust. “Doc, you’re joking, aren’t you? I won’t let you get away with that!” she snapped and moved in front of me with arms spread out as if to protect me.
Dr. Bright cursed, “Damn!” although they didn’t sound terribly disappointed, and elegantly crossed their legs. “Yes, I was kidding, just kidding! It was a gag to lighten the mood! Do you know the best way to handle situations like this? I believe it’s best to laugh! Aha ha ha ha…☆”
I had no idea what was so funny, but after laughing for a while (much later, I was informed they were paraphrasing a famous mecha anime, but I really couldn’t care less), Dr. Bright’s expression turned blank as rapidly as if they were a robot shutting down.
They placed the strange necklace back around their neck and stared at me intently. Those were the eyes of a researcher. That cold, unfeeling gaze made me remember that as weird as they were, they were nonetheless a scientific scholar worthy of the title “researcher.”
“Thank you. I was able to conduct a most fascinating test, ███,” Dr. Bright said, quickly flashing a smile and bowing elegantly from their seat.
“I’d like to compile my report, so I’d appreciate it if you could tell me what you experienced in the photo. You’re such a mystery! I’ve yet to discern how your powers work. But that’s what makes this so much fun!”
In the photo… So, I really was inside the photo. Nevertheless, everything I experienced in the Carnival of Horrors was extremely vivid and real. The pain of hitting my face on the ground. The stench of blood. The warmth of the woman soldier’s hand…
When she ran across my thoughts, I grew concerned for the woman soldier. What became of her? Even though she nearly lost her mind to fear, that brave woman nonetheless led me by the hand as we tried to escape from that theme park. Did I make it out, leaving her behind? That seemed extremely callous somehow.
“Naturally, she is dead,” Dr. Bright informed me indifferently in a surprisingly businesslike voice. “The cause of her death is shrouded in mystery. She was discovered with a broken jaw and her rib cage was cracked open. Teeth and pieces of her heart were retrieved from her trachea. It is currently unknown whether she died of suffocation, or shock due to blood loss from the open chest wounds. It is also theorized she committed suicide.”
……
I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I had feared this might happen. So she didn’t make it. She didn’t get to return to her family after all.
Feeling disconsolate and miserable, I lowered my head. Tears filled my eyes. Before the might of such an outrageous anomaly as the Carnival, my existence felt horribly small and insignificant.
***
This was no time to wallow in my sorrows. I needed to fulfill the request she asked of me. She wanted me to look after her family and help them if I could…
“That would prove difficult. In fact, it would be outright impossible to accurately carry out her request,” Dr. Bright said with a wry smile. “The photo you entered was actually taken decades ago. Her parents already died of old age, but her younger brother is still alive and well.”
Decades ago? Not only did I enter the photograph, I traveled back in time…? This was getting weirder and weirder.
“That is what makes you an SCP object,” Dr. Bright pointed out, seductively brushing back their glossy hair. “The exact nature and capabilities of your powers are still unknown, but I would like to explore them. I’d appreciate your continued cooperation on these tests.”
“I’m against it,” Iris weakly contended, but Dr. Bright wasn’t the least bit shaken.
“Of course, you have no right to refuse. Your cooperative behavior with the SCP Foundation has earned you a certain degree of freedom, but you are fundamentally test subjects. You cannot defy us if we wish to use you in an experiment. You’re free to turn me away if you truly don’t want to work with me, but we would probably implement changes in your containment procedure,” they threatened, before plowing right on.
“On the other hand, I will guarantee your safety as long as you are cooperative with my tests. You’ll be under the great Dr. Bright’s wing! I don’t think it’s a waste of time for me or either of you to learn about your powers and their unique characteristics.” As Dr. Bright said this, they checked their watch (the type with cartoon characters little girls in Japan flip out over) and sighed in satisfaction.
“At any rate, it’s gotten quite late… You may call it a day. We can discuss this in detail at a later date. ███ appears absolutely exhausted. Try not to push yourself too hard,” they said considerately, but their eyes were shining with intellectual curiosity. I was struck with a sick, sinking fear they were going to grab me and gobble me up.
“Come to my lab again tomorrow. We can hold off on the nitty-gritty stuff until then… Good night, you two! ♪” Dr. Bright span back around in the chair. They began typing something furiously into the PC, so I hastily threw my question at them.
Not so fast! There was one thing I wanted to know. It was about that woman soldier’s brother who was still alive. Where was he now and what was he doing? At the very least, I wanted to pass on her final words. I wanted him to know how desperately she tried to make it out of that hellish theme park to return to her family… If I could tell someone in her family at least a little about the bravery and kindness she demonstrated, I felt it would give meaning to the time I spent wandering through that theme park in lost confusion.
“I see. It’s just as I predicted. You entered a mysterious photograph found at the site of a massacre where there were no survivors and caught a glimpse of what happened during the incident… I had high hopes you would be able to unravel some of the secrets surrounding SCP objects that no amount of legwork could hope to uncover.”
Dr. Bright spoke seriously before popping out with the most outlandish comment.
“And for the record, you don’t need to ask about her brother. You’ve already met him! When you very first met me, Dr. Bright, I was a black man—her brother! Having lost most of his original personality, he’s practically a completely different person now. I don’t see much point in going to tell him what happened.”
What were they talking about…? Come to think of it, Dr. Bright was a completely different race and gender from when we first met. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the mystery shrouding this person.
“I’m sure he’d be grateful. The death of his sister always weighed heavily on him. The entire reason why he decided to become a researcher here was to uncover the truth of how she died. I’m sure you’ve made him happy just by uncovering what his sister did and said before she passed,” Dr. Bright said, a shadow of grief crossing their face. They sighed.
“With your help, we could draw just a little closer to unlocking the secrets behind SCP objects shrouded in mystery, just like with the Carnival of Horrors. It would reduce the number of lives lost or destroyed from encounters with the unknown, if only a little. Would you help me to that end?”
Once again switching to a terrifyingly serious expression, the strange researcher said, “███, all of the SCP Foundation’s researchers are welcoming you with open arms.”
In all honesty, I wanted to go home right that instant.