SCP-012: A Bad Composition

SCP-012: A Bad Composition This one is unfinished sheet music, and reading it can be fatal. The composition is called “On Mount Golgotha.” It was recovered from a tomb in northern Italy. What initially looked like dark red ink turned out to be blood from multiple people. Exposed people become compelled to finish the score with their own blood. The recorded cases involve severe self-harm and death. Completing a section doesn't resolve the problem. Attempts to perform the music produce clashing instrumental parts rather than a coherent piece. Containment involves darkness and an iron-shielded enclosure, with precautions around viewing the score. The original article doesn't establish who wrote it, what the larger composition was supposed to do, or whether a completed version exists. That's the basic setup. The uncomfortable part is how it takes a familiar impulse and removes any reasonable stopping point. Most people understand wanting to finish something. A project, a puzzle, a piece of writing, even a song you can't quite get out of your head. Usually there's some connection between the effort you're putting in and the result you're trying to reach. You can also decide to leave it alone. With this kind of fictional compulsion, those ordinary limits stop working. The person doing the work can't simply step back and ask whether continuing makes any sense. And the music creates another problem for the reader. You might expect something recognisably beautiful or meaningful to emerge when it's performed. That would at least offer a possible explanation for the attraction. Instead, the attempted performance gives you more uncertainty. It leaves room for questions without establishing answers. Is the failure to complete it part of the effect? Does the larger work matter? Is there any purpose to the composition beyond what it does to the people who encounter it? Those are possibilities to think about, not additional facts supplied by the article. For a writer, the construction is worth noticing. You don't need a long catalogue of powers to make an object threatening. You can take one very specific activity and make the inability to stop doing it the central danger. The original entry is short enough that it doesn't explain that danger away. You're left with an object, a repeated outcome, and a containment procedure built around keeping anyone else from being drawn into it. Original entry: https://t.co/9s4wuVC6xj