SCP-190: A Prize Toybox

SCP-190: A Prize Toybox SCP-190 has a test where a little boy throws a rubber ball at a researcher and cracks two of her ribs. He's disappointed because she doesn't throw it back. Another child has a stuffed elephant step on somebody's foot, crushes the bones in it and tells the adult off for getting in the way. That's how this toybox works. The children are having fun, and the people playing with them can end up seriously injured. A toy that looks harmless can do damage completely out of proportion to what it's made from. The box is carved wood with iron bands, fifty by seventy by thirty-five centimeters. The lid shows a circus tent with a ringmaster inside. Lions, tigers, bears, elephants and horses are carved around the sides, and they slowly move around. Time-lapse recordings make it look like they're playing together. The fastest movement observed is about five millimeters a day. If somebody ten or older opens it, they find seventeen marbles, two partly used sticks of green sidewalk chalk and a deck of Bicycle cards. Those things can be moved around inside the box, but an invisible barrier stops anyone in that age group from taking them out. Interacting with the box or its contents also tends to make them uneasy. A child under ten gets one to five toys or games instead. Stuffed animals, balls, yo-yos, dolls, blocks and simple board games have all appeared. They usually have a circus theme, often with red, gold and white colors, stars or the initials HF. The ringmaster description links to Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting. The age rules are worded a little differently for taking things out. The contents change when someone under ten opens the box, but the toys can be removed by a prepubescent child. Anyone who has entered puberty encounters the barrier. The article doesn't explain the overlap any further. https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-190 Adapted from “SCP-190” by “Raaxis,” rewritten by “Drewbear,” SCP Wiki. This adaptation is released under CC BY-SA 3.0. The children get excited about the toys even when they normally wouldn't like that kind of game. They play harder, start climbing things and do somersaults, cartwheels and simple juggling. A lot of that play ends up hurting other people, especially people older than them. The eight-year-old with the rubber ball bounces it against the wall thirty-seven times before throwing it at the researcher. It leaves dents in the wall. When it hits her, she gets the cracked ribs and serious bruising. As far as the boy seems concerned, they're still playing catch. The stuffed elephant is made of felt and only thirty-five centimeters tall. The four-year-old playing with it makes it walk around and trumpets for it. When she makes it step on a D-class worker's foot, it causes multiple complex fractures and bleeding consistent with a crush injury. She blames the worker for standing there. The third test uses See The Big Top!, a board game similar to Candyland. A six-year-old begs a D-class woman to play until the researchers order her to join him. He loses, gets angry and throws the cards at her. They cut deeply into her face, hands and forearms. Afterward, he hugs her and asks whether she'll get Batman bandages to make the injuries better. Then there's the Junior Clown Kit. A seven-year-old puts the makeup on herself and a D-class worker. She's fine, but the adult gets chemical burns and develops a lasting allergy to lanolin. The last example is a small red wooden rod resembling SCP-2024. A nine-year-old touches it to things around the room, then touches the supervising D-class worker's arm. The arm ties itself into a knot. The girl says it looks better that way. Returning a toy to the box and closing the lid makes it disappear. Nothing in the entry says the injuries disappear with it. Leaving the box alone brings out another effect. If it and its contents go unused by a child under ten for twenty-nine and a half consecutive days, people within fifty meters begin hearing faint calliope music. Children under ten who know the box exists will try to find it. The Foundation describes the music as a mild cognitohazard. The toybox is classified Safe and kept in a security locker at Site-41. Children under ten aren't allowed within fifty meters except during testing. Staff are warned about the music, and if they want a transfer because of it, the request is supposed to be handled quickly unless that would interfere with another SCP's containment. Everybody who directly interacts with the box is monitored indefinitely. The longer-term results are a little strange. Children who played with it are about four times more likely than their peers to become performers as adults, either for work or as a major hobby. That includes acrobatics, magic, animal training, acting and improvised speaking. Researchers haven't found other statistically significant behavioral differences. The circus imagery turns up in the carvings, the toys, the children's behavior and then their interests years later. We don't get an explanation for whether that was somebody's plan. What we do get are those reactions during testing. The boy who throws cards hard enough to cut somebody can hug her afterward and worry about her bandages. The injuries are real, but the children keep treating them like another part of playing together.