SCP-205: Shadow Lamps

SCP-205: Shadow Lamps This entry involves sexual violence and murder. SCP-205 is a pair of photographic flood lamps that project the shadow of a young woman who isn't standing in front of them. The Foundation doesn't know who she is, whether she was ever a real person, or whether anyone matching her is still alive. What the lamps show looks like a sequence leading to her death, repeated twice a year. The light itself behaves strangely before the shadows even appear. It passes through anything that isn't white. When it reaches a white surface, it scatters and reflects normally, losing its anomalous properties. With an unobstructed path to a flat white surface, the lamps produce the woman's silhouette. There is only one shadow, despite there being two lights, and slightly moving either lamp doesn't move or blur it. The first month is mostly still. She holds a pose as if she is modeling for a photograph. Near the end of the month she begins shifting her weight, and her hair and clothing move without any corresponding air movement in the containment room. Eventually she breaks the pose and goes through what looks like an eight-hour photo shoot, including clothing changes, breaks, and a meal. For the next five months, she moves continuously. Researchers watch her go through ordinary activities, socialize, and take photographs herself. The other people she seems to interact with are initially invisible. Most objects remain invisible too, unless she picks them up. Everything has to be interpreted from her movements and the few things the lamps allow the observers to see. During the final month, another shadow appears. It has an exaggerated human shape and horns. She responds to it as if she has met an ordinary person at a social gathering. They spend time together, go out, and develop a relationship. The figure eventually introduces at least two more that look like it. She photographs them with a film camera. Later, when she develops the pictures, her reaction suggests that she has discovered something she couldn't see while standing beside them. She panics and tries to hide behind a locked door. The figures find her. The final week depicts repeated assaults, including sexual violence, and strongly implies that she is killed. Their violence continues through the end of the cycle. On the last day, one of the horned shadows grows until it covers the others, as if whatever is casting it is walking toward the lamps. Both lights then physically switch off. Modifications intended to stop that shutdown have failed. The cycle always ends on April 30 or October 31. Leap years and interruptions don't shift those dates. Once both lamps go out, unseen forces attack anyone inside the chamber, even if other lights are still on. Turning the lamps back on remotely after the scheduled ending stops the danger and starts the next cycle. An unscheduled failure is worse: the room remains dangerous for at least thirty days, even if the lamps are working again. That is why maintenance matters so much. The Euclid-class lamps stay powered and aimed at a white screen in Chamber 52 at Site-23. Staff keep spare parts nearby, never deliberately switch both off together during maintenance, and suspend maintenance entirely during April and October. Following an unscheduled shutdown, the room stays sealed for thirty days before anyone enters. Equipment may be wrecked during that period, but the lamps themselves are left intact. The two lamps are identical down to their serial numbers, despite being recovered separately. The second was found in a ransacked motel room with a camera resembling the one in the projection. Most of its film had been ruined. The file doesn't establish who occupied the room or how they were connected to the woman. The incidents near the end make it hard to treat this as a recording. When a researcher opened the chamber to replace a failed bulb, the horned figures stopped what they were doing and turned toward the door. He shut it again and refused to enter. They remained still for roughly three hours. During a later cycle, another bulb burst and the figures again looked toward the door, although nobody had been sent in. The Foundation can watch the same broad sequence happen over and over, but the figures notice when somebody interrupts it. The observers are standing outside a room full of equipment, looking at a screen, and something on that screen knows where the door is. Original Entry: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-205