SCP-221: Compulsion Tweezers

SCP-221: Compulsion Tweezers SCP-221 is a pair of gold tweezers dating to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Their appearance gives little warning of what happens when someone uses them. A small act of grooming can become a compulsion that continues far beyond hair removal, even after the tweezers are taken away. The main description associates the effect with using the instrument on one's own body. The subject begins removing hair and then progresses to increasingly serious injuries. The sequence varies between people, but the recorded outcome is fatal. When the tweezers are no longer useful for what the person is attempting, the person continues with their hands while refusing to relinquish the object. The first test follows a D-class subject instructed to remove his eyebrow hair. He initially treats it as an unpleasant assignment. Within ten minutes, he becomes much more focused on continuing. After his eyebrows are gone, he moves on to other hair despite being told the test is finished. Researchers take the tweezers out of the room. Once released, he continues injuring himself without them. That is the most important practical detail in the test: removing the object does not reset the person. The Foundation can interrupt access to the tool without stopping the behavior it has started. The subject eventually dies from blood loss and shock. A second test complicates the initial description. One person is told to use the tweezers on another. They begin arguing over how the task is being done, then fight over possession. The holder kills the other subject and begins using SCP-221 on himself. He also dies. Using someone else as the initial target has not produced a safe way to interact with it. There is another observation involving the tool itself. Areas damaged while researchers collected samples become smaller after testing. The proposed explanation is that the tweezers use minute quantities of gold from a human body to repair themselves. The file presents that as a theory, not a completed account of the process or proof of what motivates the compulsion. Containment is straightforward because the tweezers do not need to be used. They sit in a cushioned steel box, inside a locked room, with a guard preventing unauthorized removal. Further testing requires clearance. The entry does not describe an established treatment for someone already affected. Its Safe classification is easy to misunderstand if it is read as a measure of injury. The Foundation has a reliable way to prevent another exposure: keep the tweezers locked up. Once someone has used them, the same file offers no reliable way to save that person. A familiar object, intended for a minor adjustment to the body, takes away the user's ability to decide when the adjustment is finished. Original Entry: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-221