SCP-226: Puzzle Of Terror

SCP-226: Puzzle Of Terror SCP-226 is a black cardboard puzzle box with the word “fear” written in white on its lid. Inside are a thousand cardboard pieces. The completed puzzle is always rectangular, but its picture and the way its pieces fit together change depending on who opens it. Opening the box aligns it with that person. The resulting image depicts their greatest fear. Once that alignment happens, the pieces keep their design until the puzzle has been completed and taken apart. It does not continuously update as other people join in or look at the picture. The recorded images include a corpse sinking underwater, gallows with several nooses, insects covering a human figure, and someone trapped in a buried coffin. Another shows spiders coming out of a screaming person's mouth. One simply depicts SCP-682. The selection ranges from recognizable phobias to a threat specific to the Foundation's work. Taking the completed puzzle apart resets it. Its lid flies back onto the box, the pieces disappear, and the alignment ends. The file assumes the pieces return inside. The next person who opens it gets a new image. Containment is straightforward. The box is classified Safe and kept in a locked cabinet in secure storage. Using it requires approval from personnel with at least Level 3 clearance. Nothing in the description establishes that the pictures cause the feared events or predict the future. Its discovery is less reassuring. A mobile task force was investigating tunnels underneath a church when an equipment failure cut off communication with the surface. While waiting for repairs, the team found the box on a wooden table in a stone room surrounded by chairs. They opened it to pass the time. The completed picture showed the team sitting around that same table working on a puzzle. In the image, one of the agents was stabbing several teammates with a combat knife. They dismantled the puzzle, repaired their equipment, and headed back to the surface. A final note states that the agent shown with the knife died in an accident on the way out. It offers no explanation of the accident and never identifies who opened the box. That leaves room for suspicion without resolving it. Someone's fear involved a colleague attacking the group, and that colleague died shortly afterward. The entry does not confirm that he intended violence, that the image foretold anything, or that his death was deliberate. The unsettling part is how easily a picture of someone's fear could be mistaken for evidence about someone else. Original Entry: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-226