SCP-235: Phonographic Records

SCP-235: Phonographic Records SCP-235 is a set of four old shellac records that stop movement in the surrounding area whenever the music skips. Three contain identifiable songs from the 1920s. The fourth has no label and plays an unidentified, mournful instrumental. They look like ordinary records, including the damaged sections that make a needle skip. Played near the standard speed of seventy-eight revolutions per minute, each record produces pauses affecting everything within a range determined by the volume. People stop breathing and blinking. Falling objects hang in the air. A fire pauses in the middle of burning. The affected people do not experience waiting through the interval. Without something outside the effect drawing attention to it, they continue without realizing time has passed. Someone outside the range can enter and move among the frozen people and objects. Intentionally touching or influencing something releases it from the pause while leaving everything else unchanged. The intention matters. Wind and rain do not wake people or set objects moving again. An observer can affect a particular object without ending the entire event. The record and the device playing it are exceptions. During a pause, attempts to interfere with either fail, even when substantial force is applied. Copying the music does not duplicate the effect. Ordinary recordings of a performance are harmless, which points toward the physical records rather than the songs as the source of the anomaly. Their discovery history suggests that other people understood the possibilities before the Foundation did. One record is recovered at the scene of a corporate president's murder. Another is found playing at a wedding reception where the bride and groom have both been shot on the dance floor, with nobody witnessing the killings. A third turns up among college students after reports about a tune that lets time pass strangely. The fourth is recovered beside a dead man and a note saying the record has served its users well but is nearly full. At that point, the meaning of full is unclear. The Foundation supplies a grim explanation during testing. A researcher orders a person killed while affected by a record. On the next play, a new skip appears where the music previously ran smoothly. Further tests show that deaths during the effect damage the record, leaving additional places for it to skip. Several deaths in one pause appear to produce a longer damaged section, although the relationship is not fully consistent. The damaged record is therefore carrying evidence of what has happened during its pauses. The unlabeled one already skips fifteen times per play, more than any of the others. That does not provide an exact body count, but it changes the meaning of the note beside it. The file ends without identifying its users or explaining what happens when a record finally becomes full. Original Entry: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-235