SCP-238: The Dying Facility

SCP-238: The Dying Facility SCP-238 is an underground complex reached through a carved stone entrance in a cave on Shmidta Island, Russia. Its tunnels do not appear on ground-penetrating radar outside the entrance, and the Foundation believes they occupy a separate pocket dimension. Nobody has established how far the complex extends. The deeper expeditions travel, the less its construction resembles an ordinary excavation. The stone near the entrance matches the surrounding island. Farther inside, samples resemble formations from the Urals, Baltic region, and Mediterranean. Large portions of the structure consist of calcified bone, while some sections retain the properties of living human tissue. Researchers can establish that organic material forms part of the building, even before they learn who might have made it. The Foundation first finds the coordinates in records acquired from the Soviet Union's former GRU Division-P. Its operatives had sealed the cave, but the surviving records offer no explanation. Research becomes more urgent after a Russian Arctic survey team disappears. Receding ice has exposed the entrance, and someone has breached the old barrier. Expeditions recover evidence of the missing team's passage without finding its members. In 1997, researchers establish a provisional site and begin exploring. A damaged camera belonging to one of the survey scientists yields a single image. Writing farther inside is identified as an archaic form of antimemetic, cognitohazardous glyphs associated with Saarnian Proto-Sarkicism. Responsibility passes to specialists, but budget shortages eventually suspend further expeditions. The next major development comes in February 2020. A figure with eight limbs emerges from the entrance, examines the containment gate, and retreats. It appears to have an advanced SCP-610 infection. The Foundation sends another team, equipped with protective suits, navigation beacons, and an incendiary weapon. Inside, they find lighting, excavation work, machinery, fossilized tissue, and remains identified as Mekhanite armor. An unseen voice begins describing the site's past. It says the settlement, Adí-üm, was grown from devotees transformed into living shelters called Kiraak. As they aged, their outer tissue died and hardened while nourishment was redirected toward their hearts. The voice also describes a practice meant to feed these structures becoming corrupted and being used against enemies. Those explanations come from the voice itself. The expedition observes bone, living tissue, and remnants of conflict, but the article does not independently verify its account of religious history or its claims about a returning leader. The commander concludes that he is speaking to the facility. It responds as a guardian still protecting the people within it and accuses the Foundation of intending harm. When movement appears across the chamber, the team attempts to withdraw. Infected entities attack throughout the retreat. Only Commander ben Liraz and Specialist Bonafonte reach the extraction point. Bonafonte succumbs to infection and is terminated. Ben Liraz survives quarantine without showing signs of infection. The final order seals the entrance and forbids further entry or disturbance. Anyone entering is presumed lost, with no rescue permitted. The Foundation has enough evidence to recognize an active, inhabited danger, but its last expedition leaves most of the facility unexplored and its account of its own history unconfirmed. Original Entry: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-238