SCP-257

SCP-257 SCP-257 is an abandoned zoo that keeps receiving new animals. There aren't delivery trucks or keepers bringing them in. A specimen appears in an enclosure, and a handwritten care guide appears in the ticket booth. The Foundation has effectively inherited a collection from an explorer who is still out finding things to send home. The park is in the United Kingdom and presents itself as William Woodsworth's Collection of Curiosities, founded in 1899. Its promotional material describes Woodsworth as an explorer from “Reality 12/3.14.” There are signs saying it's temporarily closed for maintenance, even though the grounds look as if they've been abandoned for at least fifty years. Nobody can find the building or planning records that would explain it being there. Woodsworth eventually sends the Foundation a note. He knows who they are and has decided they're responsible enough to look after the zoo while he travels. His next destination is the thirteenth moon of Enouious, and he's enthusiastic about the creatures he's finding. From his perspective, he's leaving an educational collection in good hands and expanding it for the public. The Foundation has a more complicated job. Every arrival has to be examined, recorded, and assessed. Some need further research. Others go to a biological site for long-term care. They have no reliable delivery schedule and no guarantee that the next enclosure will contain something they can safely house. The acquisition log gives this one a lot of variety. Five tiny elephants arrive with a guide claiming they came from the Mediterranean. There are hundreds of little bioluminescent piranhas from the Para-Amazon, an adult brontothere whose guide warns against eye contact, and a baby Javan rhinoceros that seems entirely ordinary. That last one is considered for transfer to another zoo. Some deliveries are harder to keep alive. An armored creature covered in yellow vegetation needs high gravity and dies after arrival. A juvenile Kentrosaurus later dies from disease complications. A large pupa comes with a cheerful assurance that it will start laying eggs immediately after hatching, giving the Foundation a thriving colony. They euthanize it instead. Other notes suggest Woodsworth's world is very different from ours. He mentions moa farming becoming popular in Scotland. He describes six-legged, armored herbivores crossing Martian savannahs and includes advice on hunting and cooking them. Bonobos apparently serve as companions to local ape-men somewhere in his travels. The guides treat these details as normal natural history. One specimen is dangerous enough to receive its own SCP designation after an incident. Even then, a request to reclassify the zoo as Keter is denied because the location and the resulting anomaly can still be contained. It is a useful reminder that the classification is about the containment problem rather than how alarming a particular animal looks. Woodsworth's enthusiasm comes across clearly, but so does the distance between collecting a fascinating creature and providing for it afterward. He can send a handwritten instruction to keep something under high gravity. The people receiving it still have to make that possible. The Foundation has become the staff of an interdimensional zoo whose owner keeps adding exhibits from places they can't visit. Original Entry: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-257