It’s 3:00 AM, and the facility is quiet.
Office workers and administrators roam the
halls.
Security Officers stand at their posts, clad
in advanced tactical armour and carrying standard-issue
M4 Carbines.
Three Foundation employees sit at flickering
monitors, watching a live feed of footage
from the containment cell of the infamous
SCP-106, or as it’s referred to by staff,
The Old Man.
No Foundation personnel are permitted to travel
within sixty feet of the cell for security
reasons, and nobody is permitted to physically
interact with the anomaly without the approval
of two-thirds of O5-Command.
The observer’s eyes itch and sting from
the hours of unending blue-light exposure,
but they can’t look away.
The Old Man is crafty – he may have the
insatiable bloodlust of a hungry great white
shark, but he’s not mindless.
He’s a calculating predator, more sadistic
than the worst human serial killer, and he’s
always searching for the next opportunity.
According to Foundation records, he’s been
active since at least World War II, and it
is estimated that he has hundreds if not thousands
of victims to his name.
And many of those made the simple, but extremely
foolish mistake of underestimating him.
After all, it only takes a few seconds of
inattentiveness, the briefest moment of distraction,
to give him the window he needs.
To do what, you ask?
Oh, don’t worry, you’ll find out – just
like they did.
The Old Man has his nickname for a reason
– most of the time, he really does look
like exactly that - an old man.
Or more specifically, an Old Man’s decaying
corpse, his body covered in rotten, dark greyish-black
flesh that looks like putrid meat.
Though the creature has been observed being
able to change shape, the rot seems to run
too deep for the Old Man to ever hide it.
Foundation employees that have observed SCP-106
for extended periods of time have reported
seeing it assume the form of grinning, decayed
children, and women whose rotted flesh barely
hangs on to their creaking bones.
Just seeing the images through a video feed
is enough to cause a lifetime of insomnia
and other sleeping issues.
Still, they have a job to do, and the cameras
remain fixed on the Old Man.
He’s been completely motionless for three
months, just sitting there, like a Buddhist
monk in deep meditation.
A novice might see this period of inactivity
as a cause for celebration, but those with
experience know that this is merely the calm
before the storm.
SCP–106 can remain in a dormant state for
months at a time.
Described by Foundation scientists as a “lulling
state,” it is believed that The Old Man
is simply waiting for its captors to get soft,
make a mistake, or simply have a momentary
lapse in concentration, which is all it needs
to make its move.
It had happened so many times before, and
it was about to happen again.
One of the observers must have felt an overwhelming
wave of anxiety when he saw the creature ever
so slightly twitch.
Just a tiny quiver in the shoulder muscles.
But that was enough to tell the observer that
their day had just taken a terrifying turn.
He grabbed the emergency phone fixed to his
desk and practically screamed into the receiver
that 106 is moving, that they needed a tactical
team stat.
But it was already too late.
He and the two other observers stared into
the monitors with their mouths agape, as a
gooey, rust-like substance began to pool around
the creature on the floor of its cell.
Slowly, the creature craned its withered neck
around.
Its face was fixed into a broad, yellow-toothed,
lipless grin.
Its eyes had the kind of dull, flat malice
of an underwater predator.
It looked directly into the camera.
Directly at them.
And smiled.
The observers know this was bad.
Really, really bad.
With what they could have sworn was a little
nod, the Old Man began sinking into the rusty
puddle it’d made on the ground beneath it,
until it had disappeared entirely.
SCP–106 is capable of phasing through any
solid surface with ease, making it one of
the hardest entities to reliably contain,
and earning it a spot on the dreaded “Keter”
class – reserved for the anomalies that
are a complete nightmare to keep locked up.
Through years of costly research and deadly
trial and error, the Foundation would later
devise ways of at least slowing the creature
down.
It’s shown to have an aversion to lead,
highly complex or random physical structures,
and intense bright light.
None of these cause harm to the creature – as
far as we know, literally nothing can – but
they’ll at least buy you some precious extra
seconds with which to at least try and escape,
seconds the three observers didn’t have.
One of them grabbed the emergency line again
and barked into it that they had lost visual
on the anomaly.
Just then the observers heard a faint crackling
sound behind them, and the hissing of a chemical
burn.
They turned in horror to see a huge, rusty
burnmark expanding across the wall, right
next to the door – which was their only
escape route.
They backed as far away from the door as they
could as a rotten hand began reaching out
of the mass of corrosive, black sludge, followed
by the grinning face of SCP–106, ready to
have some fun.
Meanwhile, two heavily-armed Security Officers
– Agents Goodwin and Resnick – came charging
down the corridor towards the observation
rooms.
It’d become a bleak slogan during SCP–106
escape attempts that all you need to do is
“follow the screams.”
And that motto was proven true that night,
because awful things were happening to the
observation personnel, they were certainly
screaming about it.
Of course, even with top-of-the-line firearms,
there was little they could do to harm the
rampaging Old Man.
He seemed immune to all forms of physical
damage.
All they could hope to do was keep the thing
distracted until the scientists and containment
specialists finished the preparations to lure
him back into his containment cell.
Goodwin surged forward while Resnick covered
his six.
Vigilance was key, as – unlike a standard
human combatant – SCP–106 could attack
from literally any angle including above or
below.
Physical obstacles were irrelevant to him
and no cover was safe.
The hardened security officers could see the
burnmark on the wall of the observation room
as they approached.
SCP–106 was perpetually coated in a thick,
black mucus with powerful corrosive properties
that left any surfaces it touched permanently
marred.
Foundation Scientists speculated that this
mucus served as a kind of pre-digestive substance
that tenderizes meat and bone alike, but to
what purpose this serves is a mystery as the
Old Man has never been observed eating.
It’s postulated that the only purpose is
causing additional pain.
Goodwin and Resnick knew to treat this hissing
sludge as a potential threat, as the corrosive
properties would remain active for as much
as six hours before finally fizzling out.
The two officers shared a quiet nod, before
Goodwin breached the observation room door
with a hard kick.
The two of them surged inside, guns at the
ready.
In their time working at the Foundation, they’d
seen some truly horrific sights.
From the mutilation of D-Class Personnel – typically
death row prison inmates brought in for use
as SCP guinea pigs – to the violence and
mayhem of a containment breach.
But there was nothing in their past that would
ever make the horrifying sight they saw in
the observation room that night feel “normal.”
All three observers were dead.
Almost nothing remained of two of them, and
the third, while still intact, no longer looked
human.
He looked like he’d somehow been dead a
hundred years in the brief period that the
Old Man had been free.
His skin was grey and completely dried out,
and his mouth was locked into a perpetual
scream.
It was a massacre, but there was no sign of
the Old Man.
Goodwin grabbed his radio, and whispered “This
is Goodwin in observation room six.
Requesting immediate back up.
We have no idea where this thing—”
But his sentence was cut off by a sudden scream
from Agent Resnick.
SCP Foundation security officers are as tough
as nails – the best of the best, you might
say, recruited from the top military organizations
in the world – so hearing one of them scream
in fright is a rare if not impossible occurrence.
But even they were forced to yell out in fear
when they looked up to see the Old Man standing
on the ceiling, grinning down at them.
Resnick raised his M4 and shot a three-round
burst at center mass.
SCP–106 didn’t care.
Even under sustained gunfire from the two
security officers, it didn’t even flinch.
The Old Man simply reached down and snatched
Agent Resnick from the ground, like it was
picking an apple from a tree.
The Old Man held Resnick in one hand and pounded
its other rotten fist into the Agent’s body,
breaking all of his bones.
Resnick screamed for his partner to help him
but there was no time.
Before Goodwin could do anything, SCP–106
began receding back into another slimy burnmark
on the wall.
Only this time, he was taking his screaming
victim with him.
Agent Resnick gave one more horrified scream
before he was pulled backwards into the inky
darkness leaving the room silent except for
the burning hiss of the corrosive goo left
behind.
You might think this would be the end of it,
but no.
For poor Agent Resnick, the worst was yet
to come.
He was being dragged into what SCP Foundation
scientists refer to as the Old Man’s “Pocket
Dimension”, a miniature layer of reality
within our own where the malicious SCP is
essentially a cruel, all-powerful God.
According to witness reports extracted from
victims who were taken to this little nightmare
realm, the dimension resembles a series of
twisting, endless corridors where the Old
Man stalks and tortures his captured victims
to the breaking point, manipulating space
and time to its own sadistic ends.
On rare occasions, the SCP will even release
its victims, just for the joy of hunting,
capturing, and torturing them all over again.
While Agent Resnick was learning the true
meaning of terror, containment specialists
were mobilizing in its cell, preparing the
one known tried-and-true method of luring
the Old Man back: Tempting it with the prospect
of causing even more suffering.
In order to do this, Foundation personnel
take one of the aforementioned Class D personnel
and begin inducing extreme pain by breaking
a major bone or slicing a tendon every twenty
minutes.
The victim’s agonized screams are then played
over the facility’s intercom, acting as
bait for the pain-loving Old Man.
The screams echo through the facility’s
otherwise silent halls, as the mutilated corpse
of Agent Resnick falls from a new scorch mark
on the ceiling.
The Old Man can hear the sounds of suffering
ringing out through the air around him, and
he can barely contain his excitement over
the prospect of a new plaything.
The snapped femurs, the torn Achilles tendons,
it was all too good to miss.
Having had its twisted fun with the security
officers and observers, SCP-106 wandered back
to its containment cell, where a new screaming
victim awaited.
The other security officers, containment specialists,
and scientists evacuated the area, leaving
the Old Man alone with his prey.
While the unfortunate Class D was left to
his fate, the rest of the staff commenced
clean up procedures, which mainly involved
wiping the brown and black mucus from the
walls.
It would probably be at least another month
before anything like this happened again,
and new personnel would be transferred over
to the facility to replace the fallen.
All in all, just another night at The SCP
Foundation.
