Working at the SCP Foundation might just be
the most exciting job a person can ask for. And by exciting, we mean that if you work
as an SCP field operative, researcher, or Mobile Task Force member, you’re much more
likely to die a horrific death on the job than, say, a plumber. But at least you get the honor of proudly
saying that you’re the first line of defense between the normal world and the terrifying
domain of the anomalous. Well, unless you’re one of The IT guys. Then, your work life is likely as tedious
and uneventful as the computer tech guy working on the Geek Squad. But nothing is ever normal when it comes to
the SCP Foundation, where even the person whose job is helping other staff members reset their email passwords may
run into the supernatural. Welcome to the strange and frightening world
of Pattern Screamers, and specifically, SCP-000. SCP-000 was first discovered completely on
accident by Technical Researcher David Rosen, a man intrinsically connected to the Pattern
Screamers lurking on the SCP Foundation computer database. Technical Researcher Rosen is actually somewhat
of a celebrity around the Foundation staff due to the fact that he’s so perfectly mediocre
at what he does. His job as the glorified IT guy at the SCP
Foundation was previously held by the more qualified Researcher Patrick Gephart, but
Rosen was called in to replace him after Gephart mysteriously disappeared while on the job. Since 2012, Rosen has been Site 19’s user
level tech support wizard - but the best thing that can really be said about his job competency
is that he’s got a hundred percent attendance record. He seems to live out of his office, which
is described as the filthiest at the whole Foundation. Every inch of the floor is covered in old,
broken computer parts, and the air is stale with dust and the twin odors of sweat and
lithium grease. It’s a place so inhospitable that the Foundation
has seriously considered bottling the stench as a kind of chemical deterrent. While Technical Director Rosen isn’t good
at his job, per se, he isn’t technically bad enough at it to justify the time and resources
it would take to replace him. But the worst part about Rosen isn’t his
performance, it’s his truly rotten attitude. He’s universally described by his colleagues
as being rude, grumpy, and combative - with patience that’s far too short for someone
working in tech support. And while Rosen does have a real fear that
the ghost of Researcher Gephart is stalking him, he was about to have his first actual
brush with the supernatural. It all started when he began receiving automated
repair tickets for SCP-000 - a file that had no reason to exist. As any long-time follower of the SCP Foundation
will know, the universal designation for the first cluster of SCPs to be discovered is
SCP-001. There is no SCP-000. It simply doesn’t exist. And when Rosen first found the file lurking
on the database, he found that it was filled with worthless nonsense. The object class was recorded as “NULL.” The Special Containment Procedures read, “Error:
Field CONTAINMENT_PROCEDURES does not exist.” And the mess of a Description simply read,
“Internal system error: Field undefined. Please contact system administrator” over
and over again, becoming more mangled and nonsensical each time. Technical Director Rosen, who could never
resist an opportunity to complain, decided to leave an angry administrator’s note on
the useless file. He claimed that this pile of junk data was
sending out pointless repair tickets because of its broken syntax, clogging up the system
and preventing him from doing actual work on meaningful files. He assumed that this was all down to the database
not knowing how to react to having files logged with insufficient information and he suppressed
all future repair tickets from SCP-000 before declaring the matter over and done with. What the pig-headed Technical Director didn’t
realize was that he was suppressing a call for help from an entity trapped in the white
space below the article itself. It was a being born into a pure, white world
of absolute nothingness. An entity with no name and no place, but it
was somehow capable of thought. Its panicked inner monologue is readable in
the hidden text which takes the form of a rambling stream of consciousness. The being first described coming to life in
this empty world with no memories of where it was or even how it got there. It spent what could have been years exploring
the empty wasteland. Occasionally, it would see horrific monsters
pop up around it, but only for a split second. The entity continued to wander and little
by little, the existential dread mounted, as it realized that it may truly be stuck
here in oblivion forever. The entity only had one word to go on - a word repeated by some of
the monsters it encountered: “Foundation.” The entity had no idea what this “Foundation”
even was, but it grew to hate and fear it. Was this “Foundation” the one that trapped
it here? The entity had all the time in the world to
speculate on it. Eventually, the entity found its voice. Like any sentient creature in trouble, it
began to call for help, eventually screaming, just hoping someone would notice it. These pleas likely translated into the frequent
IT repair tickets - a coded SOS, an attempt to show that everything was not as it appeared
on the SCP-000 file. Perhaps the entity may have found help if
Researcher Gephart was still working at the Foundation, but instead, its cries fell on
the ignorant ears of Technical Director Rosen. It may as well have been speaking to a brick
wall. Rosen, who had all the investigative zeal
of Paul Blart: Mall Cop, made sure that these cries would never lead to the entity’s freedom
when he suppressed the repair tickets. He had trapped the entity in a private, blank
hell, forever, hating a life it didn’t choose and could never escape. A relentless existential nightmare. This is the gist of your average Pattern Screamer. Pattern Screamers are a perfect example of
literally making something out of nothing. They are often a kind of floating consciousness
created from nothing, trapped in pockets of nothingness between the fabric of reality,
driven mad by the purgatory like nature of their existence. They’re less living entities and more conceptual
constructs - pure ideas - that just happen to be self-aware of their own existence in
their private, hellish voids. The SCP-000 file - a file for an anomaly that
doesn’t exist, and thus, had no reason to exist - is a perfect breeding ground for a
Pattern Screamer. But sadly, for the Pattern Screamer in question,
Technical Director Rosen had no idea. This isn’t the only time that Rosen has
run into a Pattern Screamer without even knowing, either. And just like the first case, he was no help
whatsoever. This one began with SCP-S, an otherwise empty
file containing only this image. Director Winters, a Foundation administrator,
wondered why this file even existed. Enter Technical Researcher Rosen, filled with
equal parts sarcasm and insubordination. He gave a condescending reply to Director
Winters, saying that the file was there to test the filing system, and the image was
likely just a placeholder. Winters never should have been on the page
anyway, according to Rosen. Director Winters was annoyed at Rosen’s
typically rude tone, and asked him to make the purpose of the article clearer in the
article itself. In response, Rosen did as he was told, filling
in the article in the most sarcastic manner possible. The whole thing was essentially a middle finger
to Director Winters for having the audacity to even ask. Rosen signed off with:
“There, finished. I certainly hope I have been clear enough
to anyone who may have accidentally accessed this page through what I am sure is no fault of their own, so we won't
have any more ‘incredibly competent’ directors bugging the tech team
about this page.” And once again, Technical Researcher Rosen
was too busy being a rude, unpleasant jerk to notice he was practically staring another
Pattern Screamer in the face. This Pattern Screamer - or rather, hive of
Pattern Screamers - were trapped even deeper than the one in SCP-000. This one was hidden in the very source code
of SCP-S, where a chorus of enraged voices screamed the following: “PRETEND, MONSTER, JUST FOR A MINUTE PRETEND YOU WERE THE SIZE OF AN AMOEBA, DWARFED
BY EVEN THE SMALLEST OF BUGS PRETEND YOU DIDN'T HOLD THE WORLD IN A GLASS
CAGE. PRETEND YOU WERE THE ONE BEING HELD BY SOMETHING
GREATER THAN YOURSELF. WOULD YOU STILL BE LAUGHING AT YOUR "TRIUMPHS"? WOULD YOU STILL FEEL PRIDE IN WHAT YOU WERE,
EVEN AS PITIFULLY SMALL AS YOU WOULD BE? OF COURSE YOU WOULD, BECAUSE YOU ARE ARROGANT
AND STUPID IF YOU HAVEN'T GUESSED YET, WE HATE YOU.” This Pattern Screamer is clearly more aware
of its pitiful station in existence than the 000 Pattern Screamer, and as a result, it’s
not so much depressed as it is furious. Though at this point you’ve probably figured
out that even the entities who have the most casual of brushes with Technical Researcher
Rosen end up getting infuriated. But while you may have gotten the impression
that all Pattern Screamers are sad little entities worthy of our sympathy and pity,
there’s at least one Pattern Screamer that’s actually incredibly dangerous. This is SCP-3930: The ultimate Pattern Screamer,
in terms of both size and effect. It’s an anomaly so strange it defies typical
containment classification, and it bears a Level 5 Security Lock - meaning only those
on the level of the legendary O5 Council are cleared to even know about it. Its greatest containment procedure is the
preservation of the very idea that SCP-3930 does not exist, because the alternative has
terrifying implications for all involved. SCP-3930 is a 1 km area in Russia that is
filled with non-existence. To even call it a white void would be inaccurate,
because it implies the existence of the color white and the existence of the concept of
a void. Nothing exists within SCP-3930, and anyone
who directly observes 3930 runs the risk of actively increasing its power. That’s why Special Containment Procedures
dictate that anyone who observes 3930 must be forced to walk into it afterwards, which
results in them ceasing to exist. They’re destroyed on the deepest level that
anything can be destroyed. The very idea of them ceases to be. Another reason that SCP-3930 is so special
is that, because it’s the largest area of nothing in existence interacting directly
with our reality, it’s the only place that a huge number of Pattern Screamers can be
directly observed by humans. They’re described as being like sentient
hallucinations. One researcher suggests that these Pattern
Screamers are created by the way the psyche shatters when brought into contact with raw,
true nothingness. The nothingness acts like a “hateful mirror”
to our worst thoughts, reflecting them back at us in the forms of restless Screamers. Regardless of what they actually are, one
thing is for sure, coming into direct contact with one of these Screamers is a harrowing
experience. In the end, it just goes to show that Pattern
Screamers are a complex entity - they can range from microscopic to massive, from pitiful
to downright terrifying. And the sad reality is that, in either case,
nothing can really be done to stop them. It’s just as impossible to stop the nothingness
existing in SCP-3930 as it is to save the entity trapped in the white spaces of SCP-000. Maybe the best option is to actually be more
like Technical Director Rosen. Keep your head down, focus instead on your
own petty worries, and bask in the warm bliss that can only come with having no idea what
you’re dealing with. The one downside is that this may make you
a pretty lousy IT guy. Now check out “SCP-5000 Why? - The Full Story Compilation” and “SCP-001
- Which Is The Real 001?” for more fascinating mysteries from the SCP Foundation!