Tension and Release

SCP-2006 was outside. He didn’t quite know how or why he was outside. But, in the spur of an hour, a red alarm had gone off, the doors had opened, and he had somehow made it into the surrounding forest unsupervised. SCP-2006 laughed menacingly in response to his new location. It was finally time, he thought, to scare the world, to spook every civilian, and to terrorize the minds of humanity. The feeble brains of humankind are no match to the unspeakable horror of Ro-Man! Or, at least, he could startle them from behind. Surprise and horror together, he had learned, made the ultimate fear.

The bumbling ape-bodied robot trudged through the thick forest. At first annoyed by the mud messing up his clean fur, he realized that the mud would only make him more disgusting, more creepy, more scary than before! He didn’t bother dusting it off after this thought. As he walked, his foot snapped on a branch, and a nearby deer looked in his direction. Only after a few seconds did the wide-eyed creature turn around and scram swiftly out of the monster’s view. He knew his tactics were working.

After a few hours or so of slowly marching through the woods and screaming at turtles, the fearsome beast found himself on solid ground, a sidewalk. SCP-2006 was delighted; a sidewalk always led to houses and houses always led to people and people always led to chances of scaring the living daylights out of them! He took a left, the scariest of directions.

After a moment or two of walking, he had found his target, multiple targets in fact, all of whom wore various masks, outfits, and other arrangements to hide their true identities. SCP-2006 hadn’t a clue as to why they dressed themselves as such, but he knew one thing. No mask is strong enough to hide from the fear of Ro-Man.

Slowly but surely, he crept up behind the pack of kids. He was five feet behind them, four feet, three feet, two feet, one foot…BOO! The kid in front of him dropped a bag that they had been holding, numerous sweets and confections spilling out. The kid stepped forwards a bit, startled, before staring back at the monster, the child’s face painted a pale white with sharp, plastic fangs to match.

“Come on, man, you made me drop my candy!”, said the child in a squeaky, annoyed voice.

“THE CONSEQUENCE OF YOUR CANDY DROPPING BARES NO MATCH TO MY POWER! BE AFRAID, HUMAN!” screamed back SCP-2006, waving his hands in the air and jumping up and down.

“Do you know this guy?” questioned another child, wearing a Spiderman costume.

“I have no clue. I suppose this is why they tell you stranger danger,” said the vampire in response. The whole group laughed.

“Was I not scary, children? All I want is to be scary,” said SCP-2006 in a quieter, more depressed tone.

“If that’s your job, then you suck at it. Come on guys, let’s get out of here before this guy eats our brains!” said the vampire. The kids then ran away, fake screaming before loudly giggling amongst themselves. SCP-2006 was devastated.

“My whole life is a lie,” said the once mighty beast, now desecrated by a group of snarky kids, “What will it take to be scary again?”

Almost like magic, he heard the words “Trick-or-Treat!” sound from the group of kids he had attempted to terrorize. He looked down the sidewalk and saw them wait in front of a door, tapping their toes while checking their watches. Eventually, a woman emerged from the door.

“Why hello, childr- OH MY GOODNESS! Aren’t you the scariest vampire I ever did see!” said the adult, with an exaggerated tone. To SCP-2006, this sounded like genuine fear.

“Rawr, I’m a vampire, I’m going to suck your blood! Bleh-bleh!” exclaimed the child in an awful Transylvanian accent.

“Oh my oh my, I’m going to die of fright! Please, take this candy and go away, evil spirit. Oh, and the rest of your friends as well,” shouted the adult. The kids thanked the woman and walked on over to the next house.

SCP-2006 had an idea. He had heard of vampires before, ones like Dracula and Nosferatu, but he had been taught that they were old news. It seemed that he was being lied to. It also seemed that the scariest of creatures weren’t monstrous beasts but small creatures, like those children. He had his idea down. He transformed into a small, pale humanoid, resembling a human child, completely naked, blood dripping from the mouth with pointed ears, sunken eyes, and sharp claws and teeth. He jumped up and down with excitement before getting on all fours and quickly crawling to the house the kids were at.

The crawling creep knocked on the door, and hanged from above the door frame. The woman from before came out.

“Hello? Anyone there?” There was a silence. “Damn ki-”

“PREPARE TO FACE THE WRATH OF DEMONS, PUNY MORTAL” screamed SCP-2006, jumping out in front of the adult, before giving off a high-pitched screech. The adult fainted in fright, falling back into the house.

“Hahahahahaha, I gave you quite a scare, didn’t I?” There was no response from the lady. “Ha, frozen in fear, aren’t you?” There was still no response. “…I’m just gonna go on to the next house, alright? Have a nice day, m’am.” He left the house, the lady still unmoving.

He went from door to door, scaring each and every adult, or child if they were available, in the neighborhood. This was the time of SCP-2006’s life. He finally got to live out his life’s purpose, his only purpose, to scare as many people as possible, in the best way possible. Could he have perhaps found the best form, better than even Ro-Man? That seemed to be the case. Eventually, he caught up with the kids who were previously unimpressed with his method of spooking others.

“Hey children, I’m back and scarier th-”

SCP-2006’s statement was cut short by the children running away, this time screaming for real and sprinting as fast as possible. SCP-2006 laughed in delight. Eventually, he sat down on a tree branch to take a break. He had been scaring people since 6 PM; now it was 10:30 PM. Now was the time for a deserved rest. Yet, just as he was about to lay down and fall asleep, something caught the corner of his eye.

It was a house. It was dark, in shambles, covered in graffiti, yet it seemed to welcome more than repel. SCP-2006 was drawn to it, yet at the same time unnerved by it. The house seemed to pull him in, imperceivable tentacles dragging him closer and closer to the door. SCP-2006 had no physical reason to be afraid; there wasn’t any visible monster or threat that could scare him, and nothing could physically harm him.

Yet, he could sense something was wrong, something was utterly terrifying about the house. It wasn’t something you could see, hear, taste, smell, or feel, it was something that only existed in the your mind. SCP-2006 thought of the word for it. Dread, perhaps? Maybe suspense? Unknowing? Unknowing. Unknown. The fear of the unknown. The knowledge of uncertainty, the acknowledgement that anything may happen. In this house, there was no certainty, no knowing of what may happen. It was filled and filled and filled with unknown. And SCP-2006 was afraid.

When SCP-2006 walked out of the house, at 3:00 AM, he was met with a number of highly armed soldiers, researchers, and field agents, all prepared for the worst. Yet SCP-2006 simply walked out, his form changed back to Ro-Man, and didn’t say a word. He walked into the temporary containment truck, along with a number of confused MTF-members, their guns still pointed at the thing at all times, and was driven back to Site-118, eventually contained once again in his cell.

As the sun rose on Site-118, this time without a missing anomaly, Site Director Owings and Researcher Louef got together for a meeting.

“So, Louef, any progress on 2006?”

“Sir, all he does is sit in the corner of his cell. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t move, he won’t do anything. In the last 3 hours, we’ve poked him with sticks, we’ve played frequencies in his cell that would drive any man mad, we’ve shown him numerous bad sci-fi flics, nothing can get him to move.

“The only way to ensure he’s contained properly is to keep him in his current form. I know it has been difficult, but we gotta keep trying.”

“Sir, with all due respect, we know SCP-2006 learned something last night. We just don’t know what.”

“And I’m assuming you have at least some idea as to why this is.”

“He’s evolved, not in the physical but in the mental sense. He knows now that any monster, deity, or what have you can and will become stale. But, from what I can guess, he knows that primal fear never evolves. Sir?”

“Yes, Louef?”

“Have you ever seen the Shining?”

“Most certainly, yes.”

“You know that scene where Wendy is going through Jack’s papers, all saying the same thing, and Jack is slowly creeping up on her?”

“Yes.”

“Sir, SCP-2006 knows suspense. Lying in the corner, he has become Jack, and we’re all Wendy. He knows what he’s going to do, he’s slowly creeping up on us, while we all scramble around cluelessly and wait. We have no idea what he’s going to do, but with all this tension being built up, we know that he needs to release it at some point.”

“We’ve all feared he’d become a nuclear holocaust, or a large-scale genocide, or something else horrible.”

“But we’ve never feared that he’d become horror itself.”

There was a tense silence in the meeting room. Researcher Louef broke it.

“Prepare the site for anything. The tension will release any moment.”