 Item Number – SCP-472 Object Class – Euclid Special Containment Procedures – SCP-472 is to be kept in the center of an empty locked cell measuring 37 meters by 37 meters, or 122 by 122 feet. All personnel wishing to enter for research purposes must undergo a psychological evaluation and submit a research request before being permitted entry. Personnel should not remain within 18 meters or 60 feet of the stone for more than 5 minutes, without being directly monitored by security personnel. Update 472-1 – No personnel exposed to SCP-472 through Stage 6 of its effects may be allowed more than 4 consecutive minutes of further exposure without direct approval of site command. Update 472-2 – Once every 60 days, one D-class personnel must be exposed to SCP-472 for a period of between 10 and 27 minutes. Update 472-3 – Due to biomass loss, no personnel may be exposed to SCP-472 more than once in a 48-hour period without explicit approval by Dr. A. Jones. Description – SCP-472 is a red garnet of the pyrope spesartite variety of unusual size – 1.8 carat. The phrase, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the lord looketh on the heart, has been engraved in 2 mm, 0.08 inches, high lettering on the stone's surface. Relevance of the phrase is unknown. When any organism possessing a heartbeat passes within an 18-meter or 60-foot radius of SCP-472, that subject will begin to hear the distant beating of a heart within their head. The heartbeat heard directly corresponds with the subject's own heartbeat, with the frequency of the palpitations increasing or decreasing with the pulse of the subject. Prolonged exposure causes a variety of additional psychological effects. Stage 1 Onset – 5 to 7 minutes. Low-level feelings of unease and anxiety. Effects cease immediately on vacating area. Stage 2 Onset – 6 to 21 minutes. Gradually increasing feelings of anxiety and paranoia. Effects decrease on vacating area and cease within 5 minutes. Stage 3 Onset – 18 to 27 minutes. High-level feelings of anxiety and paranoia. Subject begins to hallucinate, reporting seeing the world around them tinged with red and hearing vague whispering noises. 27% of subjects also report strong feelings of guilt. Effects decrease within 20 minutes of vacating area and cease within 60 minutes. Stage 4 Onset – 34 to 59 minutes. Previous symptoms increase. Illusionations become more vivid and visual. Frequent hallucinations include, rivulets of blood trailing down the walls, images of dead bodies, thumping, screaming, and ambulatory corpse-like figures. 65% of subjects rendered mentally incapable of leaving the influence of SCP-472. Effects decrease within 60 minutes of vacating area and cease within 3 hours. Stage 5 Onset – 55 to 69 minutes. Previous symptoms increase. 100% of subjects rendered mentally incapable of leaving the influence of SCP-472. 38% of subjects exposed enter a state of catatonia. This state has a 76% fatality rate if subjects are not removed from SCP-472's area of influence. Effects decrease within 6 hours of vacating area and cease within 24 hours. Stage 6 Onset – 361 to 723 plus minutes. Surviving subjects now capable of leaving the influence of SCP-472, though many do not realize this unless prompted. Previous symptoms vary in degree of intensity and become sporadic, alternating with periods of lucidity indefinitely until subject leaves or is removed from the area. Effects cease within 24 hours of vacating area. SCP-472 was recovered from the mansion residence of a wealthy man living in Foundation investigators were alerted by local reports of hauntings by domestic staff after was hospitalized by a fall. Mobile Task Force Delta-5, Frontrunners, was assigned to investigate due to possible connection to ongoing projects. Investigation narrowed down the origin of the anomalous effects to SCP-472, which had been prominently displayed in its jewel collection. Origin of SCP-472 is under investigation. SCP-472 was located via reports from the so-called anomalous community from interfacing with Mobile Task Force Sigma-3, bibliographers. Initial theories from anomalous community sources categorized SCP-472 as a seal, containing an entity responsible for SCP-472's anomalous effects. However, further analysis has not supported this, rather indicating that SCP-472's appearance as a red garnet may be due to a fundamental perception error of unknown nature. Sources have not been able to confirm anything substantial about the origin or nature of SCP-472. Addendum 472-45 Effects of subsequent exposure Subjects previously exposed to SCP-472's effects experience a cumulative 10-20% increase in the speed of onset of certain SCP-472 effects with each additional exposure. Eventually, subjects will immediately begin experiencing symptoms at Stage 2 levels, with Stage 3 occurring within 5-10 minutes. Stages 4-5 then occur as normal. Time of onset of Stage 6 is not affected, and continues to occur no earlier than 361 minutes after initial exposure. Pollucinations begin to differ in nature when a subject is exposed to SCP-472 more than 1-5 times. Subjects report visions of a massive growing collection of skinless, organic material resembling animal and human organs, muscular structures, bones, though no recognizable bones, etc. join together in a fashion that does not occur in nature. All subjects report multiple hearts beating within the biomass, sometimes dotting its surface. After the fifth exposure, all subjects report seeing this, whether or not previous hallucinations remain present or superimposed. Additionally, interviews with multiple exposure subjects data-expunged. Anomalous information element. See Interview 472.0165B Interview Log 472.0165B Interviewed Janice Erickson Interviewer Pending unrelated evaluation, referred to as interviewer throughout log. Forward Interview held after recovery of SCP-472. Subject was part of Household Staff at the residence from which SCP-472 was recovered. Subject aware of SCP-472's existence and effects, but had to be informed that SCP-472 was specifically a garnet stone formerly located in B***** Jewelry Collection. Begin Log Interviewer Tell us how you first became aware of the stone's properties. Janice Erickson The Stone Or What The Stone Does Interviewer The Stone's Properties What It Does Janice Erickson Well, I- Alright, I'd always heard stories from people about how b***** manner was haunted. But, you know, I never believed in ghosts or haunting or any of that tripe. I still don't, I guess. I don't really know what to b*****, never mind. I wouldn't have taken the haunting stuff seriously anyway. Big old mansion with an old rich white dude who lives alone. Of course people are going to say it's haunted. People think everything's haunted. Subject pauses. Requests glass of water. Requests approved. Janice Erickson Anyway, I was right. The house was never haunted. It was just that room. Or I guess the stone. Interviewer How did you first enter W***'s employment? Janice Erickson One of my friends told me about the job posting. Mr. W*** is kind of creepy, okay? But he paid. The job offer was like three times what you can get anywhere else. My friend Elizabeth got hired with me. My sister Maddie was supposed to apply too, but she had a friend who was one of Mr. W***'s old staff before he went and fired everyone the time before. And they warned her not to go. She tried to talk me out of it, but I'm a single mom, okay? You don't pass that kind of thing up. Interviewer You said Mr. W*** has previously fired all members of his household staff. Janice Erickson Oh yeah, he did. I guess he did that every few months. Just fired most of the new people. He only kept a couple people for longer than that. Before me. But the last one of them died a few months after I was hired. Carla, her name was. Interviewer What do you know about the cause of Carla's death? Subject pauses Janice Erickson I don't know. She was old. Maybe it had nothing to do with the, um, haunting. I don't know. Maybe she was just old. Anyway, Mr. W*** hired me right away. I think he liked me. All the rest of the staff were new too, except for Carla. Interviewer When did you first encounter the stone's effect? Janice Erickson I didn't for a while. We were all assigned to clean different parts of the house. Carla wouldn't let us talk to each other in the house. Said Mr. W*** didn't like it. But, you know, some of us talked outside of the house. They mentioned a creepy feeling about the third floor atrium. The atrium was where Mr. W*** kept all his best things on display. There were hundreds of things in that room, you know? All these jewels and display cases and swords hanging on the walls. The whole room was kind of creepy though. It had these big glazed windows and this big glass roof that Mr. W*** kept totally covered up by black cloth. And there weren't many lights in there. You know, shadows everywhere. There was just no reason that room had to be so creepy. I think he made it that way because he was kind of a d*** actually. Never actually treated us like real people. I don't know. I'm sorry. What were we talking about? Interviewer. Your first exposure to the stone's effect. Janice Erickson. Oh, right. It was a month or two after I started working. Carla made me go find Marjorie. Had been assigned to clean the atrium that week. As soon as I got into the room, I heard this sound in my head. Like thump thump thump thump. I couldn't tell if it was far away or coming from inside my head. I was pretty creeped out by that. But what was I going to do? I told myself I was imagining it and went through the atrium to find Marjorie. I called for her and she doesn't respond. The lights were all low, like I said. And the room was like a maze with all the display cases and old things with curtains over them. Finally, I find her slumped over in back of one of the display cases. She looks at me, but it's like she doesn't really see me. She keeps muttering something about blood on the walls. But I look around and everything seems normal. Creepy? But normal. I'm still hearing the thump thump noise. And it's going faster. And I realize it's my own heart. Subject pauses for breath and takes a drink of water. Interviewer, continue, please. Janice Erickson. I dragged Marjorie out of there as fast as I could. And I felt fine after. I even felt a little silly. Marjorie got better after a while. Said she just had a bad day and she was sorry and it wouldn't happen again. She was never a friend of mine, so I didn't ask her any questions about it. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. After that, she took a week off from work. When she came back, she didn't want to go back to the atrium. Said it was a bad memory. Carla made her go back. Mr. Watt's orders apparently. After like 30 minutes or so, we hear her just screaming. Like she was being murdered. She came rushing down the stairs babbling about seeing dead bodies and they were looking at her. And she could see more blood on the walls and she wasn't imagining it this time. Carla made her calm down and took her into a room and ordered us out. They spent a while in there. When they came out, Marjorie left without speaking to us. Carla told us she'd quit and was given severance pay. Later on, one of the other maids told us Marjorie was paid to keep her mouth shut and move away. Later on, we heard she killed herself. I don't know if that's true or not. Is it true? Do you know anything about that? Interviewer. I'm sorry. That is classified information. Please continue. Janice Erickson. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know who was cleaning the atrium after that. Maybe nobody. I didn't really get on much with the other maids. None of them seemed to like me. A couple were friends with Elizabeth and she kept telling me things about the third floor atrium. Her friends said they'd heard from other people that the atrium was haunted because of everyone Mr. R. Killed to get all those valuable things on display in there. There was this creepy looking tapestry in there with skulls on it. African, I think. Covered one of the windows. Elizabeth and her friends were convinced this was haunted by the ghosts of some dead slaves or something. Interviewer. Where did they get that idea? Janice Erickson. I don't know. It was just something they heard. A month later, Elizabeth finally married her out of town fiance and moved away to after that, the other staff didn't talk to me. I never got assigned the atrium, but every so often I thought I heard the heartbeat when I got too close to that part of the third floor. Interviewer. You informed our agents that you'd had prolonged exposure to the stone yourself. How did that come about? Janice Erickson. Well, first off, I didn't know it was the stone. I thought it was the tapestry or just the room. One day, Mr. R went on one of his rampages. He did that now and then walked around the house yelling at all the maids and then going into empty rooms and yelling at no one. Then he fired everyone. Everyone except me, Carla and some ridiculously young girl with big tits who worked in the kitchen. Interviewer. Why do you believe he didn't fire you? Janice Erickson. I don't know. I wish I knew. Maybe it was because none of the other staff talked to me. Maybe just coincidence. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. I ended up taking on most of the other's duties. Then Carla assigned me to clean the atrium. I wasn't happy about it, but I was now getting paid even more because I was doing so much more and I didn't want to get dismissed. So I go into the atrium again. Subject pauses again, takes another drink. Janice Erickson. And I heard my heart beating, of course. Again, I saw the tapestry with the skulls on it and I felt like they were watching me. I spent five minutes dusting in there and started freaking out. I thought maybe I'd end up like Marjorie and I just ran out of the room. I felt better pretty quick. But I had to go in again, you know? Apparently Carla hadn't been making anyone clean up in there since Marjorie left. So there was dust settled over everything. I didn't want to get fired and I didn't want to quit and I didn't want to make this stupid teenager in the kitchen's clean haunted room all by herself. So I had to go back. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. This happened a few times. I couldn't stand there long without freaking out. Sometimes everything would turn red and I'd feel like I was suffocating. I'd hear whispers everywhere, though I couldn't understand what they were saying. I kept thinking they were the ghosts. Noticing I was there, telling each other someone was here. I remembered Marjorie talking about blood on the walls and she'd only been in there half an hour. I couldn't stop looking at that goddamn skull tapestry. Eventually I figured, well, Mr. doesn't even come in this room anymore. He's so old and sick and really, if the tapestry was haunted by dead slaves, I'd be doing him a favor. Wasn't even that big and couldn't be worth that much, you know? So one night I... Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. You aren't going to tell him any of this, are you? Interviewer. That is extremely unlikely. Please continue. Janice Erickson. Like I said, I had no idea it was the stupid rock making all this happen. So I took the tapestry down. When I took it down, I saw blood on the walls behind it and I really freaked out. I was just going to hide somewhere, but after seeing the blood, I took the goddamn thing out back and I burned it. It really stunk when it burned. When it was gone, I felt better. I stayed out of the atrium for a week, just in case. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. When I went in there again, of course, I felt the heart beat again. I was pissed. I told myself I was imagining things and I felt really guilty about burning the tapestry. Like, guiltier than you can imagine. Guiltier than I'd ever been since I was a kid and accidentally killed my pet goldfish. I spaced out in the room and just kept cleaning and crying. Subject pauses, attempting to compose self. Janice Erickson. Then, I heard faraway screaming and I stopped dusting and saw the blood trickling slowly down the walls. My eyes were all blurry with tears and I tried to wipe them away and my hand came back bloody. I saw bodies, naked, dead, rotting things, mostly half hidden behind display cases. There was this dead dog and it was almost completely rotted and covered in maggots, but was still trying to move and looked so horrible I couldn't even scream. I tried to run, I really did, but I couldn't make my legs move. I kept trying to yell for help, but I couldn't. I was so sure I was going to die. This lasted hours. I think I passed out and woke up a couple times. After a while, I saw this corpse standing around. Staring at the walls, then out of nowhere he was staring at me. I think that was as close as I got to screaming because I really tried then. He never got close to me, but he kept staring. He disappeared and then reappeared somewhere else in the room, staring at me again. I saw others too, but they were on the other side of the room doing, I don't know, something horrible probably. And the blood never stopped leaking from the walls. Sometimes I thought I was covered in it. Sometimes it disappeared, and then it would come back with new corpses. The thumping and screaming from far away never stopped. Subject pauses. Janice Erickson. After a long, long time, the corpses kind of faded and the room stopped seeming so red. It felt like being half woken up. I realized I could move my legs again and I got out of that room as fast as I could. I'd spent a little over 12 hours in there, alone. Interviewer, did you return? Janice Erickson. No, I never did. The next day I went directly to Carla and told her I quit, but she immediately offered me double the high salary I was already being paid. Said Mr. W. W. liked me, liked how quiet I was, and probably wouldn't be hiring anyone new for the next few weeks. I tried to tell her about the room and she'd clammed up and said something about fumes and that she'd look into it. I went home and held my daughter for a long time, and thought about what kinds of jobs I could get somewhere else. But the money, it was just too good. I convinced myself that I must have inhaled something weird, maybe some kind of delayed reaction from burning the tapestry, or maybe that was the revenge from the tapestry for burning it, and everything would be fine now. So, I went back. I told Carla I'd take the offer if I didn't have to go in the atrium again. She wasn't really happy about it, but agreed. And you know what? Everything was fine for the next two and a half months. Interviewer. What happened after two and a half months? Janice Erickson. I was taking a nap on a couch on the second floor at the end of my shift before going home. I'd gotten comfortable, I guess. I was having anxious dreams and woke up to hear whispering, familiar whispering, just like I'd heard in the atrium the other nights. I couldn't believe what was happening. I thought maybe I was still dreaming. Then the walls started bleeding, and I couldn't walk again. That's when they appeared. Subject pauses a long time. Interviewer. Please continue. Who appeared? Subject appears to be fighting back tears. Janice Erickson. The corpse from before staring at me. He was with my sister. She didn't look hurt, but there was something off about her. I was sure she was dead, and then they started talking to me. Interviewer. What did they say? Janice Erickson. They said I'd make it to the other side, that I only needed to take another step, and that I'd know everything. My sister kept repeating something. God looks on the heart. God looks on the heart. Then I felt like I was hallucinating or dreaming, and they kept disappearing, coming back, saying the same things. Then I kept seeing the corpse man from before staring, and then laughing, saying, you don't mean anything. This doesn't mean anything. You're going to die, and nothing you are will matter. Then I saw him with Carla, and Carla looked half rotted. He was back to saying what he was saying before. How I only needed to take another step, and I'd know everything, and trying to promise me something. But I couldn't make out what over the thumping and screaming, which kept getting louder and louder. Carla didn't say anything. She just looked at me with a blank face. She started mouthing something as the room got redder and redder. I'm bad at reading lips, but eventually I figured out what she was trying to say. It wants the foundation. Don't let them feed it. I don't. Interviewer. Wait. Repeat your last sentence. Janice Erickson. Carla was mouthing. It wants the foundation. Don't let them feed it. Interviewer. Do you know what she meant by that? Janice Erickson. I have no idea what any of them meant by any of that. Why? Interviewer. Disregard that. Proceed. Janice Erickson. Okay. Well, after that, I managed to make myself move, and I got the hell out of the house. By the time I got home, I felt okay, just really shaken. I called my sister and told her that I'd had a really bad dream. I really expected her to be dead, but she was perfectly fine, and she's still fine. But Carla, I found out that Carla was dead. They say she passed away in her sleep, in her quarters at the manor. So maybe that wasn't really my sister I saw, but it really was Carla? Maybe it killed her. Or maybe she died and it took her soul, I guess, and then came after me. I just don't know. Mr. Fell and ended up in the hospital the very next night. So is that a coincidence? I don't know. Maybe he'll say something to you. He sure hasn't said anything to anyone else. And that's all. Really? After that, you guys came along, so you know the rest better than me. Interviewer, thank you for your time, Ms. Erickson. End log. Closing statement. Subject administered amnestics and released. Addendum 472-78. Area of influence conditional increase. When no subjects have been exposed to SCP-472 for more than five minutes, within a period of two months, its area of influence begins increasing by a rate of 0.5 meters or 1.6 feet per hour. Expansion is temporary, reverting back to the original 18 meters or 60 feet area of effect once a subject undergoes exposure. Addendum 472-130. Possible physical biomass presence. Further testing with subjects exposed multiple times to SCP-472, data expunged. Indicating that the garnet stone classified as SCP-472 may in fact be the only visible portion of a much larger and continually increasing biomass. Existing in so-called trans-dimensional data expunged. Metaphor of the tip of the iceberg. Object class pending review. Additional containment measures pending review. Addendum 472-135. Subject biomass alteration. Data expunged. Subsequent testing of subjects exposed to SCP-472 indicates that all subjects experienced a 0.01-1.35% decrease in biomass with each exposure to SCP-472. Subjects remain unaware of this event. Containment procedures updated. Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-471. A satellite. Right now. Or for the complete course. Watch this playlist.