 Item No. 6034 Level 2 Restricted Containment Class Keter Disruption Class Ecchi Risk Class Critical Special Containment Procedures SCP-6034's site in Burden, France is to be patrolled by Foundation security staff at all times. Civilians approaching the area are to be prevented from entering under the cover story that the trenches in the area may still contain unexploded munitions. The site is to be garrisoned with two full companies of security staff at all times. Once per month, a full company of MTF Iota-58, the Doughboys, is to be deployed inside of SCP-6034-1. After a one-month tour of duty, all surviving members of the deployment team at return are to be debriefed and provide the necessary psychological and medical treatment. Any SCP-6034-2 entities that enter the Earth's side of the trench from SCP-6034-1 are to be terminated immediately, regardless of their faction affiliation. Description SCP-6034 is a surviving World War I-era trench originally dug by the French Second Army in 1916. If any living being travels through the trench system for over two kilometers, they will experience a reduction in color vision as they enter the extra-dimensional space designated SCP-6034-1. If the living being continues forward, eventually the trenches will branch off in a twisting pattern as their vision is continually reduced. When they no longer are capable of seeing any colors at all, they will begin to hear gunfire, screams, and sounds of machinery, though all these sounds will be muted. In addition, any technologically advanced-equipment entrance carry with them will be replaced with an inferior device of similar usage. For instance, a digital camera will be replaced with an early model of film camera. If the organisms continue through the trenches, they are likely to encounter the various denizens of SCP-6034-1, collectively referred to as SCP-6034-2. SCP-6034-2 are all engaged in an armed conflict within and outside the trenches. Addendum 1 Discovery, September 4th, 2021 Forward The following is a written statement from Louise Delphine, an urban explorer who became lost inside SCP-6034-1. She approached a local gendarmerie with her experience and was picked up by embedded Foundation agents. This report led to the site's initial containment. Louise's statement, when I got inside, the first thing I noticed was how quiet everything was. No crickets, no wind, nothing. I tried calling out to see if anyone had followed me inside, but my shout sounded like whispers. I felt incredibly alone. The lack of color really threw me. It was like walking around in an old movie. I walked for what felt like hours before I heard the noise. They were gunshots and shouting, but they were wrong somehow. It didn't echo the way they should. I tried to walk towards the loudest noise, creeping along the edge of the trenches, dreading every corner. Eventually I found something. It was some sort of octopus, I think, but the size of a man and draped in darkness. And it had masks. I couldn't count how many. They looked like those things from fancy parties. I don't know what they're called. It was standing over some sort of crocodile, I think, tearing at it with hooks at the end of its appendages. I think the crocodile was still breathing, at least at the start. I watched it frozen for over a minute as it tore its prey apart. Then something else attacked it. It was a machine, I think, at least partly. It moved on these little articulated treads, and it looked almost like a person. It had a face, at least, but it wasn't in the right place. It attacked the octopus with some kind of saw, but the octopus brought back. While this was happening, a man came and grabbed me. He was wearing an old gas mask and had a book clutched at his arm like a weapon. At first I fought him, but when I saw the look in his eyes through the glass, I realized he was actually trying to save me. The man brought me back through the trenches, and colors slowly seeped back into the world as we walked. Once we were back to a place I recognized, he finally spoke to me. He told me I should probably forget what I saw, but if I wanted to know more, I should ask for Jock at the library study du Grand Bourdon. He said Jock would show me a beautiful and terrible world. He may have saved my life, but I still didn't trust him, so I came to you instead. Closing Statement Ms. Delphine was given amnestic treatment and released following her report. The intelligence she provided revealed a serpent's hand's safe house within the library studied du Grand Bourdon. What the serpent's hand was doing inside SCP-6034-1 is unknown. Addendum 2 Exploration, September 6, 2021 Forward, after the site perimeter was secured, a five-man squad from MTF Lambda-5, White Rabbits, was deployed inside the trenches anomalous zone to perform a further investigation. Only one agent, Agent DuPont, returned from the scouting mission. The following is his personal unedited timeline of events, recorded manually via pencil and paper as his team traversed SCP-6034-1. Begin log, September 6, 2021, 835 As we entered the area, our electrons began to devolve until all we were left with was huge ancient cameras and World War I-era rifles. It was like something didn't want us to have them. Captain Shaw's radio was still functional, though, if massive. Shockingly, he even picked up a signal. It was grady, but it was a lot clearer and louder than anything else we heard in there. We were down to communicate with written notes and hand signs. The broadcast seemed to be giving out battle commands. We didn't have the equipment needed to pinpoint the broadcast location, so we pressed on. September 6, 2021, 923 We encountered a group of thaumaturgically active soldiers engaged in armed combat with a group of eight armed roughly humanoid creatures wearing masks. Not gas masks, Greek masks. It was pretty easy to figure out the soldiers were hand members, but, considering the surrounding hostile forces, a literally unspoken truce was struck. We fought the things back. It looked like we were doing well at first, but they just kept coming, streaming over the tops of the trenches, the razor wire cutting them, but not slowing them down. We lost Ringo and Kara in the assault. The hand lost three men as well. We didn't even beat them back. When things looked dire, the captain just pulled out a steel hand granada. He told me the name, and I thanked the heavens he knew how to use the thing, and blew the trench shut behind us. It gave us just enough time to run with our new friends in tow. September 6, 2021, 2232 With an exchange of notes, the hand members told us they could take us to the radio operator. Apparently he was the only person in 50 miles who could talk in his place. We couldn't trust him, but our path back was blocked and we appeared to have a common enemy. We kept listening to the radios we followed them through, sure enough the signal was getting clearer. Even with the volume in its lowest, it was the loudest thing in the trench. The smell of chemicals and rot billed the air as we traveled. We were passing corpses, some human, most not. I don't think I can list what they were with any detail though. They were all mangled, bad. Very few corpses were wearing masks. We made camp in a small bunker dug out of the sides of the trench. Even with our numbers reduced, it was cramped. Still, we posted centuries and got some sleep. My dreams were less than pleasant. September 7th, 2021, 9.57. The next morning, the hand told us they were sending up a signal. They piled up a group of corpses, lit them ablaze, and pricked their fingers to cast their own blood on fire. The smell was hoared. Though to be honest, the rest of us barely reacted. We weren't reacting to anything really. Everything about the trenches felt like it was sucking the life right out of us. Even the bags under the hand member's eyes, I think it was a common feeling. They told us to wait, and lacking any other real direction, we did. They said they had a friend tunneling towards us. That it would look strange, but it would be alright. They all lined up by the muddy edge of the trench, holding their arms out defensively when a giant worm chewed through the dirt behind them. We raised our guns, but the worm didn't attack. It had some sort of symbol on the top of its head, a seven-pointed star with diamond shapes in between the points. Apparently the captain knew the symbol. He gestured for us to lower our guns. The hand members rubbed a worm on the tip of its snout, mouth, on its front. The worm's maw opened wide. The hand members donned their gas mask and walked right inside. They gestured for us to follow. After some scribbling and gesturing, we eventually drew lots. I got the short straw. As I climbed into the worm, I looked back at the captain and Sergeant Whitney as the mouth slowly closed. I never saw them again. September 7th, 2021, 1159 I was in there for hours, clinging to the flesh on the side of the worm's mouth as it slipped backwards through the tunnel. It was completely dark inside, and I could smell the worm's last meal, even through my gas mask. Eventually, after an eternity inside that thing, its mouth opened. The hand and I dropped dripping into a room, and the worm left back through the tunnel. And then a miracle happened. I heard a voice. I don't know what I was expecting when I met the radio operator. I certainly wasn't expecting an 8-foot-tall humanoid vulture with bags under its eyes and half of its feathers missing. It told me it was a Wandsman, and that he could speak here for the same reason the hand could wield magic. The orthothans could feel the call of blood, and the mechanized could wield technology. He said he liked simple, controlled stories, and they were doing everything they could to fight him together. To stop him from reaching us. I tried to write down something, to ask what he was. The Wandsman just told me that some gods were defined by a presence, and others by an absence. Trying to make one the other was too risky. He told me of a one in my world to live, I needed to go back, to beg for reinforcements. He said he wasn't sure how much longer they would last, not with another crack in the trench. He rolled out a scroll on the makeshift desk in front of him. I couldn't tell you what it was, it hurt to look at. He said he couldn't just whisk me away from here, but he could find the crack I'd fallen through. He pulled out something else. It looked like a map of the trenches, though he drew some new paths on it as he looked it over. He showed it to one of the hand soldiers, who looked up at the bird and nodded grimly. He handed me an envelope. I don't know when he had time to write something, but I put it in my pack. Then he gestured for his men to follow, and they got their gear together. The bird thing handed the hand soldier the trench map, and gave him a salute. Then the soldier started marching down a tunnel and gestured for me to follow. I should have been terrified of the cave, the vulture and the worm, but somehow it was the same as I had felt since we'd arrived in this place. Still, I grit my teeth and marched back up to the surface. September 7th, 2021, 1636. The march through the tunnel was long and miserable. A rivulet of water had trickled into it, and the ground was soft at the best of times. I had brought one of those massive radios with me. I even turned it on to try and have the vulture's voice break up the silenced ones. But one of the soldiers, who at this point I was sure was their commander, turned it off after he heard the first crackle of static. He held a finger to his lips, and that was that. The march continued on in silence, with nothing but the flickering of the commander's oil lamp to guide us. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we surfaced. I didn't recognize the trench, but I could feel that we were close. The commander slipped cautiously over the edge of a trench with his binoculars and crouched back down immediately. Everyone readied their weapons. The commander passed me the binoculars and just for me to look. On the other side of the trench was something I don't know if I can properly describe. It was a parody of a tree, jet black and moving with something between branches and tentacles covered in thorns rising all around it. It had masks in place of leaves, all of which seemed to be staring at me at once. Nooses hung from his branches, hundreds of nooses. Many of them were occupied. The commander gestured for us to form up. When I came to join, he shook his head. He pulled out the map and pointed to it, then down in the direction of, well, the direction of home. I saluted him, he returned it, then he pulled the pen from an old pineapple grenade and I went sprinting for the exit. I couldn't hear what happened behind me, but I could feel the shockwaves and smell the burnt flesh. I didn't turn around, I ran and ran and I didn't stop until all the color was back. Then I could hear the wind again. Then I collapsed on the ancient trenches floor. End log. Addendum 3. Letter Letter, dear foundation, if you're reading this, it means that kid of yours made it through and you know what's going on here. I'll get right to the point. If you care about the earth at all, you need to start sending troops to this front. I know you and us and all of our allies aren't exactly on speaking terms at the best of times, but what's happening here is bigger than all of us. He can't be allowed to take this place. I can't even promise you we can stop him, but we have to try, and we have a hell of a lot of a better chance at that working together. It's really as simple as that. LB