WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.329 --> 00:00:02.810 A doctor frantically writes in his journal: 00:00:02.810 --> 00:00:07.189 It’s almost impossible to believe everything that’s transpired has taken place in such 00:00:07.189 --> 00:00:08.550 a short amount of time. 00:00:08.550 --> 00:00:13.000 It all began three days ago… 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:15.669 It was just another day down in the mines. 00:00:15.669 --> 00:00:21.109 A worker was drilling into a seam of coal when suddenly there was an issue with the 00:00:21.109 --> 00:00:22.109 rig. 00:00:22.109 --> 00:00:24.480 From what I have gathered, it sounds like the drill bit exploded due to some kind of 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:29.140 mechanical defect, sending shards of metal flying throughout the tunnel. 00:00:29.140 --> 00:00:34.150 The worker was lucky that none of the large pieces struck him, as they surely would have 00:00:34.150 --> 00:00:35.150 been fatal. 00:00:35.150 --> 00:00:39.540 He had, though, still been grazed by a piece of shrapnel from the ruined drill bit, and 00:00:39.540 --> 00:00:42.530 it had left a deep cut across his upper arm. 00:00:42.530 --> 00:00:46.710 Other miners who were working nearby heard the commotion and quickly came to his aid. 00:00:46.710 --> 00:00:50.260 They applied a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood and helped him to the mine shaft 00:00:50.260 --> 00:00:53.650 elevator for the long ride to the surface. 00:00:53.650 --> 00:00:57.190 Once they reached the safety of daylight, they brought the injured man to the onsite 00:00:57.190 --> 00:01:00.030 medical clinic where I was on duty at the time. 00:01:00.030 --> 00:01:04.730 I cleaned the wound since there was a substantial amount of coal dust that had gotten inside, 00:01:04.730 --> 00:01:06.690 before suturing and bandaging it. 00:01:06.690 --> 00:01:11.870 The miner was sent to his bunkhouse to recover and I thought that would be the end of it. 00:01:11.870 --> 00:01:15.220 Of course it was only the beginning. 00:01:15.220 --> 00:01:20.140 Roughly twenty-four hours later, the same miner presented himself to me once again. 00:01:20.140 --> 00:01:25.360 I asked about his injury and he explained that while his arm was fine, that he now felt 00:01:25.360 --> 00:01:28.120 like he might be coming down with an illness. 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:33.060 His symptoms included a runny nose, a cough, and body aches, so my assumption was that 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:36.950 he’d simply had some bad luck and caught a cold that just so happened to coincide with 00:01:36.950 --> 00:01:38.700 being injured on the job. 00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:42.940 I sent him to his bunk once again, telling him that he wouldn’t be able to work, and 00:01:42.940 --> 00:01:46.060 should instead use the day to rest and recover. 00:01:46.060 --> 00:01:49.909 The next day, I was once again in the clinic when my phone rang. 00:01:49.909 --> 00:01:53.760 It wasn’t the sick miner, but instead his supervisor. 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:57.590 The miner hadn’t shown up for his shift that morning and he asked for me to go check 00:01:57.590 --> 00:02:00.710 on him, since he knew he hadn’t been feeling well. 00:02:00.710 --> 00:02:03.940 I agreed that it was strange that neither of us had heard anything else from the miner 00:02:03.940 --> 00:02:05.950 and went to see him straightaway. 00:02:05.950 --> 00:02:09.729 I entered the bunkhouse where many of the workers stay while on-site at this remote 00:02:09.729 --> 00:02:11.009 mine. 00:02:11.009 --> 00:02:15.260 It was empty except for the injured miner who was still in his bed. 00:02:15.260 --> 00:02:18.959 As I approached I could immediately tell something was very wrong. 00:02:18.959 --> 00:02:24.370 The man was curled up in the fetal position and was sweating profusely while also shivering. 00:02:24.370 --> 00:02:28.850 A quick touch of his forehead revealed that the man had a high fever too. 00:02:28.850 --> 00:02:33.470 He was practically incoherent, seemingly delirious from his high temperature. 00:02:33.470 --> 00:02:37.110 The miner was moved to the empty bed inside the clinic so I could better observe and tend 00:02:37.110 --> 00:02:42.170 to him, but very carefully since I assumed now that he was actually suffering from influenza 00:02:42.170 --> 00:02:44.910 and didn’t want to risk an outbreak at the mine. 00:02:44.910 --> 00:02:49.940 I was getting ready to administer fluids to the miner who was still mumbling incomprehensibly 00:02:49.940 --> 00:02:52.459 when I noticed something on his face. 00:02:52.459 --> 00:02:57.220 It appeared that he was crying, but the tears that ran down his cheeks weren’t made of 00:02:57.220 --> 00:02:59.200 water, they were blood. 00:02:59.200 --> 00:03:01.569 I hadn’t seen anything like it before. 00:03:01.569 --> 00:03:06.260 There was no reason why influenza should be causing this man to cry tears of blood. 00:03:06.260 --> 00:03:10.310 I could see the veins in his forehead starting to pulse, as if his blood pressure had suddenly 00:03:10.310 --> 00:03:16.990 skyrocketed, and just as I was leaning in to get a closer look, something horrible happened. 00:03:16.990 --> 00:03:21.050 The miner suddenly opened his mouth and expelled an enormous stream of blood. 00:03:21.050 --> 00:03:25.060 The blast of blood struck me in the face and knocked me backwards in fright as the man 00:03:25.060 --> 00:03:29.440 continued expelling more and more blood from his mouth, which soon covered the walls of 00:03:29.440 --> 00:03:30.720 the clinic. 00:03:30.720 --> 00:03:36.040 With seemingly all the blood having been discharged from his body, the man then went limp. 00:03:36.040 --> 00:03:40.630 I attempted to resuscitate him but strangely, there was no need. 00:03:40.630 --> 00:03:43.010 The man was comatose, but he was alive. 00:03:43.010 --> 00:03:47.480 There I was, standing in the middle of the clinic over the man, both he, myself, as well 00:03:47.480 --> 00:03:50.250 as the room completely covered in blood. 00:03:50.250 --> 00:03:55.640 It was one of the worst things I had ever experienced as a doctor, and yet somehow it 00:03:55.640 --> 00:03:57.750 was about to get even worse. 00:03:57.750 --> 00:04:01.760 I was still in shock from what had just happened when I heard the door to the clinic open behind 00:04:01.760 --> 00:04:02.760 me. 00:04:02.760 --> 00:04:07.510 I turned around to see a group of half a dozen more miners from the site, each one coughing, 00:04:07.510 --> 00:04:09.879 sweating, and shivering. 00:04:09.879 --> 00:04:13.950 One held a cloth to his ear that was stained red while another attempted to stop his nose 00:04:13.950 --> 00:04:15.440 from bleeding. 00:04:15.440 --> 00:04:19.449 Whatever had infected the first patient wasn’t a one-off medical event. 00:04:19.449 --> 00:04:21.639 This had the makings of an epidemic. 00:04:21.639 --> 00:04:24.650 I knew that I was way over my head. 00:04:24.650 --> 00:04:29.039 I was just a general practitioner, not an infectious disease specialist, and I called 00:04:29.039 --> 00:04:31.770 the Center for Disease Control to get their guidance. 00:04:31.770 --> 00:04:35.849 I was told to quarantine the sick men as best I could and that a rapid response team would 00:04:35.849 --> 00:04:39.729 be sent who were better equipped to deal with potential outbreaks. 00:04:39.729 --> 00:04:43.699 While I waited for the CDC to arrive, I began moving the afflicted men to a bunkhouse that 00:04:43.699 --> 00:04:46.400 had been designated for quarantining. 00:04:46.400 --> 00:04:51.360 Several more also began expelling huge amounts of blood, though unlike the first patient, 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:54.110 none of the others survived the traumatic event. 00:04:54.110 --> 00:04:58.789 As I was putting the final infected man into a bed I noticed something though. 00:04:58.789 --> 00:05:03.069 There was a huge amount of heat radiating off of his lower body, and when I pulled down 00:05:03.069 --> 00:05:07.970 the blankets I discovered something that even with all of the strange happenings, I still 00:05:07.970 --> 00:05:09.229 couldn’t believe. 00:05:09.229 --> 00:05:13.740 There were huge lumps growing on his legs, each of which looked to be filled with some 00:05:13.740 --> 00:05:15.330 kind of fluid or gas. 00:05:15.330 --> 00:05:19.710 And they were extremely hot to the touch, as if the chemicals inside the lumps were 00:05:19.710 --> 00:05:21.449 creating a source of heat. 00:05:21.449 --> 00:05:26.110 As I was investigating the bizarre growths, I suddenly looked up to see that the man was 00:05:26.110 --> 00:05:28.029 no longer in a state of delirium. 00:05:28.029 --> 00:05:33.550 Instead, a crazed look had some over his eyes and he suddenly leapt out of bed, flailing 00:05:33.550 --> 00:05:36.159 and clawing at me as if he wanted to kill me. 00:05:36.159 --> 00:05:40.770 I don’t know how, but I was able to fight off the man and run out of the bunkhouse. 00:05:40.770 --> 00:05:45.479 He gave chase though and with no other option I ran into a nearby storage shed. 00:05:45.479 --> 00:05:50.620 The man was beating and scratching at the door, but I was able to barricade it by dragging 00:05:50.620 --> 00:05:52.979 a heavy shelf in front of it. 00:05:52.979 --> 00:05:58.900 After several minutes of trying to break inside, he finally gave up and left, and here I remain. 00:05:58.900 --> 00:06:01.599 I’m too afraid to go back out. 00:06:01.599 --> 00:06:05.930 It seems that if the disease won’t kill me then whatever it is turning people into 00:06:05.930 --> 00:06:06.930 will. 00:06:06.930 --> 00:06:11.210 All I can do is wait for the CDC team to get here and hopefully know how to deal with whatever 00:06:11.210 --> 00:06:13.409 this situation has become. 00:06:13.409 --> 00:06:18.581 The doctor closes his small notebook and notices a drop of something fall onto the cover. 00:06:18.581 --> 00:06:21.059 He reaches up and wipes his hand across his mouth. 00:06:21.059 --> 00:06:24.690 It comes back covered in blood. 00:06:24.690 --> 00:06:28.189 The doctor didn’t know what the disease was that had so rapidly spread through the 00:06:28.189 --> 00:06:31.949 workers at the mine, nor did the CDC response team when they arrived. 00:06:31.949 --> 00:06:36.800 No, it wasn’t until the SCP Foundation caught word of the mysterious outbreak that someone 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:42.800 would finally determine what was happening with what would soon be called SCP-016, which 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:48.559 is also known as … the Sentient Micro-Organism. 00:06:48.559 --> 00:06:52.110 SCP-016 is a blood-borne pathogen that was first discovered after a worker at a remote 00:06:52.110 --> 00:06:56.139 mine was injured while drilling into a coal seam deep beneath the earth. 00:06:56.139 --> 00:07:00.340 It is theorized that coal dust entered the wound, dust which perhaps carried dormant 00:07:00.340 --> 00:07:04.599 spores of what would become SCP-016. 00:07:04.599 --> 00:07:09.499 Over the next several days, all of the remaining employees at the mine were infected, as was 00:07:09.499 --> 00:07:14.139 the CDC crisis team that was sent to the mine to investigate the outbreak of what was potentially 00:07:14.139 --> 00:07:16.639 an undiscovered pathogen. 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:20.689 Following the CDC’s inability to deal with the disease, the SCP Foundation took over 00:07:20.689 --> 00:07:25.719 the site and quickly terminated all affected personnel in order to prevent further spread. 00:07:25.719 --> 00:07:30.659 The first infected person, Patient Zero, was taken into Foundation custody for further 00:07:30.659 --> 00:07:34.539 investigation, and the mine shaft itself was collapsed by an explosive device in order 00:07:34.539 --> 00:07:36.470 to seal it off. 00:07:36.470 --> 00:07:40.289 After studying Patient Zero, the Foundation learned a great deal about just what they 00:07:40.289 --> 00:07:41.689 were dealing with. 00:07:41.689 --> 00:07:47.720 What they found was that SCP-016 has an incubation period that can vary wildly, from just 24 00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:52.639 hours to as long as 2 years, with the length appearing to be dependent on the number of 00:07:52.639 --> 00:07:56.169 other potential human hosts in the immediate area. 00:07:56.169 --> 00:08:00.189 Once symptoms begin to present in an individual, they will at first look to be quite similar 00:08:00.189 --> 00:08:06.249 to the common cold, and can include coughing, a runny nose, itchy eyes, and body aches. 00:08:06.249 --> 00:08:10.699 Roughly 48 hours after the first symptoms, the infected person will experience a form 00:08:10.699 --> 00:08:15.159 of hemorrhagic fever, similar to the Ebola virus, which causes a small amount of bleeding 00:08:15.159 --> 00:08:16.770 in the lungs. 00:08:16.770 --> 00:08:20.499 This leads to the infected blood becoming aspirated, most likely in order to better 00:08:20.499 --> 00:08:22.429 spread through the air. 00:08:22.429 --> 00:08:26.649 The third stage of the disease leads to the host “crashing and bleeding out” as they 00:08:26.649 --> 00:08:32.190 start to bleed profusely from multiple body orifices including the nose, tear ducts, mouth, 00:08:32.190 --> 00:08:35.090 and even through the pores of their skin. 00:08:35.090 --> 00:08:40.030 Their blood pressure will also skyrocket during this final stage, and in some cases have vomited 00:08:40.030 --> 00:08:42.540 blood as far as five meters. 00:08:42.540 --> 00:08:47.850 Oddly, although most die from the traumatic event, this almost complete exsanguination 00:08:47.850 --> 00:08:50.310 will not always result in death. 00:08:50.310 --> 00:08:54.410 Sometimes, following the removal of almost all blood from the body, the patient will 00:08:54.410 --> 00:08:59.250 somehow survive, and the pathogen inside their body will return to its dormant phase once 00:08:59.250 --> 00:09:02.890 again, before eventually repeating the process. 00:09:02.890 --> 00:09:08.220 But SCP-016 is more than just a rapid and often deadly bloodborne disease, as you will 00:09:08.220 --> 00:09:09.910 soon see. 00:09:09.910 --> 00:09:14.490 As SCP researchers studied the disease, what they discovered was that it had a very strange 00:09:14.490 --> 00:09:19.730 property that sets it apart from other hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola and the Marburg virus. 00:09:19.730 --> 00:09:24.960 What they found was that when someone infected with SCP-016 is placed into a high-stress 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:29.900 situation, such as one where their life is being threatened, SCP-016 will transition 00:09:29.900 --> 00:09:35.620 from rapidly reproducing inside of its host’s body to instead begin rewriting their host’s 00:09:35.620 --> 00:09:37.300 actual DNA. 00:09:37.300 --> 00:09:41.870 This genetic manipulation, combined with the stimulation of rapid cell division, leads 00:09:41.870 --> 00:09:46.790 to the host undergoing major physiological changes, and in extremely small amounts of 00:09:46.790 --> 00:09:47.790 time. 00:09:47.790 --> 00:09:52.930 In just twenty four hours, the host can begin showing physical changes to their body, and 00:09:52.930 --> 00:09:57.410 a complete bodily reconstruction can occur in less than two weeks. 00:09:57.410 --> 00:10:02.011 Most of the hosts who begin to undergo physical changes will not survive the process, due 00:10:02.011 --> 00:10:06.650 to how heavily the transformation stresses the body, but those that do will be changed 00:10:06.650 --> 00:10:08.680 in more than just physical ways. 00:10:08.680 --> 00:10:14.130 They’ll exhibit hyper aggressive behaviors, not dissimilar to those infected by rabies, 00:10:14.130 --> 00:10:17.830 and it’s theorized that the pathogen may cause this behavior in order to better spread 00:10:17.830 --> 00:10:20.320 the virus. 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:24.990 When the Foundation realized that SCP-016 was capable of these transformative effects, 00:10:24.990 --> 00:10:30.080 they immediately undertook a number of experiments on D-Class personnel in order to better understand 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:31.760 their full extent. 00:10:31.760 --> 00:10:37.300 In the first test, a D-Class was infected with SCP-016 and as soon as they began showing 00:10:37.300 --> 00:10:41.630 symptoms, their cell was slowly flooded with water in order to stimulate the life threatening 00:10:41.630 --> 00:10:45.450 situation needed to trigger the transformation process. 00:10:45.450 --> 00:10:50.380 Over the next 24 hours, researchers watched as the subject appeared to develop gills which 00:10:50.380 --> 00:10:53.800 would allow it to survive in the now water-filled cell. 00:10:53.800 --> 00:10:58.360 The transformations didn’t stop there though, and over the next two weeks the subject also 00:10:58.360 --> 00:11:03.530 had their limbs change into fins, their eyesight deteriorated, and their sense of hearing increased 00:11:03.530 --> 00:11:08.050 as they developed an echolocation ability very similar to the one employed by whales 00:11:08.050 --> 00:11:09.630 and dolphins. 00:11:09.630 --> 00:11:13.580 The experiment was concluded by removing all of the water from the cell, leading to the 00:11:13.580 --> 00:11:18.820 death of the subject from asphyxiation as they could no longer breathe in the open air. 00:11:18.820 --> 00:11:23.260 A similar experiment was performed on another D-Class, but this time, instead of taking 00:11:23.260 --> 00:11:27.621 on aquatic animal properties, the D-Class experienced rapid muscle growth and their 00:11:27.621 --> 00:11:30.100 knuckles grew bone-like protrusions. 00:11:30.100 --> 00:11:33.750 It attempted to use both of these to break through the door of their flooding cell, but 00:11:33.750 --> 00:11:38.450 they were unable to breach the reinforced steel and soon died from drowning. 00:11:38.450 --> 00:11:43.760 The Foundation now knew that the virus could react in different ways to the same situation. 00:11:43.760 --> 00:11:47.970 The same experiment was run a third time, but in this instance, the infected D-Class 00:11:47.970 --> 00:11:51.010 exhibited an entirely different means of trying to escape. 00:11:51.010 --> 00:11:55.540 The subject had a massive growth appear on its chest, which seemed to be fed from two 00:11:55.540 --> 00:11:59.650 separate tubes of flesh, also emanating from the subject’s body. 00:11:59.650 --> 00:12:03.590 Fearing what it planned to do, the Foundation ended the experiment early and terminated 00:12:03.590 --> 00:12:04.590 the subject. 00:12:04.590 --> 00:12:08.640 An autopsy revealed that the growth was actually a hollow chamber that was being fed by the 00:12:08.640 --> 00:12:13.030 tubes with oxygen and acetylene gas which when combined in sufficient amounts would 00:12:13.030 --> 00:12:15.390 cause a massive combustion event. 00:12:15.390 --> 00:12:21.380 In other words, SCP-016 was turning the subject into a living bomb. 00:12:21.380 --> 00:12:25.960 Moving on from flooded cell tests, the researchers next left a D-Class inside of a room with 00:12:25.960 --> 00:12:31.320 no stressing elements and instead told them to focus on growing a pair of wings. 00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:36.580 Without any reason to begin the transformation process, SCP-016 went through its normal stages 00:12:36.580 --> 00:12:39.840 and the subject died from blood loss without any other changes occuring. 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:45.480 In the final test, a D-Class was placed inside of an acrylic box that was suspended over 00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:49.630 a mine shaft, with a timer attached indicating the time when the bottom of the box would 00:12:49.630 --> 00:12:53.710 open and drop the D-Class into the 1,000 foot deep shaft. 00:12:53.710 --> 00:12:58.000 This D-Class was also told to focus on growing wings that would allow them to survive the 00:12:58.000 --> 00:12:59.000 plunge. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:03.820 The subject began to transform over the next twenty-four hours, but rather than grow wings, 00:13:03.820 --> 00:13:08.430 they instead developed a tentacle-like appendage on their arm that was capable of producing 00:13:08.430 --> 00:13:11.050 silk similar to a spider’s spinneret. 00:13:11.050 --> 00:13:15.610 They used the silk-producing organ to secure themselves to the box, showing that subjects 00:13:15.610 --> 00:13:21.240 did not appear to be able to control the way in which SCP-016 would alter their bodies. 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:25.880 This experiment concluded when the timer reached zero, and the bomb attached to it detonated, 00:13:25.880 --> 00:13:28.560 as had been the plan all along. 00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:33.410 Following this last test, SCP-016 samples were placed into containment, and access to 00:13:33.410 --> 00:13:38.220 the sample for experimental purposes is only allowed with prior authorization from level 00:13:38.220 --> 00:13:43.650 4 or O5 personnel, with full documentation of the proposed experiment required beforehand. 00:13:43.650 --> 00:13:47.720 Failure to follow any of these procedures will lead to the offending personnel being 00:13:47.720 --> 00:13:51.140 reassigned to D-Class duty, or terminated. 00:13:51.140 --> 00:13:57.370 SCP-016 has been classified as Keter, and the only existing sample is kept in a petri 00:13:57.370 --> 00:14:02.120 dish, which is under extreme lockdown inside of a five by five by five meter room where 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:06.180 the temperature is kept below zero degrees celsius at all times. 00:14:06.180 --> 00:14:11.670 Should an outbreak of SCP-016 occur, all infected personnel are to be immediately terminated 00:14:11.670 --> 00:14:15.910 on site, and if the infection can not be contained within 48 hours, then the on-site nuclear 00:14:15.910 --> 00:14:20.980 device is to be detonated, prior to any additional personnel being evacuated. 00:14:20.980 --> 00:14:25.120 While the containment procedures may sound callous, unfortunately when it comes to anomalous 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:31.050 pathogens as dangerous as SCP-016, no chances can be taken. 00:14:31.050 --> 00:14:36.840 Now go and watch another entry from the files of Dr. Bob, like SCP-150 the Body Stealing 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:42.240 Parasite, for another SCP that will get inside of you and do frightening things to your body. 00:14:42.240 --> 00:14:46.630 And make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications, so you don’t miss a single anomaly, as we 00:14:46.630 --> 00:14:50.730 delve further and further into the SCP Foundation’s classified archives.