WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.290 --> 00:00:04.240 “The young couple held hands as they walked through the forest, the only light coming 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:07.779 from the full moon which streamed down between the branches.” 00:00:07.779 --> 00:00:10.250 The young woman is riveted by her friend’s story. 00:00:10.250 --> 00:00:15.019 She’s never been a fan of ghost stories, she scares too easily, but her friends insisted. 00:00:15.019 --> 00:00:19.720 “But what they didn’t know was that there was something else out there in the forest, 00:00:19.720 --> 00:00:22.050 something watching them.” 00:00:22.050 --> 00:00:25.620 The young woman can’t help but look around, scanning the forest to see if there’s anything 00:00:25.620 --> 00:00:29.890 out there watching her, but it’s too dark to see anything past the dim ring of light 00:00:29.890 --> 00:00:31.480 cast by the campfire. 00:00:31.480 --> 00:00:34.950 “Just then, something emerged from the forest. 00:00:34.950 --> 00:00:39.830 The couple had no idea that it was just feet behind them, matching them step for step. 00:00:39.830 --> 00:00:42.740 Slowly, it began to reach out towards them... 00:00:42.740 --> 00:00:43.740 “ 00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:44.740 “What was it?” 00:00:44.740 --> 00:00:45.970 the young woman instinctually asked. 00:00:45.970 --> 00:00:47.580 “It was… 00:00:47.580 --> 00:00:48.580 THE GASHADOKURO!” 00:00:48.580 --> 00:00:53.020 The young woman screams in fear as she is grabbed from behind by a skeleton. 00:00:53.020 --> 00:00:56.440 But of course the laughing of her friends clues her in immediately that this is not 00:00:56.440 --> 00:01:00.350 a real Gashadokuro, it’s just her stupid friend in a mask. 00:01:00.350 --> 00:01:04.250 No one can contain their laughter, even the young woman has to laugh a little. 00:01:04.250 --> 00:01:08.360 As her friend takes off his cheap, skull mask she playfully hits him in the arm, “you 00:01:08.360 --> 00:01:09.360 jerk!” 00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:11.190 “You should have seen the look on your - “ 00:01:11.190 --> 00:01:15.070 The gigantic, shrieking skeleton leaps from the woods and picks up the young man, shoving 00:01:15.070 --> 00:01:19.490 him straight into his mouth and consuming him, the boy crying out as his bones are snapped 00:01:19.490 --> 00:01:21.500 between its enormous jaws. 00:01:21.500 --> 00:01:26.240 Everyone screams and turns to run, but another colossal skeleton emerges from the forest, 00:01:26.240 --> 00:01:31.080 picking up two of the group, one in each hand, before smashing them together over and over, 00:01:31.080 --> 00:01:35.990 leaving nothing but a tenderized pile of flesh between its bony fingers that it then begins 00:01:35.990 --> 00:01:37.670 to devour. 00:01:37.670 --> 00:01:39.190 The young woman doesn’t know what to do. 00:01:39.190 --> 00:01:42.250 She’s petrified with fear, unable to move or even think. 00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:45.500 She’s grabbed from behind and turns to see her friend who was telling the story. 00:01:45.500 --> 00:01:47.100 “Come on, we have to go!” 00:01:47.100 --> 00:01:50.610 She still doesn’t move, she can’t tear herself away from watching the horror that’s 00:01:50.610 --> 00:01:54.120 playing out in front of her, but he grabs her hand and forcefully pulls her into the 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:55.930 forest behind him. 00:01:55.930 --> 00:01:59.060 As they run through the woods, they can hear the sounds of their friends being eaten by 00:01:59.060 --> 00:02:00.490 the enormous skeletons. 00:02:00.490 --> 00:02:04.299 There’s nothing they can do to help them though, all they can do is run. 00:02:04.299 --> 00:02:08.399 The two sprint as fast as they can through the thick, dark forest, jumping over fallen 00:02:08.399 --> 00:02:11.639 trees, hoping that there’s solid ground on the other side. 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:14.950 The young woman’s foot catches in a root and she falls hard to the ground. 00:02:14.950 --> 00:02:17.340 Her friend stops and quickly comes back. 00:02:17.340 --> 00:02:20.930 As he is helping her stand up out of the mud they both notice something. 00:02:20.930 --> 00:02:22.129 A sound. 00:02:22.129 --> 00:02:24.169 The heavy thuds of another giant skeleton. 00:02:24.169 --> 00:02:25.709 And it’s getting closer to them. 00:02:25.709 --> 00:02:27.950 “Come on, we have to keep going!” 00:02:27.950 --> 00:02:32.390 With a loud shriek, a huge bony hand emerges from the forest and grabs the young man. 00:02:32.390 --> 00:02:36.489 The young woman watches as he is lifted a hundred feet into the air and stuffed whole 00:02:36.489 --> 00:02:38.969 into the gargantuan skeleton’s mouth. 00:02:38.969 --> 00:02:43.090 She steps slowly backwards, knowing that she will soon meet the same fate, until the earth 00:02:43.090 --> 00:02:45.430 disappears beneath her feet. 00:02:45.430 --> 00:02:49.200 She tumbles down the hillside, somersaulting end over end, crashing through the brush on 00:02:49.200 --> 00:02:51.849 the hillside until dropping over embankment. 00:02:51.849 --> 00:02:55.639 If the fall down the hill knocked her out then the drop over the embankment was enough 00:02:55.639 --> 00:02:57.099 to wake her back up. 00:02:57.099 --> 00:03:00.700 Her wits come back just enough for her to roll under the embankment’s ledge, and not 00:03:00.700 --> 00:03:02.209 a moment too soon. 00:03:02.209 --> 00:03:07.109 She huddles under the ledge and watches as the two skeletons stride over her hiding place 00:03:07.109 --> 00:03:09.900 and continue on deeper into the forest. 00:03:09.900 --> 00:03:13.150 She listens until the sounds of their thudding steps disappear. 00:03:13.150 --> 00:03:16.459 She doesn’t know what to do, should she try to get back to the campsite and see if 00:03:16.459 --> 00:03:18.099 any of her friends are still alive? 00:03:18.099 --> 00:03:20.180 If they are, they might need her help. 00:03:20.180 --> 00:03:22.209 But what if there are more of these… 00:03:22.209 --> 00:03:23.209 things… 00:03:23.209 --> 00:03:24.209 out there? 00:03:24.209 --> 00:03:25.839 What if they come back, looking for her? 00:03:25.839 --> 00:03:30.689 Her mind races, unsure of what to do, and she has trouble thinking clearly. 00:03:30.689 --> 00:03:33.900 Her ears are ringing from her tumble down the hillside and her teeth audibly chatter 00:03:33.900 --> 00:03:34.900 in fear. 00:03:34.900 --> 00:03:38.659 As she debates her next move, trying to make sense of the nightmare she’s found herself 00:03:38.659 --> 00:03:40.689 in, she suddenly notices something. 00:03:40.689 --> 00:03:45.090 A shadow cast by the moonlight begins to grow on the ground in front of her. 00:03:45.090 --> 00:03:49.459 That’s when she realizes something else, it’s not her teeth that are chattering. 00:03:49.459 --> 00:03:51.919 The sound is coming from somewhere else. 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:56.499 She stands up and turns around to see a huge skull slowly rising up behind her. 00:03:56.499 --> 00:04:00.949 The giant skeleton, this one even bigger than the others, reaches out towards her. 00:04:00.949 --> 00:04:04.639 The girl closes her eyes, preparing to meet her fate as the skeleton starts to shriek. 00:04:04.639 --> 00:04:07.420 But it’s a different kind of sound. 00:04:07.420 --> 00:04:11.409 She opens her eyes and is almost blinded by the intense white light on the skeleton’s 00:04:11.409 --> 00:04:12.409 face. 00:04:12.409 --> 00:04:15.790 It sounds like it is shrieking in pain from the light being cast on it, and she’s forced 00:04:15.790 --> 00:04:17.970 to turn away and shield her eyes. 00:04:17.970 --> 00:04:20.590 As she does so, she sees the source of the light. 00:04:20.590 --> 00:04:22.430 It’s a man in a uniform. 00:04:22.430 --> 00:04:26.180 He looks like some sort of tactical police officer, but instead of a gun, he’s holding 00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:29.330 an enormous flashlight that he’s pointing at the skeleton. 00:04:29.330 --> 00:04:33.030 More men who are dressed just the same emerge from the woods, blasting the skeleton with 00:04:33.030 --> 00:04:34.430 more light. 00:04:34.430 --> 00:04:37.690 It continues shrieking but seems helpless to do anything. 00:04:37.690 --> 00:04:41.820 She watches as the skeleton seems to lose its form, slowly disintegrating in the light 00:04:41.820 --> 00:04:44.030 until eventually it disappears completely 00:04:44.030 --> 00:04:48.390 Later, the young woman is sitting in the back of a van with a blanket wrapped around her 00:04:48.390 --> 00:04:49.420 shoulders. 00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:54.370 One of the policemen, at least she thinks he must be a policeman, brings her a hot drink. 00:04:54.370 --> 00:04:57.920 She still can’t believe what she saw that night, the monstrous creatures that killed 00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:02.590 and ate her friends, it felt like it wasn’t real, like she was watching a movie play out. 00:05:02.590 --> 00:05:05.290 “Were those… were those Gashadokuro?” 00:05:05.290 --> 00:05:06.690 she asks. 00:05:06.690 --> 00:05:10.720 A man in a white lab coat looks up from a nearby table where he had been working on 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:11.720 something. 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:13.660 She thinks he must be a doctor of some kind. 00:05:13.660 --> 00:05:17.060 “Yes,” he tells her, “or something similar to them. 00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:20.960 Maybe they inspired the myth of the Gashadokuro, maybe the myth inspired them. 00:05:20.960 --> 00:05:22.970 We simply don’t know.” 00:05:22.970 --> 00:05:26.280 She asks, “all my friends are - “ “Dead” he interjects. 00:05:26.280 --> 00:05:31.220 “I know this is hard for you, getting chased by giant anomalous skeletons and watching 00:05:31.220 --> 00:05:33.920 your friends eaten alive would be tough for anyone to deal with.” 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:37.980 The young woman starts to sob, the weight of the moment finally hitting her. 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:40.600 “But I have some good news” he tells her. 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:42.530 She sniffs and looks up at the doctor. 00:05:42.530 --> 00:05:46.760 “Believe it or not, I’ve seen this thing happen a lot, and you don’t have to worry, 00:05:46.760 --> 00:05:48.890 because you’re not going to remember any of this.” 00:05:48.890 --> 00:05:52.510 “Ouch” the young woman cries, and looks down to see that he has jabbed her in the 00:05:52.510 --> 00:05:54.110 thigh with a syringe. 00:05:54.110 --> 00:05:57.950 She tries to push him away but she’s already feeling weak and disoriented. 00:05:57.950 --> 00:06:02.400 She sways a little before her eyes shut and she passes out. 00:06:02.400 --> 00:06:05.400 The young woman wakes in the cheery morning light of her own bedroom. 00:06:05.400 --> 00:06:09.590 She yawns and stretches, the strange dream about skeletons in the forest already drifting 00:06:09.590 --> 00:06:11.110 from her mind. 00:06:11.110 --> 00:06:12.110 Konnichiwa! 00:06:12.110 --> 00:06:17.550 I’m Dr. Bob and today’s file is a terrifying anomalous entity referred to in Japan as the 00:06:17.550 --> 00:06:25.190 Gashadokuro, but known by the SCP Foundation as SCP-2863… the Starving Skeletons. 00:06:25.190 --> 00:06:32.120 SCP-2863 is not just one, but an entire population of entities that resemble gigantic human skeletons. 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:36.030 These enormous, bony creatures’ size can vary, but on average they are approximately 00:06:36.030 --> 00:06:37.290 30 meters tall. 00:06:37.290 --> 00:06:42.090 While their exact number is unknown, over 200 separate individual instances have been 00:06:42.090 --> 00:06:46.700 identified and catalogued, with each having distinctive markings such as their bones having 00:06:46.700 --> 00:06:49.960 different types of damage or burn marks present. 00:06:49.960 --> 00:06:55.370 SCP-2863 instances are currently found exclusively in Japan, where they will appear only after 00:06:55.370 --> 00:06:56.370 sunset. 00:06:56.370 --> 00:07:00.340 It is still unknown if the skeletons are sapient, though they do appear sentient as they engage 00:07:00.340 --> 00:07:04.300 in their primary behavior of hunting down and consuming humans. 00:07:04.300 --> 00:07:08.550 Despite their enormous size, they are capable of moving very quietly when they want to, 00:07:08.550 --> 00:07:12.650 though there have been reports from survivors of their appearance being preceded by a rattling 00:07:12.650 --> 00:07:17.320 like sound, which may be their own teeth or giant bones hitting against each other. 00:07:17.320 --> 00:07:21.600 Once they have caught a human, they will immediately devour them, with the human’s blood appearing 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:25.960 to be absorbed directly into their bones, since they lack any digestive organs. 00:07:25.960 --> 00:07:29.620 It is unknown if they require the blood of humans for sustenance, or if their predatory 00:07:29.620 --> 00:07:32.560 behavior is motivated by something else. 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:37.760 Monitoring and control of SCP-2863 instances was previously the responsibility of the Imperial 00:07:37.760 --> 00:07:42.080 Japanese Anomalous Matters Examination Agency. 00:07:42.080 --> 00:07:47.470 The IJAMEA, which as the name suggests, was Imperial Japan’s answer to the SCP Foundation, 00:07:47.470 --> 00:07:50.890 tasked with investigating the strange anomalies within their own borders for the benefit of 00:07:50.890 --> 00:07:52.980 the empire. 00:07:52.980 --> 00:07:57.050 Several of the IJAMEA agents who had been investigating the Gashadokuro at the end of 00:07:57.050 --> 00:08:01.830 World War 2 transferred to the SCP Foundation when the Anomalous Matters Examination Agency 00:08:01.830 --> 00:08:05.430 was disbanded and continued their work on the anomaly. 00:08:05.430 --> 00:08:09.180 They also provided their original files on the anomaly, which gave the Foundation their 00:08:09.180 --> 00:08:12.340 first information on the giant anomalous skeletons. 00:08:12.340 --> 00:08:16.070 According to the IJAMEA’s translated file: 00:08:16.070 --> 00:08:21.139 “Gashadokuro are created by mass death, by the concentrated suffering of hundreds. 00:08:21.139 --> 00:08:25.640 While the Gashadokuro will eventually fade, they remain for centuries after their creation, 00:08:25.640 --> 00:08:28.700 lingering until their sorrow has diffused and faded. 00:08:28.700 --> 00:08:31.360 There is no way to hasten this process.” 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:36.330 The IJAMEA file also explained that while conventional weaponry is useless against the 00:08:36.330 --> 00:08:41.360 anomalous skeletons, light can be used to banish the creatures, and either natural daylight 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:43.829 or manmade light will suffice. 00:08:43.829 --> 00:08:47.830 When exposed to light, the skeletons will start to lose their corporeal form until they 00:08:47.830 --> 00:08:49.809 fade away completely. 00:08:49.809 --> 00:08:55.430 This doesn’t kill instances of SCP-2863 though, it only temporarily neutralizes them, 00:08:55.430 --> 00:08:59.740 and appearances of the same instance will often be reported the very next night. 00:08:59.740 --> 00:09:05.120 Just as the IJAMEA had noted in their file, the SCP Foundation also made the connection 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:09.260 between SCP-2863 and locations of mass suffering. 00:09:09.260 --> 00:09:15.370 While Imperial Japan’s anomalous investigation unit identified 203 instances of SCP-2863, 00:09:15.370 --> 00:09:19.399 the Foundation has since become aware of three others, each of which were found at sites 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:22.029 connected to death and destruction. 00:09:22.029 --> 00:09:26.290 The first new instance was found near Nanjing, China, the location of an especially brutal 00:09:26.290 --> 00:09:31.640 massacre during the second world war that may have resulted in as many as 300,000 deaths. 00:09:31.640 --> 00:09:37.199 It’s believed that the entity first appeared in this location in 1938, just after the massacre, 00:09:37.199 --> 00:09:40.620 while the city was still under the control of Imperial Japan. 00:09:40.620 --> 00:09:44.910 This has led some to speculate that the locations where Gashadokuro appear are inherently tied 00:09:44.910 --> 00:09:49.790 to the borders of Japan as a nation, and have fluctuated with geopolitical changes. 00:09:49.790 --> 00:09:54.120 The second was discovered several kilometers from Fukuoka City in Japan, a city that saw 00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:57.389 heavy firebombing by Allied Forces during the war. 00:09:57.389 --> 00:10:02.199 The third was identified in 2011 in the Tōhoku region of Japan, which is where the Fukushima 00:10:02.199 --> 00:10:04.019 nuclear disaster occurred. 00:10:04.019 --> 00:10:07.680 Each of these new instances appeared to bear injuries consistent with someone who suffered 00:10:07.680 --> 00:10:11.920 through the nearby tragedies, with the first showing evidence of crushed bones, the second 00:10:11.920 --> 00:10:16.060 appearing to have suffered intense burning, and the third missing teeth which is common 00:10:16.060 --> 00:10:18.720 in cases of extreme radiation poisoning. 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:22.610 These specific injuries add further evidence of the connection the Gashadokuro may have 00:10:22.610 --> 00:10:24.360 to human misery. 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:29.829 The impermanent nature of SCP-2863 and their ability to manifest even after being neutralized 00:10:29.829 --> 00:10:34.649 has made long term containment of this anomaly all but impossible, and they have been classified 00:10:34.649 --> 00:10:36.290 as Keter. 00:10:36.290 --> 00:10:40.290 In the event that an instance is spotted, Mobile Task Force Omicron-3 is dispatched 00:10:40.290 --> 00:10:44.129 to the area where they will attempt to neutralize the entity through the use of high-powered 00:10:44.129 --> 00:10:45.379 floodlights. 00:10:45.379 --> 00:10:50.820 Any civilians who are exposed to SCP-2863 and survive are given Class-A amnestics so 00:10:50.820 --> 00:10:54.470 that they can hopefully move on with their lives and forget their horrifying encounter 00:10:54.470 --> 00:10:56.920 with the Starving Skeletons. 00:10:56.920 --> 00:11:02.491 Now go and watch another entry from the files of Dr. Bob, like SCP-966 Sleep Killer, for 00:11:02.491 --> 00:11:06.059 another anomaly who has decided to make humans its preferred prey. 00:11:06.059 --> 00:11:10.240 And make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications, so you don’t miss a single anomaly, as we 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:13.759 delve further and further into the SCP Foundation’s classified archives.