SCP-273 Human Phoenix

SCP Explained - Story & Animation

SCP-273 resembles a middle-aged woman of Indian descent. DNA samples and medical tests indicate SCP-273 conforms to human normal in all other respects, despite the subject's abnormalities. SCP-273 suffers from what it describes as a "hunger", which requires regular feeding every 12 hours. This hunger satiates itself through a form of remote combustion. This produces no visible flames, instead oxidizing the subject from the outside in until reduced to a fine white ash.  LIKE & SUBSCRIBE to SCP Explained - Story & Animation  Follow us on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scpexplainedofficial  Join our Discord, share your SCP art, submit video feedback, chat with other fans...: https://discord.gg/scpexplained  Please let us know in the comments which SCP's we should cover next   Narrated by https://www.youtube.com/c/hitherehunter  Content relating to the SCP Foundation, including the SCP Foundation logo, is licensed under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0 and all concepts originate from http://www.scp-wiki.net and its authors.   SCP-273 Human Phoenix is based on "SCP-273" by G Fox: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-273  #scpexplained #scp #animation

Transcript

00:00It was the most savage wildfire to hit the forest in decades.

00:04Animals ran for miles to avoid the lapping, hungry tongues of flames that ate up trees and undergrowth.

00:11Fire teams were dispatched as soon as the alarm bells went off.

00:15Evacuation orders lit up across the state.

00:17And as is rather unusual for a forest fire,

00:21members of the SCP Foundation were dispatched to assess the situation too.

00:26After all, it's not exactly normal when a kilometer-high pillar of flame shoots up above the tree line,

00:32like the burning sword of some wrathful heavenly warrior.

00:35And it's really not normal for it to remain there,

00:38like a static column of blazing nothing for almost an hour.

00:43At best, they were looking at some kind of strange act of thaumaturgy gone wrong

00:47from an amateur pyromancer who'd pick the worst possible place to practice his risky trade.

00:53At worst, for all they knew.

00:55They could be the warning shot for some immensely powerful, demonic being

01:00preparing to usher in an XK-class end-of-the-world scenario.

01:04And in the Foundation's line of work,

01:07you really don't gain much from picking the more optimistic option.

01:12The Mobile Task Force moved into the forest with the firefighters,

01:15blending in among them with their heavy fireproof gear.

01:18The one difference, as the horrified fire crews soon noticed,

01:22was that the Foundation Task Force wasn't taking the fire on from the edges and trying to put it out.

01:28No, they were moving inwards, straight into the heart of the blaze,

01:32with seemingly no care for their own safety.

01:36It was partly because, unlike the firefighters,

01:39the Task Force operators knew that there were things out there far more dangerous than the fire itself.

01:45That was exactly what they were potentially here to tackle.

01:49But that didn't mean the fire wasn't dangerous either.

01:52They fought on through the blaze and hoped their oxygen tanks would hold.

01:56The glowing inferno and the embers in the air all around them kicked off tremendous heat,

02:02even in their enhanced thermal protection gear.

02:05The air around them was choked with smog.

02:08And in the belly of the blaze,

02:10their thermal visors did absolutely nothing to improve their visibility.

02:15The internal compass and the satellite instructions embedded on their heads-up display

02:20were the only things that would give them a sense of forward momentum.

02:23They trudged towards their goal on the blind faith

02:26that the commands from the eye in the sky weren't just marching them towards their gruesome deaths.

02:30They had faith, loyalty, too.

02:33But in a situation this dangerous,

02:36it was hard to forget just how many D-classes the Foundation had sent to terrible fates

02:40by telling them that they'd just been taking part in a harmless test.

02:44If all this went wrong,

02:46the Foundation already had the alibis for all their deaths drafted.

02:50It was a paint-by-numbers, fill-in-blanks form,

02:53that they used to inform grieving friends and relatives

02:56when an officer had fallen in the line of duty.

02:59Those deaths were already written for everyone at the Foundation.

03:03They just hadn't quite caught up with their own stories just yet.

03:07But still, they fought on.

03:09The firemen at the Inferno's Edge, miles behind them now.

03:12Soon, they would be out of the worst of the fire,

03:15into the hellish and blackened place the flames had devoured and left a smoking wreck.

03:20The ends of once mighty trees,

03:22charred and wilted like the ends of used matchsticks.

03:26When they reached that place,

03:28the place where the fire had eaten its fill

03:30and left only the burnt bones of the forest,

03:33they feared that they were in even more danger,

03:36even amongst the smoke.

03:37They could see the flame pillar glowing up ahead,

03:41their waypoint.

03:43And then,

03:44it abruptly disappeared.

03:46And somehow, that concerned them even more.

03:49Either the horrors were over,

03:52or they'd just begun.

03:54Still, the satellite pumped them the directions,

03:57and they kept on marching towards their destination,

03:59the cool air of the place behind the fire feeling freezing against the outside of their suits by comparison.

04:07Aside from the smoke,

04:08there was nothing obstructing the view.

04:10All the trees were little more than burnt stumps this far in.

04:15That's where they encountered the first human corpses.

04:18It was hard to tell who they once were,

04:21because the burns had taken them so deeply.

04:23Both were crouching,

04:25almost like they were praying,

04:26facing the same direction towards the fire's point of origin.

04:30Any clothes they'd been wearing were burnt to cinder.

04:33Their flesh was a wet,

04:35melted black,

04:36peeling and slothing away to expose sooty bones,

04:39and glistening half-cooked musculature underneath.

04:42Dental records,

04:44bone analysis,

04:44and DNA testing would later reveal

04:46that they'd been a man and a woman,

04:48a married couple,

04:49from a town not far from the forest where the fire had broken out.

04:53The Foundation would be grateful for an easy cover story for once,

04:57as far as anyone would ever know.

04:59The duo had just been hiking in the wrong place at the wrong time.

05:02It wasn't until after that,

05:04researchers would discover just how involved those two were

05:08in this particular case from the very beginning.

05:11A voice came in over comms for the MTF, saying,

05:14You're close to the coordinates of the fire inception point.

05:17Stay on guard.

05:19We still don't know what we're dealing with here.

05:21The team acknowledged and raised their weapons.

05:24Not assault rifles,

05:26submachine guns,

05:26or shotguns this time.

05:28The team ran the numbers and realized that in heat this bad,

05:32there'd been a serious risk of the rounds exploding in their weapons

05:36and causing injury.

05:37Instead,

05:38they were wielding what you might be able to call

05:40extreme fire extinguishers,

05:43ultra-heat-resistant carbon fiber high-pressure dispensers

05:47that released a mix of liquid nitrogen

05:49and quick-hardening CO2 foam with Kevlar nanofibers.

05:53Someone would need to have unleashed a miniature sun on Earth

05:56for these weapons to be unmatched.

05:59Up ahead,

06:00the team's point man said,

06:01Possible hostile.

06:02Stay frosty.

06:03Nobody laughed.

06:05They were instead all transfixed by the sight of the glowing, middle-aged Indian woman

06:10standing about thirty feet ahead of them.

06:12Behind the corpse,

06:14a large stag.

06:15Her skin was coated in white ash like an akhori,

06:18the heat still shining through from her outer dermis.

06:22She was panting,

06:23exhausted,

06:24confused.

06:25Her frightened eyes darted between each of them.

06:28These menacing men in black tactical armor pointing weapons at her.

06:32She cleared her throat and asked in a trembling voice,

06:35My friends,

06:36Rick and Mary,

06:37where are they?

06:38In unison,

06:39they all thought back to the two incinerated corpses,

06:42locked in their eternal vindictive kneel,

06:45their flesh blown off by the sheer heat.

06:47And here was this woman,

06:49completely unharmed,

06:51despite the fact that the fire would burn hottest exactly where she would have been standing.

06:55Clearly,

06:56they had their anomaly,

06:57and just needed to get her back to the nearest Foundation containment site,

07:01before she lit anything else on fire.

07:04When one of the Mobile Task Force members stepped forward to give her a space blanket,

07:08in order to protect her dignity,

07:10he accidentally nudged the hoof of the dead stag.

07:13Like a falling chain of dominoes,

07:15the stag collapsed in on itself,

07:17into a pile of simmering gray ash,

07:20with an accompanying shockwave of heat.

07:22The remains were full of twinkling red veins,

07:25like the last dying embers of a campfire.

07:28It was like it had somehow been burned away from the inside,

07:31without any apparent damage being done to the exterior.

07:35Fire aided from within,

07:37as if they even needed any more proof that what they were dealing with here

07:41was undeniably an anomalous phenomenon.

07:44The regular firefighters had done enough to contain the worst of the blaze,

07:47and helicopters began descending to dump water on the isolated patches still burning away.

07:52A Foundation Blackhawk,

07:54with a special fireproof interior,

07:56swooped in to collect the team,

07:58and their new find.

07:59When she was brought back to the site,

08:01she was quickly designated SCP-273.

08:06Strangely, unlike a lot of other sentient humanoid anomalies,

08:09SCP-273 was surprisingly compliant with the news that she would now be contained,

08:15after being told that this containment would keep her away from the general human population.

08:20Wanting a greater insight into what exactly had happened here,

08:24and what this strange new anomaly was capable of,

08:27Dr. Reed, the lead researcher on her case, conducted an interview.

08:31She began with,

08:33You are saying then that I will be kept safe here?

08:35Away from people?

08:37Dr. Reed nodded and smiled.

08:39Yes, SCP-273, that's correct.

08:41She smiled at this.

08:43And by the way, my name is Misha.

08:45You may use that instead.

08:47Dr. Reed shuffled his papers and began taking notes.

08:50Noted.

08:51What was the first thing you remember from when you were younger?

08:55A question so forward seemed to puzzle SCP-273.

08:59She paused for a long moment before sharply exhaling,

09:03I woke up surrounded by flames and covered in ash.

09:06It was the first time, I think.

09:08You remember nothing else from before that?

09:10How long ago was this?

09:12How old were you?

09:14Dr. Reed asked.

09:15This, for the first time, seemed to put SCP-273 on the defensive.

09:20Is it not proper to only ask only one question at a time?

09:24Answer the questions, please.

09:26I don't.

09:27It was a very long time ago.

09:29Dr. Reed wasn't going to be dissuaded by her evasiveness.

09:33And how old were you?

09:35SCP-273 seemed to pause for thought.

09:39Thirty-seven years.

09:40That much I remember.

09:41And I think I have made some great mistakes.

09:46Perhaps that's why I am what I am now.

09:49And what are you now?

09:51With absolute, unshakable confidence, she replied,

09:54A demon.

09:56And in some ways, she wasn't entirely unfounded to believe that.

09:59Upon further pressing, she revealed that she'd been aware, upon searching her memories,

10:05that she'd accidentally killed her two friends, Rick and Mary.

10:09She said that the two of them were friendly,

10:11but the utterly devout Christian couple who'd taken great interest in her

10:15after finding out about her strange secret,

10:17they were the only ones who told her that she must have been a demoniac,

10:22someone possessed by a demonic force and afflicted with its terrible curse.

10:26Perhaps, through faith, they could exercise it.

10:29That was the pretense under which they'd led her out into the forest,

10:33to perform a kind of holy ritual in nature,

10:36the true palace of God,

10:38that would chase the demon from her body.

10:41Of course, she'd had reservations about the whole thing,

10:44despite their pure intentions.

10:46Sadly for them, and everything else caught in that fire,

10:50SCP-273 said that her hunger had simply gotten too great,

10:54and the fire started shortly after that.

10:57Naturally, the Foundation began researching this little tidbit in further detail.

11:01It turned out this hunger wasn't so much a craving for food,

11:04or anything that we think of as sustenance.

11:07While SCP-273 could enjoy the taste of food and drink,

11:11she actually didn't need it to survive.

11:13However, the fire within her was another story.

11:16A few expensive containment chamber-destroying accidents

11:19taught them that in order for things to go smoothly,

11:22they would need to provide 273 with 2.5 kilograms of raw meat

11:26approximately every 12 hours.

11:30SCP-273 would make no attempt to eat or even touch the meat,

11:34in the sense that we'd think of eating or touching.

11:37Instead, through means that appeared to be entirely involuntary,

11:41the meat would begin to burn.

11:43Not a roaring external blaze like the forest fire,

11:46but instead, an internal burn,

11:49much like the one experienced by the stag

11:51that the Mobile Task Force found next to 273 in the forest.

11:55It's only through the burning of meat like this

11:58that the explosive power of SCP-273

12:00seems to be kept under any kind of control,

12:03and has led some credence

12:05as to why she wanted to be kept away from the rest of humanity.

12:08What SCP-273 has is no superpower.

12:12It can affect anything around her at any time,

12:16often much to her distress.

12:18Leaving her in a fireproof chamber,

12:20with the only other thing being meat

12:22for her to metabolize with flame,

12:24is truly the safest option.

12:27However, despite her dangerous curse,

12:29SCP-273 herself seems relatively well-adjusted.

12:33Aside from certain amnesiatic tendencies

12:36and gaps in her memory that researchers speculated

12:38might have been some kind of repressed trauma,

12:41she was always friendly and amiable

12:43with researchers and guards,

12:45which earned her a good reputation

12:46around the halls of the containment site.

12:49Oftentimes, researchers who weren't even assigned

12:51to the SCP-273 case

12:53would drop by her containment cell

12:55just to strike up a conversation with her.

12:58And as is often the case with Foundation containment,

13:01the more the staff got used to her presence,

13:03the more time passed without an escape attempt.

13:06Or an incident that caused any kind of harm,

13:09the more they let their guard down around her.

13:11The more certain standards of containment

13:14started to slip.

13:15And on a day that happened to be her 45th birthday,

13:19as best as the researchers could gather,

13:21one of the agents decided to get her a gift

13:23that had horrific consequences.

13:26Agent Myers was a good man

13:28who was sadly deeply connected

13:30to the incident that took his life.

13:32Seeing that she never ate or drank,

13:34and the only thing that was ever taken into her cell

13:37were platters of raw meat,

13:39he figured she deserved a special treat on her birthday.

13:42It's why he bought her a bottle of Bacardi to enjoy.

13:46However, when he brought it into her cell,

13:48the flaming hunger within her seemed to latch onto it.

13:51But the internal flame started a chemical reaction

13:54that ignited the bottle,

13:56and caused a huge explosion inside her cell.

13:59An explosion that killed Agent Myers

14:02and SCP-273.

14:05So why is this particular anomaly marked Euclid

14:08and not neutralized?

14:10That's because SCP-273 came back.

14:14It was actually by this pure accident

14:16that the Foundation discovered the true extent

14:18of SCP-273's abilities.

14:21When she died, her body set alight,

14:23creating a giant pillar of unstoppable flame,

14:26just like the one observed in the forest

14:28when she first was contained.

14:30When the pillar was gone,

14:32all that was left was a pile of ash.

14:34But from that ash,

14:35by degrading any matter around it

14:38over the course of several hours,

14:39SCP-273 can rebuild herself,

14:43exactly as she was before,

14:46so that her cursed life may continue.

14:49It's why they call her

14:50the Human Phoenix.

14:53Want more anomalies that like it hot, hot, hot?

14:56Go check out SCP-457 Burning Man

14:58or SCP-1179 Centrolian Fire Demon

15:02for more.

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