SCP-6881 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT ‘JULIETT’

Link to article: SCP-6881 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT ‘JULIETT’.

 @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Patrick+Hand&display=swap');

/* HEADER */
 :root{
   --header-title: "SERAPIS";
   --header-subtitle: "WARNING - PROCEDURE DRAFTING IN PROGRESS";
}

 div#extra-div-1{
     background-image: url(https://i.imgur.com/Q2TCZnd.png);
     filter: opacity(.25);
}

 @media (max-width: 767px){
     #header h1{
          position: relative;
          top: -.5rem;
    }
     #header h2{
          margin-top: -.5rem;
    }
}

 .meta-title{
     color: hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
     font-family: "Montserrat", sans-serif;
     text-align: center;
     letter-spacing: 1px;
}

 #breadcrumbs{
     display: none;
}

 .pseudocrumbs{
     margin: -2em 0 1em;
     text-align: center;
}

/* FORMATTING */
 body{
     color: hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
     text-underline-offset: 30%;
}

h1,
 h2,
  h3,
   h4,
    h5{
     text-align: center;
     word-break: unset;
}

 hr{
     height: 0;
     margin: 1em 0;

     background-color: transparent;
     border-top: 1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
}

 .collapsible-block{
     margin: 1em 0;
}

 #page-content tr th{
     background: hsl(0, 0%, 96%);
     border-color: hsl(0, 0%, 60%);
}

 .scp-image-block.block-right{
     margin: 0 0 1em 2em;
}

/* CUSTOM BLOCKS */
 div.evidence{
     margin: 1em 3em;
     padding: 0 1em;

     background-color: hsl(0, 0%, 96%);
     border: 3px double hsl(0, 0%, 60%);
}

 @media (max-width: 479px){
     div.evidence{ margin: 1em 0; }
}

 @media (min-width: 480px) and (max-width: 580px){
     div.evidence{ margin: .5em; }
}

 .transcription{ /* ---- Mimics the Pages of a Book ---- */
     margin: 1em 0;
     padding: 0 1em;

     background-color: hsl(0, 0%, 100%);
     border: 1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 60%);
}

 .transcription p{
     line-height: 1.5;
}

 .justified{
   /* -- Justify-Aligns Text -- */
     text-align: justify;
}
 .indented{
   /* -- Indents Block by ⅜-inch (Use Within Other Divs) -- */
     text-indent: 2.4rem;
}

 .unsigned{
     margin: auto;
     padding: .001rem 1rem;

     background-image: url(https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/scp-6881-supplementary-document-juliett/Oldpapertexture.webp);
}

 .unsigned p,
 .unsigned ul{
     font: 1.65rem/1.35 'Patrick Hand', cursive;
     text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;
}

 .unsigned ul{
     list-style-type: "x  ";
}

 .unsigned ul li::marker{
     font-style: italic;
}

 .footing::before{ /* ---- Page Footing ---- */
     content: " ";
     position: absolute;
     bottom: 1px;
     left: 0;
     right: 0;
     border-bottom: 2px solid hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
}

 .footing{
     position: relative;
     bottom: -2px;
     margin-bottom: 2px;
     border-bottom: 1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
}

```
width: 150px;
```

```
anchor
```
```
sidebox
```
```
meta-title
```
```
pseudocrumbs
```
```
blockquote
```
```
blockquote
```
```
evidence
```
```
transcription
```
```
justified
```
```
indented
```
```
evidence
```
```
transcription
```
```
justified
```
```
indented
```
```
evidence
```
```
transcription
```
```
justified
```
```
indented
```
```
evidence
```
```
transcription
```
```
justified
```
```
indented
```
```
evidence
```
```
transcription
```
```
justified
```
```
indented
```
```
evidence
```
```
transcription
```
```
justified
```
```
indented
```
```
evidence
```
```
transcription
```
```
justified
```
```
indented
```
```
evidence
```
```
transcription
```
```
justified
```
```
unsigned
```
```
pseudocrumbs
```
```
footing
```

[[include :scp-wiki:theme:blankstyle]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:fade-in speed=1]]

[[module CSS]]
 @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Patrick+Hand&display=swap');

/* HEADER */
 :root{
   --header-title: "SERAPIS";
   --header-subtitle: "WARNING - PROCEDURE DRAFTING IN PROGRESS";
}

 div#extra-div-1{
     background-image: url(https://i.imgur.com/Q2TCZnd.png);
     filter: opacity(.25);
}

 @media (max-width: 767px){
     #header h1{
          position: relative;
          top: -.5rem;
    }
     #header h2{
          margin-top: -.5rem;
    }
}

 .meta-title{
     color: hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
     font-family: "Montserrat", sans-serif;
     text-align: center;
     letter-spacing: 1px;
}

 #breadcrumbs{
     display: none;
}

 .pseudocrumbs{
     margin: -2em 0 1em;
     text-align: center;
}

/* FORMATTING */
 body{
     color: hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
     text-underline-offset: 30%;
}

h1,
 h2,
  h3,
   h4,
    h5{
     text-align: center;
     word-break: unset;
}

 hr{
     height: 0;
     margin: 1em 0;

     background-color: transparent;
     border-top: 1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
}

 .collapsible-block{
     margin: 1em 0;
}

 #page-content tr th{
     background: hsl(0, 0%, 96%);
     border-color: hsl(0, 0%, 60%);
}

 .scp-image-block.block-right{
     margin: 0 0 1em 2em;
}

/* CUSTOM BLOCKS */
 div.evidence{
     margin: 1em 3em;
     padding: 0 1em;

     background-color: hsl(0, 0%, 96%);
     border: 3px double hsl(0, 0%, 60%);
}

 @media (max-width: 479px){
     div.evidence{ margin: 1em 0; }
}

 @media (min-width: 480px) and (max-width: 580px){
     div.evidence{ margin: .5em; }
}

 .transcription{ /* ---- Mimics the Pages of a Book ---- */
     margin: 1em 0;
     padding: 0 1em;

     background-color: hsl(0, 0%, 100%);
     border: 1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 60%);
}

 .transcription p{
     line-height: 1.5;
}

 .justified{
   /* -- Justify-Aligns Text -- */
     text-align: justify;
}
 .indented{
   /* -- Indents Block by ⅜-inch (Use Within Other Divs) -- */
     text-indent: 2.4rem;
}

 .unsigned{
     margin: auto;
     padding: .001rem 1rem;

     background-image: url(https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/scp-6881-supplementary-document-juliett/Oldpapertexture.webp);
}

 .unsigned p,
 .unsigned ul{
     font: 1.65rem/1.35 'Patrick Hand', cursive;
     text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;
}

 .unsigned ul{
     list-style-type: "x  ";
}

 .unsigned ul li::marker{
     font-style: italic;
}

 .footing::before{ /* ---- Page Footing ---- */
     content: " ";
     position: absolute;
     bottom: 1px;
     left: 0;
     right: 0;
     border-bottom: 2px solid hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
}

 .footing{
     position: relative;
     bottom: -2px;
     margin-bottom: 2px;
     border-bottom: 1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 0%);
}
[[/module]]

[[div class="anchor"]]
[[div class="sidebox"]]
||~ SCP-6881 || **Project: SERAPIS** ||
||||= Supplementary Document ‘JULIETT’ ||

||= [[image https://i.imgur.com/Q2TCZnd.png style="width: 150px;"]] ||
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[=]]
[[module Rate]]
[[/=]]

@@ @@

[[div class="meta-title"]]
SCP-6881 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT ‘JULIETT’
[[/div]]

[[div class="pseudocrumbs"]]
[[[scp-6881|Project: SERAPIS]]] >> Supplementary Document ‘JULIETT’
[[/div]]

@@ @@

+++ ##900|► Play##

[[div class="blockquote"]]
[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** This is Agent Hector Gallio. The following is classified Level 5 under Project: SERAPIS -- O5 EYES ONLY.

The project is continuing under instruction of a dissenting faction of the O5 Council. My emphasis has switched from learning the anomalous history of Shibbet’s Vale, to discovering what part of that history the O5 Council and the SCP Foundation wants hidden. I have yet to find evidence of such an event, but the fact Project: SERAPIS was launched at all suggests it must be hidden in the region’s past. The further back I go, the closer I feel I am getting to that smoking gun half the Council wants hidden.

The Shibbet’s Vale area of Southern Montana went unused between the decline of the local logging industry in the late 1930s and the establishment of the US Air Force base at Camp Whitetail at the beginning of the Cold War. For most of the forties, nothing strange happened there. At least, nothing that left a record. But I turned up something that might have been relevant prior to that, in the early 1930s. The more I looked, the weirder it got.

At the beginning of the 1920s, a logging camp and sawmill was established at Shibbet’s Vale. Most timber was hauled to Lake Apesawa and from there, floated down the Whitetail River. The rest was turned to lumber at the sawmill for local sales. A semi-permanent community of between twenty and fifty loggers lived in cabins and tents around the mill, and by contemporary newspaper and police reports, rarely interacted with the nearest town of Scarslow.

In 1933, Professor Milton Douglass Fitzwilliam, of the Columbia University Anthropology Department, embarked on a study of isolated communities and their folklore and religions. In the course of this study, assisted by his student Faye Weaver and a pair of local guides, Professor Fitzwilliam arrived at Scarslow and travelled to Lake Apesawa for the short journey to the logging camp. Neither Fitzwilliam, Weaver, nor the guides came back.

It looks like Scarslow police made only a truncated investigation of the disappearances. Possibly they were under pressure from the university to keep things quick and quiet; since, from the personal correspondence of the university’s dean at the time, they thought Fitzwilliam had suffered a mental breakdown in the forest and caused the expedition to vanish. It’s also possible the Scarslow police didn't want to risk angering the loggers. My guess is, though, the police knew something weird when they saw it, and had learned by then not to get involved in anything bizarre that happened in Shibbet’s Vale.

In spite of the police, the Foundation turned up evidence about what happened. It was in the form of journals and unsent letters sent to Fitzwilliam’s widow and then given to the university. It was kept and archived there, but never published. Foundation assets in academia have been primed to watch out for anything that might relate to Shibbet’s Vale and associated anomalies, and one of our people at Columbia dug it up. I got a set of facsimiles in the mail and used that to put together what happened in 1933, which has been transcribed here. As for who sent the evidence to the cops, no one wrote that down, but I can make some guesses.

Professor Fitzwilliam specialised in studies of comparative religion, while Faye Weaver was studying for a PhD in folklore and its relationship to the power structures of small or isolated societies. They were drawn to Shibbet’s Vale by anecdotal evidence of unusual religious and folk practices among the loggers of Southern Montana. This evidence has been lost to time, but thanks to the Foundation, what happened to the expedition has not.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

+++ ##900|■ Stop##

@@ @@

= **SHOW FILES**

@@ @@

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="SHOW — Shibbet's Vale Expeditionary Journals [CLASSIFIED 5/SERAPIS]" hide="− HIDE"]]

[[div class="evidence"]]
++ 1 -- Journal of Professor Milton Douglass Fitzwilliam
[[/div]]

||~ DATE: September 25th, 1933 ||

[[div class="transcription justified"]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-block
|name=professor-fitzwilliam.jpg
|caption=Professor Fitzwilliam, c. 1933
]]

[[div class="indented"]]
Stomach somewhat better today, all for the best as we are to travel. I write this from the shores of Lake Apesawa on this autumn evening. The lake is small and not a little picturesque, nestling as it does among the sweeping slopes of the Mourning Vale Mountains where it gathers the headwaters of the Whitetail River. Here the waters pause before flowing downstream, carrying the bounty of the forest with them. I see many old tree trunks on the shore where they have become wedged in the mud, or poking up through the surface of the river where they have likewise found purchase in the sediment of the lakebed.

We have made camp on the shore with the assistance of Marcus and Elijah. Marcus hunts around the Mourning Cloaks and knows the land well, while Elijah has had dealings with the loggers of Shibbet’s Vale before. I spoke with him as we ate on the lakeshore. He says they speak little, drink much, and have need of little, save the alcohol and tobacco he and a very few others sell to them. They have a habit of telling tales to one another around the campfire of a night, though Elijah said he had never been permitted to hear any such stories in their entirety. I hope to do so personally, and thus write down what has never been committed to any but memory before. Just as the tales of Theseus or Beowulf have reached us through the diligence of a few scholars, the stories of these simple folk will reach future generations through the work I shall complete here.

Young Faye busied herself taking notes on the local flora and fauna, and sketches of the landscape. I marvel at the completeness of her desire to chronicle the world around her. Though quite brilliant, she is unfocused; or rather, she makes the whole world her study instead of selecting carefully that which would be of most benefit to record. Upon our return I shall make this a point of her instruction.

I spoke to her of the journey ahead. It is not a long one, just a bracing hike through the forest, but I wished to be certain that, having now seen the terrain, she was confident she could achieve it. I detected a little reproachfulness in her assurances to me that she is up to the task.
[[/div]]

M.D.F
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="evidence"]]
++ 2 -- Journal of Faye Weaver
[[/div]]

||~ DATE: September 25th, 1933 ||

[[div class="transcription justified"]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-block
|name=faye-weaver.jpg
|caption=Faye Weaver, c. 1933
]]

[[div class="indented"]]
We have found a haunting place.

Haunting, and haunted. Where the Professor sees just a tract of forest and mountain slopes, I see something ancient and alive, something conscious of us, suffering us only so long as its patience stretches. Now I understand the loggers of Shibbet’s Vale do not tell stories to pass the time, but rather conjure myths and sagas to celebrate this land that it might tolerate them longer. 

Of the two men who are to serve as our guides, Elijah seemed to understand what I meant when I mentioned it to him. He, too, perceives the need to respect and negotiate with this land in a way not necessary to a competent traveller elsewhere. The dense darkness of the conifers covering the mountains’ lower slopes, the black waters of the small but portentous lake, the strange fruit-trees scattered among the foliage with their bunches of fat white berries: they all speak to me of a guiding hand, and a jealous, unfriendly one. Elijah said he spoke to the land as he travelled it, welcoming it with the sunrise and thanking it for its tolerance when he passed beyond its vague borders. He is a young man, but weathered and worn. He has a dark handsomeness to him, and I wonder if he has some native blood.

Marcus is a simple man, akin to a pack animal or dockside crane, good for lifting and putting down but not for conversation. To him I am a novelty, as a bright new toy to a dog. A woman, far from the relative civilisation of Scarslow or Billings. Dressed like a man instead of in billowing skirts or a servant-girl’s garb. One who actually speaks instead of giggling and whinnying like the women he knows. I would rather not spend any time around him save to benefit from his mechanical capabilities, in case his bemusement at me turns to hunger.

I drew the landscape as best I could, but the essential otherness of this place escapes me. I can render it fully in neither charcoal nor the written word. Perhaps the loggers, who have lived here for years, can help me grasp what makes Shibbet’s Vale so strange to me.
[[/div]]

--Faye
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="evidence"]]
++ 3 -- Journal of Professor Milton Douglass Fitzwilliam
[[/div]]

||~ DATE: September 26th, 1933 ||

[[div class="transcription justified"]]
[[div class="indented"]]
What was supposed to be a single day’s trek through the forest has proven far more arduous, and tedious. After we set out in the morning, and had walked for an hour or so, Elijah and Marcus had some disagreement about which way to take. I interjected that the journey was short and straightforward, and that two men as experienced in the region as they should have no disagreement about such a simple task as guiding us.

Elijah won out and took us along the path of a small stream. The trees closed in until the branches met overhead, and it was as dark as night. The undergrowth was unfamiliar to me. Bushes with knife-like leaves that cut at my shins and hands. Stunted, gnarled trees that nevertheless bore clusters of white fruit. A strange profusion of birds was always nearby, with long plumage that hung down like that of the exotic Bird of Paradise, and yet had red eyes like cut rubies. I fancy I saw a rabbit darting from our path that glanced at us fearfully with two heads on a single body. The darkness was playing tricks with me.

I am thankful we brought the bare minimum to bed down for the night. A bedroll and bivouac will hardly be comfortable, but it is better than risking exposure in the open air. We found a dry patch after a short hike up to a foothill of the Mourning Cloaks, set a fire, and made camp as best we could. The mood was sullen and accusatory. Marcus asked Elijah if he was still so certain his course was the right one, and if he could even be sure we had not walked in a wide circle. Elijah did not reply, but I feel it was more in scorn of the other man than in restraint.

I was concerned for Faye, for the day had been both tiring and dispiriting. Her words were short, and I surmised she was physically sound, but that her temper was unravelling with the disappointment and privation. We ate some of the rations we had brought with us, mostly stale bread and some very welcome cheese along with a pot of coffee over the fire. Marcus spoke of hunting but decided it would be better to stay with us for the night, for our safety. Neither man has any doubt we shall reach the camp tomorrow, albeit by a more circuitous route than we had expected.
[[/div]]

M.D.F
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="evidence"]]
++ 4 -- The Journal of Faye Weaver
[[/div]]

||~ DATE: September 26th, 1933 ||

[[div class="transcription justified"]]
[[div class="indented"]]
I had dreams of a city empty of people that was sinking into the earth. I tried to walk past its boundary before I was swallowed but I could barely move. Some force was holding me back, and demanding I fight against it for every step. I looked down and saw my lower extremities were falling apart. My feet, bare of shoes, disintegrated, and I left a trail of toe bones behind me. I walked on the stumps of my ankles, and thought of it not with agony or horror but of dismay at the inevitability of such a happening. It all seemed normal, and fated as if prophesied long ago.

I felt, above all, an overwhelming dissatisfaction with all civilisation and human endeavours, and cursed the weakness of man’s works, for it had forced me to sink and drown alongside it.

I was troubled by these night-time visions, but I know better now than to speak of it with the Professor who would dismiss them as the fancies of a woman’s delicate mind or, worse, try to analyse my dream and explain to me all the things wrong with me that I should labour to address.

I spoke a little with Elijah as we walked. He told me people had gone missing in Shibbet’s Vale, as they have everywhere anyone travels in the wild, but that when they are found it is always curled up at the foot of one of the abnormal fruit-trees. I asked if he aimed to stay with us when we reached the logging camp and he replied that he had hoped to return to Scarslow as soon as possible. I would be more comfortable if he was with us for however long our stay at the camp may be, and hope to convince him to extend his service as a guide once we are there.

I did not speak at all with Marcus. Something about him repels me. He is as simple and nondescript man as could be imagined, a doughy bulk concealing the musculature of a pack horse and brown hair shorn close. His eyes are small and dark, his face sagging and without symmetry in spite of his youth. I was grateful that he sought to interact with myself and the Professor very little during our hike. To touch Marcus, I think, would be akin to handling a creature dug up from the silt of the seabed.

We have not arrived at our destination. The men were perturbed by this. The distance should have taken us the better part of a day at the most, but night fell, and we were still in the forest with no sight of the logging camp. Their frustration and bemusement at this was such that I had no need to add to it.

It is not nearly such a surprise to me that we are still in the embrace of the forest. Shibbet’s Vale is reminding us whose land we are traversing. Of course, it will have its fun with us before we leave.
[[/div]]

--Faye
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="evidence"]]
++ 5 -- Journal of Professor Milton Douglass Fitzwilliam
[[/div]]

||~ DATE: September 27th, 1933 ||

[[div class="transcription justified"]]
[[div class="indented"]]
I am at the end of my wits.

The first blow to the balance of my mind was when we awoke to find Elijah gone. His bedroll was still there but the rest of his belongings had vanished, along with the man himself. Marcus claimed no knowledge of where he was, or for what purpose he had abandoned us. We even waited a good two hours after we woke, in case Elijah was a short distance from us hunting or for some other reason, soon to return. But he did not.

We could not wait any longer. Marcus agreed with me that we should keep moving to find the logging camp and there be relieved of our privations. We were hungry and cold, and not a little fractious. Faye was in tears this morning, though she recovered her composure and again took on that repression of the emotions so abnormal for her sex, and which made her more suited than most women to the rigours of hard study. Marcus now took the lead, aiming to reach raised ground so we could better survey our surroundings and thereby undo the damage to our route that Elijah’s doubtless incompetent leadership had done.

In an attempt to raise our spirits a little, I spoke with Faye about the purpose of our project, an examination of the loggers’ folklore, of which much had been made by the people of Scarslow and of which word had reached the university. It is my belief their folk beliefs will prove to be a synthesis of local legends, and the traditional tales of these people’s place of origin. It would be no surprise to hear parallels to German or Scandinavian tales, changed through the lens of Indigenous beliefs into something unique to this small community of rugged souls.

Faye believes less firmly my hypothesis will be proven correct. She, instead, sees folk beliefs as an expression of the environment of the believers, and the manner in which they interact with their immediate surroundings and neighbours. As one who has made a study of Sulis Minerva and the many variations of the Babylonian Marduk, among several others, I feel she is naive in not seeking a syncretic model of folklore. Faye is brilliant, but stubborn. I hope, with experience, she will come to understand the world as I do, in its reality.

It was a dull trudge through the forest, and now it was uphill. We never seemed to crest a ridge or reach a place where the trees thinned out enough for us to see any distance. Around early afternoon, we paused to rest, and Marcus spotted a deer moving nearby. Urging us to be silent, he drew a revolver I had not been aware he was carrying, and with a volley of shots, cut down the creature before it could flinch from the first report. It was an inelegant kill, but our hunger forgave his lack of a hunter’s finesse.

When he dragged the carcass towards us, however, I saw it was a deformed horror with six legs, and multiple vestigial limbs running along its flanks in two rows. Its fur was clotted with viscous fluid that oozed from open blisters covering its back. Its face had a single huge eye and two mouths, one atop the other, with the lowermost jaw lolling open to reveal a long, spiny tongue like the arm of a starfish. The underside of its belly was swollen and without fur, and I could glimpse something squirming under the translucent bulbs of membranous skin.

So disgusting was the sight that I could not conscience eating any part of it. I would rather go hungry, and I told so to Marcus. He replied that if we ate nothing, we would be too weak to continue. I made do with the last crumbs of my rations, which did little to reduce the rumbling of my belly.

Faye chose not to partake of the deer, either. Instead, she picked one of the peculiar white fruits and gave it a taste. I had left them alone for their very strangeness had convinced me they must be poisonous. I confess, though I warned Faye against this course of action, I wonder if a part of me chose not to be too convincing, for by witnessing her reaction to the fruit I could judge whether it would be safe to partake of it myself. Faye ate a bite, fell silent for a few moments, then said it was exceedingly bitter and turned her stomach, and should not be eaten.

The time ran together. It must have been some more hours we walked, for when I next compose a coherent memory it is of us sitting at a small fire Marcus had built. He cut a leg off the deer and attempted to cook it, but it was so foul-smelling he opted to hurl it and the rest of the carcass some distance away from us rather than try to eat it.

We will sleep again, in bivouacs that do little to turn away the wind which now has a hint of chill to it, and on bedrolls not quite proof against the damp ground. Marcus attempted to explain away how we have come to be lost while making such a short journey, claiming we must have got turned around when Elijah led us. From the passage of the sun, he determined our direction, and in the morning will lead us back down the slopes into a broad valley that will lead us, he claims, without error to the location of the camp. Writing this in my journal by the fire, I look across the flames to Marcus and see a dull and ill-educated man I would not choose to put my trust in for anything more complicated than chopping wood. Nevertheless, he knows this region better than Faye or myself, so we have no choice but to follow where he leads.
[[/div]]

M.D.F
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="evidence"]]
++ 6 -- Journal of Faye Weaver
[[/div]]

||~ DATE: September 27th, 1933 ||

[[div class="transcription justified"]]
[[div class="indented"]]
I have seen a world all at once, as if with the eye of God. I comprehended the entire globe, and in its oceans were an endless, teeming profusion of life. Its continents were swathed in forest, from coast to coast and into the very darkest heart of every land, trees so tall they exceeded the mountaintops and made canopies like a sky of twining branches. Life in its rawest form seeped from the ground and drifted like winds of spores across the world. What was born, was changed from its parent, for there was no constancy here, no crude shackles of natural law around this true and absolute nature. It grew, it changed still more, and from its flesh grew new expressions of what life really is. A force, an undivertable imperative like the hunger of a fire or the oppression of winter. More than fur, claw, and leaf, more than the simple natural sciences as we understand them can describe. Life as it is, and should be, and will be again.

This world I saw when I took a bite of the fruit from the trees of Shibbet’s Vale.

I am a different person than I was before I tasted the fruit. I knew the Professor would not understand what I had seen, or what it meant. I had seen what was to be, what was inevitable, and thus I knew everything that happened to our temporary bodies was meaningless. I kept silent and mumbled some excuse about the fruit being unpalatably bitter.

We kept walking, and the Professor lamented we were lost. It is not possible to be lost in this forest, of course, for it has no track or direction, it has no exit or beginning. It is a reflection of life as it truly is, unending and total.

Marcus was looking at me. The crudeness of his gaze cuts through the new strata of knowledge that lie over me. To him I am meat, a gross thing to be possessed. I saw him butcher that deer and I witnessed in his hands my own flesh to be devoured. The Professor is conceited and ignorant, tiresome but no danger. Marcus, I see, is everything life hates. He consumes. He despoils. His mask of stupidity and unimportance conceals what he really is, and I thank the will of the land that I see through it now.

In the world I used to perceive, we stopped again to eat and sleep. The men are weary and miserable. They cannot understand why they have not reached their destination, as if such a thing even exists anymore.

They are bedding down to sleep in the heat of the fire. I do not sleep. I will never sleep again.
[[/div]]

--Faye
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="evidence"]]
++ 7 -- Journal of Professor Milton Douglass Fitzwilliam
[[/div]]

||~ DATE: September 29th, 1933 ||

[[div class="transcription justified"]]
[[div class="indented"]]
Such are the events of the recent past I can scarcely undertake to write them down here. I shall simply tell the facts as I saw and underwent them, for to illuminate my thoughts and inferences would fill many volumes. Perhaps I shall write exactly that when I am returned to Columbia. Not that I am likely to be believed, unless material evidence is recovered from the depths of that infernal forest.

I awoke cold and miserable, for the evening had been damp and the fire had gone out. Dawn had not yet fully broken, not that much sunlight would have made it through the dense foliage surrounding our makeshift camp. I called out for Marcus, expecting him to have awoken before me, but there was no reply. Faye, similarly, did not answer. I extricated myself from my sodden bedroll and saw neither were in the camp. Hearing a sound like footsteps over fallen branches nearby, I headed towards the sound, sure it was one or both of them about some business of the morning such as gathering firewood or seeking fresh water.

I saw Marcus’ revolver glinting on the ground. It had been thrown haphazardly to land at the foot of a tree. Then I heard the cracking or snapping sound louder and closer, and turned ready to admonish Marcus for carelessly dropping the gun.

I saw Faye and Marcus. He was on the ground, reaching up at her. She stood over him.

She was eating him. With one hand, Marcus groped up at her in a feeble attempt to fend her off. The other arm was in Faye’s grip, and she was pulling her head back with a mouthful of the skin and muscle of the forearm. The flesh parted from the bone as I watched and with a bestial toss of her head, she ripped a chunk free, wolfing it down without chewing like a predator forcing down a still-kicking prey.

What I had thought to be the breaking of sticks underfoot was the gristle and bone of Marcus’ hand crunching as Faye wrenched them asunder. The remaining fingers on the half-devoured arm were splayed and broken. Many more chunks had been torn from the limb, and blood and gore covered the front of Faye’s shirt and clotted her mouth and chin. It clung to her fair hair and glistened on the pine needles around her feet.

In my utter bemusement, and the absurdity of thought it brought about, and wondered how it was that Marcus had not cried out to be so horribly mutilated. Then I saw his throat was mauled and bloody, with strips of skin hanging around his blood-soaked collar. Faye had first attacked there, ravaging his neck in such a way to destroy the larynx and rob him of his voice. The only sound he could make was a thin, strained wheeze, and the foaming of the blood around his neck told me his windpipe was ruined in that first assault.

Now Faye took the man’s forearm in her mouth and bit down, wrenching at the limb and whipping her head to the side so the bone cracked. She gulped down chunks of meat and gobbets of blood as she gnawed at the savaged arm.

Some part of me remained conscious of the reality of the situation. That part of me caused me to stoop and pick up the fallen revolver. Too late, as I felt the hammer click down on an empty chamber, I remembered that Marcus had unloaded into the deformed deer the day before.

The sound of the empty gun caused Faye to register my presence, and she looked up at me with bloodshot eyes, the arm still clamped in her jaws. She began to pant like a dog in the sun, a feral sound that proved to me the humanity in her was gone.

I turned and ran. It shames me a little to think of it, but I do not believe any sound-minded soul would have been capable of anything else.

I cannot say how long I ran for. I think I must have collapsed, or suffered some oblivion of the senses as my subconscious gave me respite from the horror I had seen. When I next had comprehension of my surroundings, I was lying on a straw-stuffed mattress beneath several blankets, and above me was not the unyielding boughs of the forest trees but the roof of a wood cabin.

I emerged blinking into a cleared area of the forest. A mountain’s lower slopes rose behind a large wooden building with more cabins around it, along with some tents and a firepit. Piles of cut logs stood around, tied or chained together, with a number of carts and a few horses tethered. And for the first time in what felt like forever, there were people around. Men, all of them rugged and weathered, with skin like battered leather and scarred hands like those of a sailor.

I realised I had reached my goal. This was the Shibbet’s Vale logging camp! Two dozen men were going about their business, hauling cartfuls of logs into the large building that I quickly surmised was the sawmill. The high whine of the huge saw was like a delicate symphony to my ears, and every one of those bearded toughs seemed like a gracious angel to me. They were, after all, my salvation.

A man named Leon, who had the air of a leader among them, saw I had awoken and bade me eat with them and take some whiskey for my strength. I did so in something of a daze. He explained to me they were returning to camp with cartloads of logs, when one of the men spotted me shambling through the forest. I had collapsed into the arms of the first man to reach me and been transported there unconscious. For possessions I had only my journal and the filthy tatters of my clothes. I asked after Faye and Marcus, though of course I could not readily believe the latter was alive, and also Elijah in case he had headed to the camp after abandoning us. None of them had been seen. Of the expedition, only I had reached my goal.

Night drew on, for I had been unconscious for the better part of the day. I ate some thick, hearty broth and, not wishing to be impolite, took another nip of whiskey which I admit brought some much-needed warmth to my belly. Around the largest fire the logging men sat, and Leon spoke to them like a preacher at a sermon or a schoolmaster instructing his students. I realised I was witness to the folkloric activity I had come to Shibbet’s Vale to document, and to banish from my mind the horrors of that morning I took notes on what I heard. It was a familiar feeling, and a welcome one, to put pen to page in the name of knowledge once more.

Leon told a tale of a goddess of nature, fertility and childbirth, whose realm is the forest. I am reminded of both animistic proto-Roman beliefs, and the many sylvan deities such as the Greek Artemis, the Hindu Aranyani, and the many variations of the Green Man and Green Woman. In description she most closely resembled Mokosh, Mother Goddess and deity of nature to the ancient Slavs. Her name, which was in a tongue other than English, even resembled the name ‘Mokosh’ in its sound.

Could the worship of this deity have crossed from Siberia to North America, and somehow found its way to the ears of these simple men? Leon’s story told of her long flight from a land to the East, and how, exhausted, she paused at the Mourning Cloaks to rest. It could be this is an allegory for the displacement of the Slavic religion by the encroachment of Christianity. Even given the terrible events I have seen so recently, I feel a pang of joy at the potential such a connection would bring to myself and others who see a syncretic pattern in the world’s folklore.

This Mokosh-figure created a labyrinth of the forest, and therein sent animals and people to negotiate it. Those who made it out had shown their greater value to the goddess, and so were made a sacrifice to her. In this way, sacrifices were rare, because so few passed the labyrinthine trial. The labyrinth of Minos, perhaps, combined with the Slavic myths of Mokosh? Or merely a ‘Just So’ story to explain why this folklore demands sacrifices only rarely, or not at all?

Leon spoke of folk being healed after accidents while felling trees, or who were lost in the woods and led back by a creature sent by Mokosh. Some even came back to life after dying in her forest. I regret that my exhaustion and the battered state of my mind mean I have not taken such extensive notes as I would prefer, and I am retiring before Leon is done with his sermon.

I sleep now. I shall encourage Leon to explain in greater detail in the morning.
[[/div]]

M.D.F
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="evidence"]]
++ 8 -- Journal of Professor Milton Douglass Fitzwilliam
[[/div]]

||~ DATE: September 30th, 1933 ||

[[div class="transcription justified"]]
//Before dawn.//

//I have been a most terrible fool.//
[[/div]]

[[/collapsible]]

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="SHOW — Unsigned Journal [CLASSIFIED 5/SERAPIS]" hide="− HIDE"]]

**GALLIO:** The following was written after the final entry in Professor Fitzwilliam’s journal. It is in different handwriting to Fitzwilliam or Weaver. This entry is unsigned, and the author is unknown.

[[div class="unsigned"]]
You will send your people to find them, but you will not. So do not bother. It is better for all of us if no one looks. Anyone you send, will vanish into the forest like they did.

The Professor was curious, but there is nothing strange about us. We learn about what is around us, which is the forest. We rely on the forest for our livelihood, and we fear it because it can kill us if it wants. So we listen to it, and when it tells us what to do, we obey. If we do not appease the forest, it will kill us.

The forest’s voice is a woman’s. She sleeps below the ground. One day she will wake up and rule everything the way she rules Shibbet’s Vale. Her name is Mokosh, and she comes from far away, but this is her home now.

When we eat the fruit that grows in her garden, we see her future, and sometimes we are permitted to see her, too. Her flesh is the wood from the heart of the tree. She is crowned and clothed in green. She is protected while she sleeps in a cocoon she wove, and it takes the form of a beast that devours all who threaten her. It takes a lot to make her stir in her sleep, but when she does, the forest changes to her will.

We give her what she demands, and she lets us live and thrive. She demanded the two things she desires.

* The first is a handmaiden to serve her, for she came to this land alone.

* The second is a sacrifice, for she hungers, and she must be sustained.

The first she took for herself. The second, we gave her.

The Professor realised in the last moments why we had brought him there. He did not try to run or struggle. To his credit, he did not cry out until right at the very end.

I can’t read thoughts, but I know the last thing that went through the Professor’s head.

//It was the blade of the saw.//
[[/div]]

[[/collapsible]]

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="SHOW — COMMENTARY — DR. GALLIO: Shibbet's Vale Expeditionary Journals [CLASSIFIED 5/SERAPIS]" hide="− HIDE"]]
**GALLIO:**

The structure of the sawmill remains in Shibbet’s Vale, but little other evidence of the logging camp can be found. The loggers were gone by the time the US Air Force built Camp Whitetail close to the site of the camp. The logging industry did not return to Shibbet’s Vale.

Aside from the documents sent anonymously to Professor Fitzwilliam’s widow, no sign of Faye Weaver or the Professor have been found. The men named as Marcus and Elijah have not been conclusively identified so it is not possible to know if they ever returned from the expedition. If Professor Fitzwilliam’s journal is accurate, at least one of them definitely did not.

Fitzwilliam’s identification of Mokosh as the deity of Shibbet’s Vale matches all the data that Project: SERAPIS has gathered. The goddess description and the narrative of fleeing from the East are consistent throughout the region’s history. The living cocoon in which the deity sleeps could also be the same entity as SCP-6881. Mokosh itself may therefore be designated **SCP-6881-2**, but more information is needed before these conclusions can be reached.

I note that Faye Weaver was not found, but was last seen alive by Professor Fitzwilliam. The same is true of several other individuals involved in anomalous events at Shibbet’s Vale, who were not found but have also never been confirmed dead. Faye Weaver is one of them. The four girls in Camp Apesawa in 1974. Rebecca Valenti in 1986. Too little data exists to confirm a pattern, but I see one developing.

Though the entity under Shibbet’s Vale should be properly known by an SCP number, giving a name to it makes me feel I am closer to understanding it, or at least what secrets of Shibbet’s Vale the Foundation wants to keep hidden. It may only be a short step to that knowledge. A short distance to the resting place of Mokosh.

This concludes my research into the events at Shibbet’s Vale in 1933. This information is classified Level 5 — O5-12 EYES ONLY. Agent Hector Gallio, signing off.
[[/collapsible]]

@@ @@
@@ @@
@@ @@

[[div class="pseudocrumbs"]]
**| [[[scp-6881|Return to Project: SERAPIS]]] |**
[[/div]]

@@ @@

[[div class="footing"]]
[[/div]]

@@ @@

[[=]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box
|author=Ben Counter, Pacific Obadiah, & edited by LordStonefish, Lt Flops]]
[[<]]
=====
> **Filename:** [https://i.imgur.com/Q2TCZnd.png Q2TCZnd.png]
> **Name:** Overwatch Command Logo
> **Author:** [[*user EstrellaYoshte]]
> **License:** [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)]
> **Source Link:** [[[/desk-of-junior-designer-s-yvonne|Desk of Junior Designer S. Yvonne - SCP Foundation]]]

> **Filename:** Oldpapertexture.webp
> **Name:** Old paper texture
> **Author:** Smartscrutiny
> **License:** [*https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)]
> **Source Link:** [*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oldpapertexture01.jpg Wikimedia Commons]

> **Filename:** professor-fitzwilliam.jpg
> **Name:** France Stele 1930
> **Author:** Matej Sternen
> **License:** [*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-Slovenia/en Public Domain]
> **Source Link:** [*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_Stele_1930.jpg Wikimedia Commons]

> **Filename:** faye-weaver.jpg
> **Name:** Typewriter, interior, cactus, lady Fortepan 19960
> **Author:** FOTO:FORTEPAN / Kölcsey Ferenc Dunakeszi Városi Könyvtár / Petanovics fényképek
> **License:** [*https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)]
> **Source Link:** [*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Typewriter,_interior,_cactus,_lady_Fortepan_19960.jpg Wikimedia Commons]
=====
[[/<]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]
[[/=]]

@@ @@

SCP-6881 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT ‘JULIETT’

Module Styles

Inline Styles

Includes

CSS Classes

Page Source