Link to article: SCP-8491.
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[[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] [[include component:image-block | name=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Dragonblood_tree_in_Socotra_2.jpg| caption= SCP-8491 pictured upon initial discovery. | width=WIDTH-GOES-HERE]] **Item #:** SCP-8491 **Object Class:** Euclid **Special Containment Procedures:** SCP-8491 is to remain in situ, with a 30 meter exclusion zone is to be established around the site and maintained under remote surveillance. Any unauthorized persons, regardless of ethnic or national affiliation, are to be intercepted and detained for screening. Any physical interaction is restricted to Foundation personnel with a Level 3 clearance during approved experiments. Personnel with known ancestry in Levante region are to undergo pre-deployment psychological screenings and post-deployment monitoring. Individuals exhibiting emotional fixation, nostalgia, or compulsion after exposure to SCP-8491 are to be reassigned immediately. **Description:** SCP-8491 refers to a █████ tree locating on a terraced hillside in a disputed rural zone within the Daffah Territories. Standard dendrochronological analysis of the tree have proven unreliable due to irregular growth rings and continuous internal regeneration. SCP-8491 exhibits extraordinary resilience to physical harm, such as fire, slashing, and uprooting. Damage from such events is consistently reversed within 72 hours. During periods of damage and recovery, SCP-8491 continuously exudes a viscous red sap. The cumulative volume of these excretions often exceeds the estimated volume of what would be expected from a █████ tree. Individuals in prolonged proximity to SCP-8491, particularly those with ancestral ties to the region, are at risk of developing irrational attachments and protectiveness to the item. **Discovery Log 8491-01** [[div class="blockquote"]] **Foreword:** Transcript recovered from audiovisual equipment owned by the Cascadia Institute of Environmental Science & Stewardship. Persons involved were subsequently apprehended and transferred to Foundation custody. **Date:** 07/05/2025 **Personnel Present:** * Dr. S. Narjeen - Research Toxicologist * Dr. Y. Saleh - Research Botonist ------ **10:31** - Narjeen and Saleh arrive on an abandoned hillside grove during an ecological survey, intending to collect samples for bioaccumulation research. **10:45** - Narjeen notes a particularly healthy specimen, hereby SCP-8491. Bark is sterilized. Saleh initiates coring for the sample. **10:47** - Core reaches 2.4 cm, and a soft pink sap begins seeping from the bark. Narjeen and Saleh assume a surface fungal infection and continue coring. **10:51** - Core reaches 4.6 cm, and sap becomes reddish and thicker. Narjeen remarks that the sap is warm to the touch. **10:54** - Core reaches 8.2 cm, and resistance suddenly increases. Apparatus measurement reverses slightly, now indicating 7.5 cm. Coring is halted. **10:58** - Narjeen removes the core and drains remaining sap. She peers into the coring site. She remarks about a round, moist surface at the back of the hole before stopping. > **Narjeen:** Yasmine, the camera- > > **Saleh:** What is that? > > **Narjeen:** There's an eye. > > //A green eye rises to the surface of the bark, its gaze fixated on Saleh.// > > **Saleh:** Salam! Get back! We should go- > > **Narjeen:** I can't leave. It's watching me. **11:01** – Saleh flees the grove toward a nearby residential structure. Narjeen remains in place. **11:17** – Local emergency transmissions intercepted by Foundation monitoring assets. Civilian reports “a woman speaking to a tree.” **11:35** – MTF Tau-11 ("Warden’s Bough") arrives on site. Narjeen is found kneeling near SCP-8491. The eye is no longer visible. > **Agent Al-Mansari:** Ma’am, please stand. > > **Narjeen (softly)**: It sees us. It remembers us. Those who left… and those who stayed. > > **Al-Mansari:** You’re safe now. > > **Narjeen:** I already was. **11:37** - Witnesses on-site report a vertical seam briefly forming in the trunk of SCP-8491. For approximately 2.3 seconds, the bark peels outward, revealing a dark opening lined with fibrous structures resembling lips. A voice—described as low, breathless, and distinctly feminine—whispers a single word: > **SCP-8491:** Salam... **11:38** - Narjeen is observed exhaling slowly and placing her palm against the bark. She does not resist removal. ------ **Postscript:** Partial core sample collected from SCP-8491 shows embedded keratinized structures. Microscopy reveals cellular patterns atypical for plant tissue, bearing resemblance to organic epithelial material. Sample incinerated on protocol grounds. [[/div]] **Recovered Journal Fragment 8491-01** [[div class="blockquote"]] **Recovery Context:** Unearthed on 07/08/2025, during shallow root tracing beneath SCP-8491. The object was found wrapped in waxed fabric and partially buried beneath compacted loam. ------ //May 15th, 1948// They came again today: the same men, the same machines, the same intention. They knocked on my door, pointed to the horizon, and said "You must go". I asked them where they wanted me to go, and they replied "anywhere but here". But there is only here for my family. There is no anywhere else. My great-grandfather pressed the grove's very seeds into the earth with his bare hands. My grandmother died plucking fruit from their branches well into her older age. When I leave, who upon this land remembers them? I said as much, calmly albeit my trembling voice, hopeful one might be sympathetic to my plight. I pointed towards the press, to the oil barrels beside it stacked up three high, the last yield I had saved before my father's death. And I told them that much too. One of them walked over to the grove. He neither spoke nor looked at me. Instead, he raised his rifle. One shot brought the barrels crashing down onto the press. A second, third, and fourth shot he placed straight into the heart of the basin, until it too shattered and broke. The fifth shot landed in my doorframe. I am ashamed to say it was enough to make me back away, More men would arrive, with axes and saws, and they would take to the old groves. No words. No explanation. Just erasure. I was being unmade. I will go to the oldest tree. The one with the rotting limbs and a hollow heart, yet, still clinging to existence. I will kiss its roots and embrace its limbs, then beg it to let me stay. Allow me to give it new life. Inshallah, I will forever remember my family. They will cut me. They will burn me. They will try to forget me. But I will always remain. As long as we stand, the memory, and therefore, the future, will remain. And perhaps, it may be found again. [[/div]] [[footnoteblock]] [[div class="footer-wikiwalk-nav"]] [[=]] << [[[SCP-8490]]] | SCP-8491 | [[[SCP-8492]]] >> [[/=]] [[/div]]