SCP-8774

Link to article: SCP-8774.

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[[size 90%]]SCP-8774: The Ghost of You //[[/size]]
[[size 90%]]die Toten reiten schnell[[/size]]
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[[[canon-hub|Canon Hub]]] » [[[from-120-s-archives-hub|From 120's Archives Hub]]] » The Ghost of You // die Toten reiten schnell
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**Item #:** SCP-8774

**Special Containment Procedures:** Due to the spectral properties of the anomaly,  SCP-8774 is currently considered uncontainable. Living SCP-8774-A instances should be located and monitored for the development of psionic abilities, and for further encounters with occult entities. 

**Description:** SCP-8774 is a hostile spectral entity, defined by its relationship with its victims, hereafter referred to as SCP-8774-A.

In all known cases, SCP-8774-A is a young Christian woman, who is engaged to a young man to whom she has been separated from for an extended period of time. During her fiance's absence, SCP-8774 will manifest within SCP-8774-A's dreams, attempting to convince her that her fiance has perished. SCP-8774 will attempt to convince its target that she has no choice other than to join her fiance in death. Following the reappearance of SCP-8774-A's fiance, SCP-8774 will cease manifesting in their victim's subconsciousness.   

While the Foundation has confirmed three cases of SCP-8774 manifestation, only one SCP-8774-A remains alive at time of recording. Exposure to SCP-8774 appears to cause its victims to develop psionic abilites, increasing the chance they will be targeted by other hostile occult entities later in life. It is unclear what would happen should an SCP-8774-A fail to resist SCP-8774 before the return of her fiance. 

SCP-8774's existence was theorized by Doctor Abraham Van Helsing, a Dutch scientist and occult researcher, who confirmed the existence of the anomaly after discovering an individual actively being tormented by SCP-8774. A recounting of his interaction with the individual later designated as SCP-8774-A-1 can be found bellow:

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My meeting with one who was actively under the spell of the Death Rider was completely by chance. It was June in London, and I found myself in the city on business; I had taken a boat from Holland, and was supposed to take a train to the Welsh countryside to investigate some peculiar pre-roman tombs, but poor weather had caused me to miss the final train of the night. Alone and without a place to stay at the night, I decided to pay a sunrise visit to a colleague of mine whom I had not seen in quite some time. When he opened the door to see me, he looked at me as though I were an envoy from the Lord himself. He stumbled into me, words rushing out of his mouth faster than I could process, and I managed to let myself inside and help him sit down on the hallway bench.

We he regained his composure, he told me that his daughter had fallen gravely ill, and that he needed my expertise to cure her. I expressed surprise, as although I am a competent doctor, I am not a specialist in any particular kind of ailment. My colleague disagreed, as he did not merely need a doctor, but someone entrenched in the occult arts.

He explained the ordeal to me as such: His daughter's soon-to-be husband had gone on a business trip to the east, but had stopped sending the letters he had promised after he had landed in his client's country. Soon after it became clear that the man was missing, my colleague's daughter had awoken in a cold sweat, declaring that her husband had died, and that the devil himself had come to take her soul. She had become increasingly distressed over the next few weeks. She began to refuse sleep, due to her belief that a demonic entity had been invading her dreams, and became increasingly ill-mannered as lack of sleep and grief began to set in. My hair stood on end as he told me this story and, knowing I could have a chance to learn more about the Death Rider, I requested to see her as soon as possible.

When I first entered her room, she ordered her father to remove me, claiming no doctor could aid her in her condition. While we had met each other before on a few occasions, the last time she had seen me was nearly a decade ago, so she did not recolonize me at first. When she learned I was a friend of her father's, and a specialist of the occult, she relaxed notably, but still insisted I would be unable to save her from her torment. Nonetheless, when I requested she tell me what had happened, in her own words, she relented.

Her first nightmare had taken place the night she learned of her husband's upcoming trip, though she could not recall exactly what happened within it. Regardless, this dream convinced her that her fiance would be in mortal peril should he leave for Transylvania. The pattern of waking from a forgotten nightmare about the danger her soon-to-be husband was in continued throughout the week, up to the day hey was to begin his journey. After he had left, her dreams of disaster dropped in frequency, but did not halt entirely. Her first dream she could recall, and first interaction with the Death Rider, came five days after his first and only letter home, in which he promised to follow up immediately when he reached his client's property later in the evening. 

She was asleep in her bed, when she was woken by the sound of hooves on cobblestone shattering the unnatural silence of the night. The hooves came to a rest under her open window, where she heard the sound of the horse snorting nervously. She climbed from her bed, and cautiously crawled to the window, where she saw something unbelievable-- Atop the horse was a figure covered in the thick dark of night, who she instantly recognized as her fiance.

She rushed down the stairs, out her front door, and began to hurl a series of questions at him. Why had he not written the second letter? What was he doing back in London so soon? Who's horse did he ride through the streets of London? The figure answered none of her questions, insisting she climb atop the back of his horse. His tone was sharp and steady, but she swore there was a hint of fear beneath it that concerned the woman deeply. She insisted he follow her inside, but he simply kept repeating the command in that same unusual tone. Seeing no other options, and with impaired judgement from a lack of sleep, she allowed herself to be pulled by the figure onto his horse.

She knew, as soon as the horse began to move without so much as a command from the rider, that something was wrong. London passed by them in a blur, mixing together with forest, countryside, beach, and rolling hills. She became aware, at some point, that the horse was traveling across a large lake, with its feet using the water's surface as though it was solid ground. The clattering of the hoods grew louder and louder, and when she turned to see her fiance's face, she could only make out the outlines of his features, despite how eerily bright the night was. She gripped the horse tightly, believing all that she saw was true, rather than a trick of her subconscious.

The horse only stopped when it arrived at a graveyard she had never seen before. The woman tried to ask her fiance where he had taken them, but he simply let himself off the horse, and began to walk to the center of the graveyard. She followed him at a distance, fearful of this creature that appeared as her fiance, but unsure of any other options she had. The shadowed figure stopped outside of a large mausoleum in the center of the necropolis, gesturing for her to look within. There was only one thing within the large tomb; a bed, much like the one she shared with her fiance, and the undeniably dead corpse of that very man. 

She turned to look at the figure who had brought her here, only to see it transform before her eyes. The facsimile of her fiance was gone, replaced by a figure draped in obsidian black robes, carrying a sickle blade in one hand, and an oil lamp in the other. Its face melted away like sand, revealing a dull yellowing skull, matching the skeletal visage of its hands. When the figure spoke, its tone remained unchanged, but it spoke in something that was decidedly not her husband's voice.

It told her that her husband had died, that she would be alone forever in this world and the next, unless she followed him into the world of the dead. No man would be able to forgive her as he had, it said. Without him, she would lead a miserable, lonely life which would end in a lonely death, and an eternity of torment alone, without the love of God her fiance. When I interrupted to ask her what the demon was referring to, she refused to answer, even as I promised her it would never reach the ears of her father. All she would reveal to me was that she believed she had failed in her duties as a future wife, and that her fiance was the only man who had continued to court her after he had learned of her secret. She believed he was the only man who would be capable of forgiving her for what she had done.

Of course, she rejected the Death Rider's assertion that her husband was dead. The clever girl knew a demon would not tempt her as it did were she truly out of options. When she turned to run from the Rider and the mausoleum, she found herself bolt upright in her bed, screaming as dawn began to light the streets of London. She continued to insist to the Death Rider that her fiance was alive as it continued to find new ways of tormenting her in her dreams, but her hope this may be true had begun to wane the more time went on. When she told me this, I clasped her hand and told her, in no uncertain terms, that her husband-to-be would live as long as she did not give into the devil's temptations.

Sure enough, her husband returned to London four days later. He was ragged and rattled, and in desperate need of medical attention, but he was most certainly alive. The Death Rider did not return to the woman's dreams that night, and as far as I have been told by my colleague, it has yet to bother her again.
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At time of writing, SCP-8774-A-1 is not directly within Foundation containment due to two major factors, the first being that Dr. Van Helsing has expressed major disagreements with the Foundation's containment of humanoid anomalies in the past. As a major source of knowledge regarding occult practices and entities, the Foundation does not wish to strain their relationship with Dr. Van Helsing more than necessary. Additionally, SCP-8774-A-1's fiance, Jonathan Harker, has since become a Foundation employee, and has agreed to monitor the anomaly's condition.

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> **Quote:** "die Toten reiten schnell"
> **Source:** Lenore
> **Author:** Gottfried August Bürger
> **License:** Public Domain
> **Source Link:** [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Earliest_English_Translations_of_B%C3%BCrger%27s_Lenore:_a_Study_in_English_and_German_Romanticism/Chapter_8/Lenore_by_Gottfried_August_B%C3%BCrger Original Text]

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SCP-8774

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