He will chase you to the top, or you will die trying
by Ethagon
SCP-9705 posing during containment.
Item #: SCP-9705
Object Class: Keter Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-9705 is contained in a 12 m × 12 m Quad filled with parkour obstacles.
Once per week, Transitionary Task Force Delta-10 "Monster Hunted" will split into a team of 6 players and a team of 5 players plus SCP-9705. The two teams will engage in a game of containment-modified World Chase Tag; the chaser has 20 seconds to catch the evader of the other team, becoming the evader on success in the next round and being replaced by another chaser on failure.
Any agent facing off against SCP-9705 directly in either role and winning is deemed to have the necessary qualifications to be promoted to Level 4 or 5 Rapid Response MTF units.
In the event the team including SCP-9705 could win the game in the next round, a loophole in the containment-modified rulebook is to be presented in order to declare the match as invalid. This in return schedules a rematch for next week.
Players are reminded that Containment Procedures will only be successful if they give it their all.
Description: SCP-9705 has the appearance of a bronze Greek statue with its head replaced by a flame. The flame consists of a continual flickering between different faces of a subset of its previous targets. While the flame can bristle, SCP-9705 has exclusively used minimal nonverbal communication to set up games of sport. SCP-9705 has seemingly endless stamina and incalculable strength, which it has only displayed in Incident-9705-A. While not hunting, SCP-9705 shows abilities consistent with top athletes irregardless of discipline.
While SCP-9705 has, on occasion, engaged in other sports, its anomalous behaviour is primarily characterised by repeated "hunts" in the form of tag. This is assumed to be the preferred sport of SCP-9705 solely due to the ease with which any person can be included in a game of tag and the game's intuitive rules.
A hunt starts when the target, in the role of the evader, notices the presence of SCP-9705, in the role of the chaser. SCP-9705 will then encourage the evader to participate in the hunt, by running at it at what the evader would perceive as "full speed". As soon as the evader starts to move, SCP-9705 will adjust its current speed to be either slightly above the evader's current speed, or the maximum speed the evader would have shown itself capable of in comparable situations prior to the hunt. Under otherwise identical conditions, this will inevitably result in SCP-9705 gaining ground on the evader, until it is tagged. Following a successful tag, all signs of life in the target immediately cease.
A hunt will always end with a tag or the evader's 'escape'. It is unknown what exactly constitutes an escape for SCP-9705 in a free environment, but it is assumed to be target-dependent. A necessary condition for any escape seems to be breaking a theoretical personal record, had the evader participated in prior hunts.
A majority of escaped targets have subsequently started a successful career in a sport or dominated in a sport in an amateur capacity. The current consensus deems this development non-anomalous and related to the necessary condition for escape.
SCP-9705 has shown no preference for setting. Hunts have been started in parks as well as in crowded streets or in staircases. SCP-9705 will seek out targets which are often, but not always, in an isolated setting. New targets are chosen from the human population within the same country SCP-9705 currently occupies, excluding toddlers, people who are unable to move and professional sportspeople.
Discovery: SCP-9705's first hunts were originally thought to have occurred in 1952 across Northern Europe. Most targets in this time were unable to evade a tag by SCP-9705. The Foundation was eventually able make contact with SCP-9705 thanks to multiple witness and surviving targets' testimonies. These testimonies established SCP-9705 would jog away from a completed hunt towards its next target in the straightest line possible.
Statements of two surviving targets are listed below.
Hunting Place: Assault Obstacle Course
Statement: It appeared while I was joking with a friend I'd do the parkour in 20 seconds. It was behind the third obstacle, looking straight at me. It held up a hand and started to count from three to one. Then it sprinted at me.
I knew I had 20 seconds. That this was all or nothing. That if this thing's bronze hands touched any part of my body, I would die.
So I started running. It's an obstacle course, best I could do is keep the obstacles between us.
It did nothing to stop it. It crawled, it jumped, it burst through the obstacles without ever losing speed. Never losing the momentum that would shoot its hands at my back.
A sidestep for a misdirect is all I could manage to escape as it fell down behind me. In a moment, not even a second, it was up again. In another I lost it.
Obstacles were all I'm good at, but it was better than me. It was pointless. Until that lunge, I hadn't feared death, not really. Or, I guess I did a bit, but the idea of beating that thing had pumped me up. But not after I saw how far above me it was. So I ran away.
When I ran from the obstacle course it still followed me, but I never made it out. One step before "out" and my hairs stood on end. I was a step away from oblivion. If I took it, I was out of the box.
The obstacle course was my world, until the 20 seconds were over. 10 seconds now.
That realization, that I was halfway through, gave me a surge of hope. But I was cornered. Death of being out behind me, death of being tagged in front. I was ready to take whatever slim chance I could get.
Thankfully it made a mistake. It jumped. Oh, what a leap it was. It lunged like a jaguar would, but the muscle, it was all human.
Only a split second time for me to roll under it and run back, never losing momentum. Up the stairs, use the pole, jump up the pillar, jump down the pillar, don't turn back, it's still behind me.
Barely manage to run around the pillar and get behind the ropes, only for it to lunge through, first with one hand, then with two, then all of its body, and there's no time, I can feel the air thin between my leg and its finger tips, so I jump.
I'm airborne, vulnerable, all it has to do is stand up to catch me, but instead it stops.
Time was up.
Afterword: Target later joined the Foundation and became a high-performing MTF member.
Hunting Place: Urban Park
Statement: Been a long time, but I decided to go jogging again. Hadn't really decided yet whether I would continue or the little distance I walked was enough for the day. That's when I became aware of the "other jogger".
It's always a bit annoying when you're just walking, minding your own business, and then someone else comes up behind you, only they walk slightly faster, so they'll soon overtake you. But they haven't yet, and until they do, it's hella annoying.
It goes straight from annoying to terrifying when you know that slightly faster jogger is here for you.
You know he could get you in a single sprint, but he doesn't. He's just ever so slightly faster. Gaining ground meter by meter, every step a bit louder than the last.
Not with me, I thought, and my fast-ish walk became a proper jog. Only for the guy to speed up again. Then so did I. And so did he. Every. Time.
He kept gaining on me all throughout. The only time he didn't gain on me, when the steps would feel just a little quieter again, was while I quickened my step.
But I can't keep speeding up forever. Do you know how hard that is? Maybe if I went straight to a full sprint I could escape the jogger, but I somehow doubted it.
I tried anyway. Not a full sprint, but damn close too one. My old trainer used to tell us to give 110% in a sprint, so this was maybe a 90.
I couldn't keep it up. Eventually, not even the looming thread of the jogger was enough to keep me from a break. Just a short moment to breath, surely the guy could spare that, right?
He didn't seem in a rush.
He stopped even.
Not enough for a breather though, and it would push me again.
There's no break I've ever regretted more. Just a too short second of a pause you need for air to actually go places, but you can't. Trying to get back to that 90%, but there's just no energy left. Every step takes double of what it took previously, and it burns.
It burns so much. Your body was not meant for breathers. Either you run or you stop. But with the breather you're past exhaustion and still going.
And it's still not fast enough for the jogger. He's sprinting closer in short bursts. When that's not enough, I feel him swiping for me. Now it's not just about catching up, but evading as well.
A sidestep when you can't even put a foot in front of the other; air brushing at your feet that you either have to outstep or outjump.
At some blissful point, it becomes almost automatic.
I don't know when it stopped; at some point there was just the run. 'Til I collapsed. Then I could breathe again.
Afterword: Target participated in the Olympic Torch Relay 1960 and later set a new world record in [REDACTED].
Both targets have been confirmed to appear in the flame head of SCP-9705.
Two other surviving targets from that time could not be interviewed due to joining Tier II "connected" veiled communities outside of Foundation influence. It is unknown which, if any, sports these communities participate in.
Containment Attempts: Initial Containment Efforts were hindered by the anomalous property of SCP-9705 also applying in reverse: Trying to hunt SCP-9705 and letting it 'escape' will result in the chaser's death. The Foundation could track SCP-9705, but not interfere in its hunt. This continued until MTF Captain Amanda Radcliffe successfully 'tagged' SCP-9705 after which it let itself be contained without resistance.
A standard containment cell for slightly-above-human-strength anomalies was constructed in Site-19; SCP-9705 stayed at rest in containment for 1 month before breaking out in Incident-9705-A.
Extrapolating from the observed physical changes of SCP-9705 at the end of the incident, a connection could be drawn with another previously thought unrelated anomaly. It is now instead assumed to be the original appearance of SCP-9705:
A white headless Greek statue was witnessed running near Olympia, Greece, shortly after the first Olympic Torch Relay of the modern Olympic Games in 1936. Its appearance was also later noted in Berlin, Germany, before vanishing entirely.
With this new information, the Department of Esoteric Feeding took over Containment Efforts. A new theory of hypothesized properties of SCP-9705 relating to sports as a whole would be put to the test in the next Containment Attempt.
At the start of the next chase, SCP-9705 would be challenged to a group game of tag explicitly. As predicted, even after a successful tag, no agent died before the conclusion of the game. SCP-9705 was recaptured and current Containment Procedures were enacted.
Incident-9705-A: SCP-9705 broke the wall of its Site-19 containment cell without issue, starting its only hunt to date displaying superhuman abilities. It took the shortest path towards its intended target: Security Agent Morwen.
When SCP-9705 reached the hallway Morwen was stationed in, it stopped, directly facing the agent for three seconds, before sprinting at the evader.
Morwen ran away while screaming his current situation and position through proper containment breach channels.
The agent could temporarily shake off SCP-9705 by entering an elevator of Sector-23 and driving it to the highest level of the site. As soon as SCP-9705 had run up the emergency stairs, Morwen would drive the elevator down again, in the hope other agents could contain it in the meantime.
It was at this point, SCP-9705 started to accelerate.
The elevator and corresponding staircase of Sector-23 encompass 60 meters in height. Reaching the highest floor took SCP-9705 a full minute. The following descent took it 50 seconds. The next ascent 40. Morwen's elevator at a consistent 37 seconds was able to close its doors on the third ascent 500 milliseconds before SCP-9705 could reach it.
30 seconds later, SCP-9705 waited for the elevator on the ground floor. When the elevator opened, SCP-9705 kept it open and occupied the left half of the elevator door. Morwen made no attempts to leave, hiding in a corner and yelling at SCP-9705 about a time limit.
After 3 seconds of no movement, SCP-9705 completed the hunt and tagged Security Agent Morwen. Directly after, the flame of SCP-9705 diminished slightly in intensity, its skin started to blanch and it briefly hung its head. Security Agent Morwen has to date not appeared in the flame.
SCP-9705 subsequently jogged out of the Site.