KUMIHO

Item #: SCP-953

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-953 is to be kept in a Type 4 containment cell (4 m x 3 m x 3 m) at the end of Hallway 99 at Site-17. Subject is to be provided the following:

1.5 kg of fresh liver daily for consumption. Clean drinking water in plentiful quantities. Clean bedding (futon and blankets) to be exchanged by the subject and laundered weekly. Small luxury items (plum wine, reading materials, etc.) may be provided as an occasional reward for good behavior as part of psychological conditioning.

Direct human contact with SCP-953 is strictly forbidden due to SCP-953's mind-altering properties; for this reason, all personnel must respect a 100 m safe zone when the hermetically sealed door is opened. Delivery of food and other items will be carried out by an automated robotic assistant. Should containment fail, SCP-953 can be theoretically terminated by gunfire; however, due to its nature, recognizing SCP-953 may be difficult.

Because of the inadequacy of purely physical containment procedures to control SCP-953, psychological containment is also necessary. For this reason, the approach to SCP-953's containment chamber is to be lined with open-cage dog kennels, preferably of the Korean Jindo or American Foxhound breed. SCP-953 displays an extreme phobia of domesticated canines, and will not pass within 10 m of one, especially when canines are barking or alerted.

SCP-953 is to be considered hostile to human life, dangerous, and armed at all times; any transport must be done under the supervision of at least six (6) armed personnel. Its preferred killing method is a bare-handed strike to the abdomen, penetrating the abdominal cavity and removing the liver, which it will later consume. If given time, however, it will choose to linger over its kill, torturing its victim, as it seems to enjoy the infliction of pain upon another sentient being.

Description: SCP-953 is a female Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) approximately 8 kg in weight, with a spine that splits around the 26th vertebra into nine separate tails. Subject displays polymorphic properties, however, allowing it to take the form of various other objects and beings (most commonly, an attractive Korean female).1 Subject will display some vulpine aspect (ears, tail, paws, eyes, fur, voice, mannerisms) in all of its alternate forms: this can serve to identify the subject should it attempt disguise, although SCP-953 will attempt to conceal its tails through clothing and other methods.

In addition to polymorphic abilities, SCP-953 displays moderate level psionic abilities, namely suggestion and telepathy. Although insufficient to fool an outside observer, an entranced subject can be convinced of a variety of false facts, including the nature of SCP-953, its own nature, and the nature of things around it. SCP-953 has used this in the past to, among other things: deceive police officers investigating reports of loud screams from a hotel room, convince a mother to roast and eat her own child, carry out acts of necrophilia upon Agent Ramsey's fiance in full view of said Agent, and succeed in the systematic murder of 27 attendees of "YiffCon 2███"

Addendum 1: Prior History SCP-953 has been encountered by the SCP Foundation and its predecessors numerous times, with the first encounter having taken place in Busan, Korea, shortly after the Second World War. To date, SCP-953 has escaped and been recovered six times, resulting in the deaths of █ SCP agents during various incidents.

After its latest escape, SCP-953 was not heard from for over ██ years, until suddenly resurfacing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 2███ at "YiffCon 2███," which it had been attending in the guise of a "furry" enthusiast. Before being captured, SCP-953 carried out over two dozen murders of convention staff and attendees, more than during any other single incident to date. The mutilated bodies were found in various places throughout the hotel, including: inside a mattress, hanging from a shower curtain, and served as the main course at a hotel banquet. Surviving attendees were administered Class A Amnesiacs and released from Foundation custody.

Foundation personnel assigned to capture SCP-953 after this latest incident noted that the subject appeared listless and apathetic, and did not resist capture. No further casualties have resulted from SCP-953 from that date.

Addendum 2: Special Emergency Order As misidentification of her species tends to violently agitate SCP-953, all personnel are to be hereby ordered to refer to her as a "Kumiho," and not a "Kitsune." Personnel asking what the difference is are to be reminded of the difference between a Cherokee Indian and a New Delhi Indian. - O5-██

Addendum 3: Personnel Staffing Revision Following the unfortunate, and completely preventable, death of Agent Gallagher, any personnel found to have current or prior ties to the "furry" or "otaku" communities are to be immediately reassigned to other projects. - O5-██

Addendum 4: Folkloric Control Procedures As a reminder: staff assigned to SCP-953 are to follow all instructions for interacting with the subject, no matter how odd or arbitrary they may seem. Keep in mind that the people of Asia interacted with these beings for centuries before we came onto the scene: what we think of as fairy tales were their version of Special Containment Procedures. - O5-██

953 Interview A — Interview with capture team following initial capture of SCP-953 in the wild in 19██.

Interviewed: Agent █████ ███ ████, henceforth referred to as ''Agent'' (Addendum: As per the Wilkes-Booth/Oswald Protocol, all information on O5-█'s prior identity has been removed.)

Interviewer: Assistant Director ██████████, henceforth referred to as ''Interviewer''.

Foreword: This interview took place on ██-██-████, two days after the capture of SCP-953 on ██-██-████ (See SCP-953 Appendix 953-V: Prior Incidents, Casualties Resulting From). Agent █████ ███ ████ was the only survivor of the incident, during which he accomplished the task of capturing SCP-953 alive. The following is a transcript of the after-action debriefing that took place following SCP-953's securement.

Addendum: On ██-██-████, this transcript was digitized under the Foundation Modernization Directive. Confirmation of file integrity confirmed by Tech Operator V████. Some formatting, terminology, and compatibility discrepancies with modern Interview Logs may exist due to the Restructuring of ████. Where possible, current equivalents have been appended.

Alright, let's begin. Please state your name, rank, and registry number for the record.

Agent █████ ███ ████, Fifth Squad, Eastern Division Note: Following the Restructuring of ████, this unit was redesignated Mobile Containment Task Force Theta-3, "Silla Daggers."

Thanks. Can you tell me what you remember about the events on and around ██-██-████?

All right. Um… where do you want me to start.

How about the beginning? Where were you when you got your orders?

[DATA EXPUNGED]

Thank you for clearing that up. Can you tell me what happened when you arrived on site?

Yeah, no problem. We got on-site, and went to the morgue, took a look at the bodies. I used the cover story of a reporter investigating the crimes, told them [Agent 1] and [Agent 2] were my photographer and assistant. Turns out they were thinking that it was a wild animal, based on the nature of the wounds and eyewitness accounts.

There was an eyewitness?

Yeah, a little old lady. Went out into the rice field to take a piss and saw it eating her cow. She was more mad than scared, actually, kept complaining about where she was gonna get another cow in this day and age with the times being as tough as they were. She got a good look at it, though, and described it as a [DATA EXPUNGED]. Looking back, I think that's where the problems started…

Can you explain?

Remember how [Agent 1] and [Agent 2] were both ████, but I was ██████? Yeah. The thing is, both our cultures have stories of these kinds of monsters in it, but it's different in ████████ folklore. Their stories tend to romanticize. You get stories of monsters falling in love with humans and things a lot. Hell, they even joked about trying to score a ███ wife out of this. Not in the stories my grandma told, though. That sadistic old bitch loved scaring me, and she [DATA EXPUNGED]

[DATA CORRUPTED]

We saw this girl sitting under a waterfall, combing out her hair. Not naked. She had this thin robe on. Beautiful girl too, but we knew it had to be her because of her feet. She was trying to hide them, but she wasn't doing it right. [Agent 1] and [Agent 2] smiled. Even I thought we had the edge on her. Oh god, we were stupid.

Please explain.

She knew we were after her. She knew we knew what she was. She was… she was… it's like a spider, she was pulling us into a web. Pretended to let her guard down just enough so that we could feel smug in our overconfidence. I should have… I don't know, I should have tried something. I should have done something.

… do you need a moment?

No, no… I'll go on. She told us that she had a cottage nearby, offered to serve us dinner, introduce us to the others. Why… oh god, why did I agree… [Agent 1] and [Agent 2] thought we should go with her, said there was a chance there might be others… she was lying, she knew there was no one else, but she knew that we'd never pass up the chance to capture multiple OoPArt [Out of Place Artifacts - this designation was replaced with SCP in the Restructuring]

She took us to this cottage… pretty little place, you know, old and rustic, but really homey… took us inside, served us dinner. She was a perfect… what did [Agent 1] call it… a ██████ █████████. Perfect wife. Demure, kind, sweet, respectful… Served us… I remember, it was rice and pickled turnips and… some kind of meat, I thought it was pork or beef, it was delicious, though…

Went to bed feeling sleepy and tired. Woke up and saw that [Agent 1] wasn't there… figured he'd gone to take a piss or something so I decided to go for one myself… went behind a bush and saw… well, she was there with [Agent 1] and they were… I mean…

Please go on.

… do you mind if I say this part off the record? It's not very…

As you wish.

Thank you. What did you see after that?

She… she bit it off.

Please elaborate.

She just… bit it off. All of it, and then she spit it out and showed it to him, just so that he could see it happening… [Agent 1] just… he couldn't believe it at first, then he was trying to scream but she'd torn his throat out with her teeth, then she made her hand like this and stabbed it into his belly. [Agent 1] was gurgling and trying to push her off, he was bleeding all over the place, but she just pushed him to the ground and started working her fingers in his belly, reached in deep and pulled something… it must have been his liver, it was the right shape and color… just pulled it out like she was gutting a fish and swallowed it whole.

Swallowed it whole?

Like a snake, she just… one gulp, like that. Then she started peeling his skin off, like… an orange or something, I didn't stop to watch, I ran back to the room, shook [Agent 2] awake, told him we needed to get going, grab your gun. He didn't… I went for our weapons, grabbed my .45 and then [Agent 1] walked in asking what was wrong, so I shot him.

You shot him?

I saw him die, he was dead, she killed him, it had to be her.

Are you sure? Perhaps you were mistaken.

She tore his guts out and ate them, he was DEAD! And "his" eyes were glowing yellow! What the hell kind of human being has glowing yellow eyes?

I see, please proceed.

[Agent 2] grabbed his gun then and pointed it at me, started yelling at me to put the gun down now, I was yelling at him to look at her, but he was screaming that he was going to shoot me in the head because I was a dirty ████████ he always knew I was one, and now I'd just proved it. [DATA EXPUNGED] and that's when the bitch grabbed him from behind and the gun went off.

This is when you were injured?

Yeah, he shot me in the arm, fleshy part, upper shoulder, I fell down screaming, and god, it hurt so bad. [DATA EXPUNGED] Loud cackling laugh, oh god, if I thought my grandma's was scary, this bitch… she was… if the devil were a ██████ lady, that's what he'd sound like.

[REDACTED] ran for it, crawled into the living room where we'd had dinner earlier that night, and tried to slam the door shut… rice paper screen, not going to help, but I just… I needed something between us.

[REDACTED] killed him and laid him out where the dining table had been… his eyes were wide open and his skin was flayed open, like a butcher's… oh god, there were the bowls, the ones we'd been eating out of, but the meat, it wasn't beef or pork, it was him… and the rice… maggots, crawling in his flesh, he'd have to have been dead for days, but how, we'd seen him at the base of the mountain just yesterday… I threw up. There were… some of them were still alive, crawling in my vomit, and I just…

Do you need a break?

No, no, I can do this. I was deep in the fairy tale, I just needed to complete it. I didn't have any [DATA EXPUNGED]

[DATA CORRUPTED]

-wasn't much of a punji stick, but it got her, straight through the gut, slowed her down a bit-

[DATA CORRUPTED]

-dragging myself across the river, couldn't swim, hit my head on the rocks, went downstream at least half a mile through the rapids. She didn't even try to follow me downriver, must have gone around because later-

[DATA CORRUPTED]

-had to be fire, the third was always fire. I got to the van about the time the sun came up, broke a window and went to the back. There was a flamethrower… sorry, "defoliant projector" there for sterilization if needed, so I grabbed it, flicked on the sparker, managed to get it around just as she came out of the treeline-

[DATA CORRUPTED]

And that was when the retrieval team found you with the OoPArt?

Yeah. They took her away and got me to a hospital. I had a raging infection for days, not surprising, I guess.

One last thing. You've been on the record as opposing the OoPArt's termination. Given your personal experiences, I'm really not sure why you'd want something as dangerous as this to live. Can you please elaborate?

[REDACTED]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that you sympathise with her?

Sympathise? I don't know… No. I can't say that I do. She'd kill me just as soon as look at me, just out of spite. Because she is spiteful, she'd kill me just to watch me die. But what she's trying to do… if she does it, then she [REDACTED].

You are also on record as opposing her terms of confinement.

Because it's dangerous. Like I said, she's spiteful. Every little slight in her eyes she saves up, and the only way she knows how to repay an insult is death. Chaining her to the wall like an animal… when she gets out, and she will get out, she's going to kill everyone who had the slightest thing to do with it. She won't settle for anything else.

You have also paid her several visits in her holding cell.

… yes, I have.

What do you talk about?

[no answer]

Agent. You had a harrowing, traumatic experience based around this individual. In order to survive, you had to, in your own words, ''get into her head, realize how she ticks.'' one might even say that there was some times you spent as her captive, during the hunt in the woods.

I don't know what you're getting at.

Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?

Yes.

Is it possible that…

No.

No?

No. Just no.

Thank you very much for your time, Agent.

Closing Statement: Agent █████ is to be transferred to Site-51 for psychological analysis and debriefing. The OoPArt in question is to be remanded to Secure Confinement Protocols as indicated in Document 953-Aleph.

On a side note, I am appalled by the level of superstition expressed by Agent █████ throughout the course of this interview. I am recommending that his suggestions regarding containment be disregarded for a more scientific approach. We're not old Korean fishwives here, I'm sure we can think of something more effective than dogs and needles.

Assistant Director ██████████

Addendum: As of ██-██-████, SCP-953 has made three escape attempts, each time resulting in the deaths of those operatives most closely involved in her confinement. Agent █████ was approved to return to active duty on ██-██-████, and continues to serve with the restructured Mobile Task Force Theta-3.