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Description: SCP-6087 is an anomalous phenomenon occurring principally in western Europe, affecting children between the ages of six and twelve years old. Affected persons (designated SCP-6087-A) are characterized by an inability to exercise all forms of vocal communication. Medical analysis has revealed no physical explanation for this condition, and all attempts to reverse SCP-6087's influence (including intensive speech therapy and laryngeal transplant) have been unsuccessful.
Certain behavioural patterns have been found to increase a child's susceptibility to SCP-6087. These include habitual lying, use of profanity, and general disregard for parents and authority figures. In all cases, SCP-6087's effects manifested whilst the subject was sleeping. In the immediate aftermath, most victims will experience mild to moderate throat pain, accompanied by an unpleasant taste (usually likened to that of expired meat), which may persist for days afterwards. SCP-6087-A are also subject to periodic auditory hallucinations, which typically occur whilst the subject is alone, and manifest as the sound of distant cries and moans.
There are currently five known occurrences of SCP-6087-A spontaneously regaining their ability to speak whilst in Foundation custody. All such incidents took place between six and eight years after entering containment, and coincided with the total cessation of auditory hallucinations. Additionally, in all cases each subject was found to speak using a markedly different pitch, tone and regional accent.
Precisely when SCP-6087 first manifested is unknown, although archived documents inherited from Her Majesty's Foundation for the Secure Containment of the Paranormal (HMFSCP)1 suggest that containment procedures were first implemented at some point in the early nineteenth century.
Addendum: SCP-6087's discovery was roughly concurrent with the publication of the earliest known literary reference to the Voice-Taker (also known as Der Stimmstehler)2, a mythical character originating in western European folklore. The following is an extract from the revised edition of Of Myths and Monsters (1910) by British historian and folklorist Horace Greenblatt, which contains one of the most detailed accounts of the Voice-Taker currently in Foundation possession, provided by the Department of Mythology and Folkloristics: The Voice-Taker Modern representation of Der Stimmstehler.
Depictions of the phantom known as the Voice-Taker, scourge to all wicked and unruly children, have remained remarkably consistent across the centuries. This unsightly revenant is described as a tall, festering figure wearing a thick beard made not of hair, but comprised of countless, ever-swarming flies and maggots. In life, the Voice-Taker (who is given no Christian name) is said to have been born with a mouth two sizes too big for his face, a deformity which most tellings ascribe as the imprint of his gossiping mother. Consequently, his cries throughout infancy were so loud and frequent that they caused the family cottage to shake upon its foundations, regularly keeping his parents awake well into the early hours.
Fatigued and desperate, the boy's father sought the counsel of a learned cleric well versed in the craft of alchemy. The priest provided him with a rare tonic of aureate hue, once utilized by a certain unspoken sect of silent monks in the Far East. This potion, the priest assured him, would silence the boy's screams for a year and a day, allowing his parents some much-needed rest. While the cleric specified that only three drops were necessary, the boy's father, skeptical of the elixir's potency, insisted on forcing the concoction in its entirety down his son's swollen gullet. This had the unfortunate effect of rendering the child permanently mute, earning him much taunting and mockery from his peers.
Years passed, and the boy was soon put to work on the family farm, until late in the winter of his nineteenth year, when his life was tragically cut short. While roaming the forest in search of firewood, he tripped and fell down an old stone well that had long ago fallen into disuse. Although his parents searched for weeks afterwards, because their son was unable to cry for help, he was never rescued, and swiftly succumbed to the elements. As his body could not be provided with a Christian burial, the Voice-Taker's spirit instead remains earthbound, and fated to spend the ages wandering the terrestrial plane.
The Voice-Taker's experience has given him a strong appreciation for the value of speech, and an even stronger disdain for children who would take theirs for granted by telling lies, using swears and neglecting their nightly prayers. Disobedient youth are warned that if they refuse to correct this behaviour, the Voice-Taker will visit them in the night, whereupon they will awaken to the pungent stench of earth and decay. Upon catching gory glimpse of the maggot-bearded monster looming before them, the victim will invariably open their mouth to scream. Yet before sound can escape, the silent specter strikes, extending one bony arm down the wayward child's throat and stealing their voice away, before stuffing it into his burlap sack.
Once his bag has reached its fill, the Voice-Taker deposits his stolen treasures at the bottom of the same stone well where his body now lays. On clear nights, his victims' voices (which, in their disembodied state, are capable of producing only the most primal howls and moans) may be heard as faint echoes on the wind, as if to taunt their aphonic masters. In more charitable iterations, once a duration of no less than seven years has elapsed, the fetid phantom may decide to restore articulation in one of his victims, providing they have shown exemplary behaviour in the interim. However, as this creature is noted for a tendency towards carelessness, those voices returned only seldom correspond to that originally stolen, often leading to situations where boys are erroneously gifted the voice of a girl, and vice versa.
Further study has confirmed that all instances of SCP-6087-A have exhibited varying degrees of familiarity with this folk tale, suggesting that SCP-6087's effects may be infohazardous in nature. Efforts to eradicate the legend of the Voice-Taker from the European cultural zeitgeist are ongoing.
Footnotes 1. Foundation precursor organization, active between 1738 and 1918.
2. Translated from German - literally, 'The Voice-Thief'.
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