Humans have some pretty strange rituals. A cake and a candle on the day of our birth, we decorate trees with lights and hand out gifts (even if that hides some horrors), we celebrate like crazy a trip around the Sun... I think we'll never change. But there are times when those rituals become something more. Something independent and unique. Something alive. Of course... the problem is always the same. If it's alive, then it has desires, needs. That's when the dead show up.
Trust me when I tell you that one of the most frustrating aspects of our exchanges is that I don't have all the answers, or I can't share them. In this case, I have no idea where our little companion comes from, or why it needs a room of 18 by 18 by 4 to be contained. The doctors and the cleaning crew only go in there when it is 'inactive', though it doesn't seem capable of doing much at first glance.
No, your eyes do not deceive you: SCP-956 is a piñata. Pony, unicorn, pink mutant donkey...? Whatever. Its texture is similar to paper-mâché, but the lab geniuses detected that it's made of pure glue, sugar, a fur they couldn't identify, human tissue, and something else that, despite my efforts, remains classified. Against its nature, SCP-956 has proven especially resistant to impacts. Heat, fire, and traditional weapons work well to damage it, but crushing and beating it? Waste of time.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/EU08H-zvZxMThe Petrifying Effect
SCP-956's general state is passive... until a child under 12 enters its range. The Foundation... has done tests, and determined that range is less than a hundred meters. The process takes less than two minutes, but once they enter... they freeze. Petrified, maintaining their last position. They can't speak or move... except for their eyes. They remain alive, and never lose consciousness.
SCP-956 approaches its victim and begins to beat them savagely until their torso opens. From inside, all kinds of unmarked candies start coming out. Sometimes just a handful, and other times... thousands of pieces. If there is more than one petrified child nearby, SCP-956 will only repeat its action: All children in its vicinity are piñatas to break.
The Foundation has managed to prevent SCP-956 from 'opening' a child just by moving them away from its zone of action, but they cannot undo the petrification. The state is permanent and irreversible. The... autopsies revealed that the bodies enter a deep dehydration phase, and that the candies 'grow' in the internal organs, using the tissue as a base component. Apparently, the amount of candies depends on the time the victim stays in the zone.
The Candies and Their Effects
The candies have been designated SCP-956-1, and stored at sub-zero temperatures to prevent them from melting... at least, until their incineration is authorized. If a human over 12 consumes one of those candies, they will suffer a general collapse with a minimal chance of heart attack. Some Class Ds survived the experiments, but the rest... you know. However, if the consumer is under 12, they will enter a petrification state and become another instance of SCP-956. There are no details in the file, but the transformation is very... visceral. No one survives.
A Change in Behavior
The last thing you need to know about SCP-956 is that it has modified its behavior. Instead of staying motionless as before, it now habitually patrols the perimeter of its room. One of the instances always stayed watching the same point on a wall. Security analyzed the pattern, and what it was doing was looking in the direction of an elementary school. If SCP-956 can detect children kilometers away... a simple containment failure could cause a catastrophe.
