SCP 4971.

Rituals.

How do you contain a god?

I've asked this question before, as the answer tends to be pretty interesting.

Some can be asked, or convinced, or bargained with.

Some can be forced into containment through convoluted

or strange containment procedures,

and some simply cannot,

left to their own devices against a powerless foundation.

But what if it was theoretically possible to contain a god

and the foundation knew exactly how to do it,

but the cost was simply far too great.

That's the scenario we'll be looking at today with SCP 4971.

In addition to that question, we also get a strange extra-dimensional location, cultists,

and some classic cosmic horror. 4971 is a space-time anomaly inside of the former Southwood Park Mall in Havensbrook, Indiana.

The entrance to this anomaly inside of the mall varies from time to time, but inevitably

if someone wanders through the mall, they'll find it.

We'll get to specifics about the nature of this anomaly later, but basically it's a gigantic,

weird, forest.

The mall itself opened in 1985 and closed in 2006, leading local vagrants and trespassers to

frequently break in in order to scavenge the empty shops.

At one point, the police received some calls that a group of teenagers had entered the

...