The doors hummed, his foot tapping in a panic. If she caught him in 
a enclosed space, things could go badly quickly. The door bonged, 
and the tarnished steel door slid half-way open before stopping with 
a jerk. He slipped in, just as his Ex cleared the crush of people, the 
door shuddering shut on her disappointed face. He sighed, leaning 


against the back wall, then wrinkled his nose at the sudden smell. 
He looked, and quickly recoiled from the wall. The metal booth was 
filthy, sticky with urine and something melted, the floor stained and 
scuffed, some mass of soft, filthy material making a small pile in the 
corner. 


The booth was small. Very small. Barely big enough for one, let 
alone two. He looked to the door, and had a sudden flutter of panic. 
There were no buttons. No up, no down, no numbers, no emergency 
stop. Nothing. He felt a click and a hum, the car starting to rattle its 
way up, the flutter of panic growing as he contemplated being 
trapped here, but lost it almost instantly as the car stopped again. 
This had to be some kind of service elevator or something, which 
went to every floor in sequence. He had no idea if such a thing 
existed, but for him, now, it did. He'd just get off, apologize, and hike 
to the room. 


For several seconds the door stayed closed, eating at his slim ledge 
of calm. Finally, one door shuddered a quarter of the way open, 
revealing a dark hall. He pressed hard, pushing through the slim gap 
just as someone emerged from the dark. He seemed tired, haggard, 
and totally ignored his half-stated apologies. The pale man shoved 
in the the elevator he'd just left, quickly disappearing behind the 
shivering door. As he watched the man leave, he saw no call 
buttons of any kind on the door frame. He sighed, looking around, 
the gloom illuminated by just a few bare bulbs strung along the 
ceiling. The walls, floor, everything seemed to be made of a dark, 
crumbling brick, slightly moist and... 


Wait. What? 


He'd gone up, not down. This sure as hell looked like a basement 
room, with the damp bricks, the uneven floor, the walls chipped and 
missing bricks in places, the...what the hell. The short hall ended in 
what looked like a “T” junction. The left side seemed to have a 
handrail, so that was probably stairs. There was a bulge in the brick 
on the left-hand wall, just before the junction, as if they'd bricked 
around a large pipe, and for some reason it scared the hell out of 
him. He started, nearly on tip-toe, sneaking silently down the dim 
hall. He reached the stairs without incident, no hisses or arms or 
anything leaping from the dark to tear him to bits, and grabbed the 


slightly pitted handrail. He was three steps up before he heard the 
chuff. 


lt was the sound a sick dog makes. Phlegmy and echoing through a 
snout. He turned slightly, not wanting to at all but feeling compelled 
to do so. Opposite the stairs, down the other junction, a thing 
shivered. It was low and squat, about the size of a person laying 
down. It had four short, oozing legs, massive back eyes, and 
sawblade teeth. It looked like a partially-skinned possum, frizzy hair 
around large patched of black, rotten-looking muscle. It started to 
lurch up to the stairs, seeming to be in a great deal of pain, but still 
very fast. He flew up the creaking stairs, not realizing he was 
screaming for almost a half hour. 


He ran. Insanely, he ran, up and up and up, trying halls at random, 
finding locked doors, bare rooms full of teeth, pulpy floors with large 
patches of rot, all sending him back to the stairs with hoarse 
screams, always the thing just behind him, leaving a dripping trail of 
slime and blood. He beat at the walls of the stairwell, clawing, 
watching as the bricks bled just as much as his cracked fingernails. 
A hallway choked with lines that felt like tendon ended in a flat mass 
of hard jelly the color of a cataract. He ran, and ran, voice gone, only 
a drip of blood from shredded vocal cords, stumbling and crawling 
like a drunk. 


Lurching up, he found the ceiling of the stairwell, the stairs smashed 
against the wall as if the ceiling had suddenly slammed in against 
them. He turned silently in to the nearest hall, too numb to rejoice or 
despair, feeling the floor sag and wobble under his feet, glancing in 
a open doorway to see a massive mound of flesh that seemed to be 
absorbing smaller ones, barely noticing as a brick fell loose from the 
ceiling, clouting him on the back and letting loose a slow waterfall of 
pus from the now open gap. He stumbled, feet sludgy in the floor, 
half-swimming along to the vague light at the end of the hall. 


He looked up, focusing dim eyes on a window to life. Grass blew in 
a night breeze around a packed parking lot, a hotel lit up like a tower 
of salvation behind it, people walking to and from cars, laughing 
happily. He flailed, crawling, croaking bloody yelps as he reached, 
straining, fingers stretching as a flabby, oozing paw sank hard into 


his back, the flesh instantly turning black and flaking at the rotten 
touch. He screamed then, the ragged, broken howl of a deer with a 
wolf in its throat, the chuffing muzzle starting to search through the 
flabby bags and soggy tubes of its catch for sweetbreads. 


The janitor sighed, edging up on the reeking mess. These goddamn 
kids, no respect at all, just wandering wherever they please. This 
says “staff only” on the fucking door, yet look there. He scowled, 
looking down at the pile of bloody vomit and shit. Honestly, what the 
fucking hell? Still, not his business to deal with the punks, just clean 
up after them. He did so, swearing all the while, hoping whoever did 
this was having a fucking hell of a bad time. The janitor scowled at 
the now mostly clean floor, pushing his bucket along to the stupid 
service stairs. They really needed to put a fucking elevator down 
here, but who cares about the wants of one old man? He shook his 
head, hearing the sounds of pounding and screams far off, some 
wild party or another to clean up tomorrow. 


Fucking kids. 


Potty 


He woke up, momentarily confused as to where he was, and what 
was beside him. Shaking his head, he made out the softly breathing 
form of his wife, and on the other side the small, pale outline of his 
son. He stood, all of three years old, holding a small blanket and 
fidgeting slightly. His father rolled to his side, looking at the small 
boy, managing a sleepy smile. 


“Hey big boy.” 
“| need to use potty.” 


He sighed, laying back down. This had been going on too long. 
Finally potty trained (mostly), the boy had the odd quirk of not 
wanting to be alone in the bathroom. Ever. His wife kept saying it 
was harmless, but it still seemed odd. 


“Bubba, you can just go use the potty.” 

The little boy shook his head with all the seriousness a three year 
old can muster. 

“Need daddy. Come with me.” 


He closed his eyes, breathing slowly. He had to be up in three 
hours, still had to find something for lunch...he was tired, deeply 
tired. He looked back at his son, whispering in the dark. 


“Little boy, you need to go use that potty now. It's-” 

“But | need-” 

“No buts, go in there, use the potty and go back to bed now. Do you 
understand?” 

The little boy nodded slowly, sniffling and stepping slowly from the 
bedroom. 


He lay back, trying to recover sleep, nearly there when his wife 
mumbled sleepily “muhp. Wha was that?”. He sighed, closing his 
eyes harder. “It was just the boy, he needed to go potty”. 


She sat up a bit, looking to him. “You didn't go with him?” 
“No, | didn't. He's too big to still be doing this, there's no reason.” 
“He just gets nervous, you know that. He's still just a little boy.” 


He sighed hard, sinking in to the bed slightly, knowing what was 
coming next. Never mind he had to work, or was tired, or hadn't 
been able to get to bed until late, or- 


“can you go check on him?” 
“Please go check on him.” 
“Mrrr...0k, hold on.” 


He slid from the bed, the air in the house icy compared to the bed. 
He stumbled, wedging open the barest slit of one eye, in the hopes 
of making the dive back to sleep easier. He walked slowly, 
navigating more by memory and some kind of sixth sleep-sense 
then any kind of light. He brushed the hallway walls, working down 
to the dark bathroom doorway, where 


Wait. Dark? 


The boy wouldn't so much as think about entering any kind of dark 
room. Even a thick blanket over his head was enough to worry him. 
Why would he leave the light off? As he got closer, the smell hit him 
like a fist. He sighed, rubbing his eye. Yeah, there we go...the light 
burned out, and he missed the potty, or got so scared he just went in 
his pants...throw him in the tub, maybe? God, he had to be up in 
like...two hours now, may as well just stay- 


The bathroom was a nightmare. 


Even in the dim half-light, he could see the walls, floor, ceiling... 
everything was splattered and oozing with...something. He 
coughed, gagging slightly on the reeking stink. It smelled like shit, 
yes, but also something rotten, fermented...and something sharp as 
well. He reached for the light switch, fumbling through a clump of 
cold, damp grime to flick the switch. The light was dimmed by the 
spray of reeking slime, but it showed the bathroom well enough. 
Everything was coated in gray-black ooze, much of it looking like 
shit, but some was much less identifiable. He looked around, in 


shock, trying to somehow piece out what happened when he heard 
the clunk. 


He nearly screamed at the sudden sound, recoiling back in to the 
hall. He stared in to the room, blinking dumbly in to the sudden 
silence. Then, again...thunk. The toilet seat flicked up, maybe a 
inch, and clunked back down. Like it was being bumped from 
underneath. From inside the bowl. He stared, watching it sit still for a 
few beats, then bump up again. Somewhere, his brain was chanting 
“where is my son” over and over, but it seemed remote, distant. Like 
a dream, he walked across the room, feeling the skin of oily slime 
ooze between his toes as he stood over the toilet and bent over to 
open it, feeling oddly resigned. 


The bowl was empty of water, with only a thick caking of foul grime 
and what looked like blood sticking to the porcelain. At the bottom, 
where the water drained, there was a small, pink forearm ending ina 
small, pink hand. It was reaching up, grasping in the air, trying to 
reach anything. 


It was missing two fingers, the ragged stumps bleeding thinly. 
It was his son's hand. 


He fell forward, yelping a inarticulate cry of shock, and grabbed the 
small hand. It flexed, gripping tight, the sound of soft thumping from 
deeper in the pipes. He stared, holding that small hand, swallowing 
and trying to say something, managing only a croaking sound. 
Suddenly, his son's broken, torn hand clenched down hard, and 
ripped away, vanishing down the pipe with a scrape. There was a 
sound from the pipe, it was unclear, but he would swear that it was a 
wailed “daddy” until his dying day. 


He fell to the ground, sitting and staring in to the toilet like a drunk, 
the reeking, befouled bathroom a million miles away. He started 
down the empty, blank drain of the bowl, unable to even think of a 
curse, a question, anything to carve some kind of sense out of this. 


He was still there, staring, when his wife rose to check on him. 


Biosphere 07 and viewed through remote 
monitoring devices. Moisture measured and 
monitored by electronic instruments. For a 
control, Testing Biosphere 02 and 01 were 
also monitored for humidity content, averaging 
at 68% and 73% relative humidity, 
respectively. 

Results: Within the first minute of exposure, 
the humidity of Biosphere 07 dropped to 0%, 
forming a brown crust along where 622 was 
sprayed. Within two (2) minutes of testing, all 
flora within Biosphere 07 had shriveled up, 
turning into a salt-like compound similar to 
SCP-622. All of the mud within Biosphere 07 
turned to dry, cracked dirt. After three (3) 
minutes, security notified testing staff that the 
surrounding plant life of Site 16 was beginning 
to turn brown outside of Biosphere 07, despite 
the airtight nature of the Biosphere. Site 16 
staff dispatched to surround the area and stop 
SCP-622 from spreading. After five (5) 
minutes, SCP-622 has covered over 0.017 
square kilometers, spreading at an estimated 
rate of 0.2 kilometers an hour or roughly 3 
meters per minute. Site 16 proceed to dump 
water on the surrounding are to stop SCP-622 
from spreading. SCP-622 quickly absorbs all 
water and continues spreading. Site 16 
command level staff immediately request to 
enact Protocol Grey. O5 approves. Protocol 
Grey enacted. [Security levels 3 and above, 
refer to 622-B. Security levels 4 and 5, refer to 
Protocol Grey containment procedures. ] 


[DOCUMENT 622- 
B ONLY AVAILABLE TO THOSE OF SECURITY CLEARANCE 3 OR 


A message from O5- to general staff. 
As many of you are undoubtedly aware, 
SCP-622 has broken out of containment at 


Bloody 


“Dude, | am WONDEROUSLY high.” he giggled, holding the phone 
to his ear with no small amount of effort. He walked across the 
basement, turning up the music, letting the beat pulse in time with 
the other, internal pulse he was feeling. Thank god his parents were 
gone, he really wasn't sure how he could deal with them right now. 
He flopped on to the couch, giggling again, legs hanging over the 
end of the couch. 


“Yeah, Scott was over a hour or so ago, he had some bomb shit 
man. | was playing Brawl, and | swear to god it was like mario and 
pikachu were on my floor fighting!” he giggled again, rubbing his 
slightly numb face. He wiped his hand on the couch, laughing again. 


“Oh hell yes, i'm not working tomorrow, get the hell over...” he 
trailed off, looking at the couch. A vaguely hand-shaped blotch of 
blood was smeared on the ratty fabric. He blinked, staring at it, then 
touched his face. He pulled it away bloody, staring stupidly at it for 
several seconds. 


“uh, dude, | gotta go man, I'm bleeding somewhere. ..no, it's fine, 
just...I'll call you back, ok?” He hung up the phone, still looking at his 
bloody hand. He tossed it to the floor, nearly running to the 
bathroom. He looked in the mirror as he washed his hand, trying to 
find where in the hell he'd cut himself. The whole side of his face 
was streaked with blood now, and he washed and wiped it off, trying 
hard to keep calm. 


He eventually found a tiny wound near his hairline, still dribbling 
blood. “Fuck, man...” he whispered, trying to get a good look at it 
and stay steady on his feet. It was as he started looking for a band- 
aid that he saw the drops of blood splattered over the sink. He 
wondered if it was from his head again...no, he'd cleaned those up, 
and...he suddenly looked down at his fingers, feeling a warm 
wetness over them. 


It was like he'd caught a ball of razor blades. 


He started hyperventilating, looking at his hands as they oozed 
blood from dozens of tiny cuts, an icy sobriety slamming down on 
him like a hammer. He grabbed the towel, trying to calm down, 
stammering to himself “go call the doctor, just call the doctor” over 
and over like a mantra. He felt blood drool down his face, wicking in 
to his eye with a salty sting, and felt his slippery grip on control 
weaken more. 


He grabbed up the phone in a panic, blood making it as slippery as 
soap. He tried again and again to touch the dial button, used the 
screen, but the blood made it impossible, making him eventually 
toss the phone away with a hissed “Fuck!” and a panicked moan. He 
looked at his hands, feeling dizzy, from blood loss or blind fear, he 
didn't know. He looked at his slick red arms, eyes going wide. 


Tiny cuts were crawling up his arms like ants.