A young man steps off the subway into the
station. Like many others on their daily commute, he
has headphones on and keeps his eyes glued to his phone as he messages his friends, plays
mobile games, and watches videos. He takes the escalator up and out of the subway
station, paying no mind to the rats that scurry past down the handrail. He steps out onto the street, head still never
looking up from his phone. He’s made this same trip hundreds if not
thousands of times, each step of his route home so burned into his mind that he could
make this journey blindfolded. He turns a corner when suddenly he looks up. There’s something different. In the split second before everything goes
wrong he realizes what it is. The grate he has stepped onto… has just
given way. The young man screams as he falls through
the loose drainage grate in the sidewalk and is swallowed up into the bowels of the city. He is in the air for only moments before landing
with a thud in the darkness below. The air is knocked out of him, but he’s
immediately aware that he didn’t hit the ground as hard as he could have. Something must have broken his fall. It’s too dark to see anything though. He feels around for his phone, it must be
around here somewhere. There, he’s got it. The screen is cracked but luckily it still
works. He turns on the flashlight and looks around. He appears to be in some kind of maintenance
area below the sidewalk. The room is mostly empty, so what did he land
on? He sits up and looks beneath him to find… Rats! A huge pile of rats. The young man screams and hops up as the rats
squeak and scatter. He’s in a panic, looking for a way to get
out of here as quickly as possible, when he spots something else. There’s a pile of dirty clothes in the corner
of the room, or at least, he hopes it’s a pile of dirty clothes. He slowly steps towards whatever it is. Even after his own harrowing ordeal, he still
feels compelled to check it out. If he just found a body the police will need
to know, and he might even get his name in the paper. He can see the headline now: Local man finds
missing heiress after heroically plunging into city’s depths, inherits her millions
for some reason. As he steps closer he notices a cloud of gnats
and flies buzzing around the pile. He slaps at his neck, killing some kind of
biting fly. He’s standing right next to the pile, but
he still can’t tell if this is a person or not. “Hello? Are you okay?” the young man asks. No response. He nudges the pile with his foot and jumps
back. Did he feel something move? He sticks out his foot and nudges it again. The pile definitely moves this time. A man rolls over, his face covered in bug
bites. He’s moaning and reaching out, unable to
see from his blind eyes that look like they have been gnawed out by rats. He opens his mouth and with one last gasp,
appears to die right in front of the young man. The young man can only watch, frozen in fear,
as a rat wriggles its way out of his open mouth, and stares at the young man. The young man screams, turns, and runs. He doesn’t know where he’s going as he
runs through the dark tunnels but he finds a set of stairs and follows them up before
bursting out of a door into the open air. He slams the door behind him. He’s sure the man he saw in the tunnels
died, but he’s not taking any chances. He runs the rest of the way home, taking the
stairs up to his apartment two at a time. He gets into his home and locks and bolts
the door behind him. He leans against the door and tries to catch
his breath, letting himself slide down to the floor. Finally, safe at last. He slaps at his neck again. Another fly. It must have been in his coat. He takes off his jacket and shirt, shaking
them out, and is surprised to see more flies come out, but also other bugs like worms and
cockroaches. He keeps shaking, panicking now, as more and
more bugs fall from his clothes. He can see in the mirror on the wall that
his body is covered in bites… but that’s not what really has his attention. He gets close to the mirror, almost in a daze. This can’t be right. He must be hallucinating. He looks in the mirror, reaches into his nose,
and pulls out a cockroach. Flies crawl out of his mouth as he opens his
mouth to scream, while behind him, rats start squeezing in under his door and crawling up
his body until he is completely covered in a living, writhing mass of vermin. Many of the anomalies studied by the SCP Foundation
are cruel, horrific, and utterly mysterious, and this is one of the rare cases that embodies
all three. Because this is SCP-027, also known as… The Vermin God. SCP-027 is a phenomenon with strange and frightening
properties that seems to affect one human subject at a time. When someone becomes a host to this anomaly,
they will find that they are constantly surrounded by swarms of various types of vermin, parasites,
and other pests. The human host has no ability to control or
command these creatures, and in fact the animals will often show aggression towards the host,
biting and scratching at them as well as any other person who comes near. It is unknown what causes this effect, but
once someone has become a host to SCP-027, the effect appears to be permanent. The swarms of vermin that follow the host
do not appear instantly, and instead tend to follow the same pattern of showing up in
waves. First, swarms of flying insects including
gnat and flies will begin to form a cloud around the unlucky individual. Next, non flying creatures such as lice, cockroaches,
worms, spiders, and rats will begin to crawl on the host. The more time that passes, the more of all
of these that will appear. Should the host try to leave the location,
some of the pests will attempt to cling to them or follow behind, but many of the others
will disperse. As soon the host stops again though, the process
will repeat and they will once again soon be surrounded by bugs and rodents. While there is no way for a host to rid themselves
of the SCP-027 anomaly, the phenomenon has been known to be transferred to a new host,
but only following the death of the first. It appears that 027 will continue to jump
from host to host, and has likely done this many times in the past. Preliminary research into just how long SCP-027
has existed is ongoing, but early signs point to it having existed for potentially hundreds
of years. SCP-027 was first identified by the Foundation
when, in the 1990s, a male in his late thirties was found in an abandoned warehouse that was
completely overrun with rats and insects. The man was filthy, malnourished, and covered
in bites and scratches from a variety of pests. He also showed symptoms of deteriorating mental
health, likely caused by a combination of heavy substance abuse and sleep deprivation,
neither of which were unexpected given his horrendous circumstances. The anomalous properties of the subject were
quickly recognized by field agents, and he was brought to an SCP Foundation site, where
he unfortunately died while still under observation. An autopsy later revealed that over 70% of
the man’s body at the time of death consisted of a colony of rats that had nested in his
abdomen and had been living there long enough to produce at least several generations of
offspring. Around six days after the man’s death, a
Foundation Security Officer at the site where the man had been held reported to medical
staff that he was experiencing breathing issues. He told them they began after he had been
woken up by what he thought was a housefly crawling up his nose. Later investigations would reveal that this
statement was true and that the fly laid a clutch of eggs in his sinus cavity as well. The security officer was placed under observation,
and following the appearance of more types of vermin, he was classified as SCP-027-02. The man who died was then reclassified as
SCP-027-01 and SCP-027 was redefined as an anomalous effect rather than one individual. It is still unknown just how SCP-027 attracts
animals or why it chooses the ones it does to summon to its location. Neither SCP-027-01 or 02 have expressed any
communication with any kind of entity or the feeling that one was present and were unable
to provide any additional information on the mysterious qualities of the anomaly. In an interview that took place not long after
the security officer was identified as a host and placed into containment, he only described
feeling dirty and itchy, like he needed a shower. He was deeply frightened by what was happening
and expressed the desire to rid himself of the anomalous effect as soon as possible so
that he could rejoin his family. Research into the anomaly continues but analysis
of the current host has been inconclusive at best. The lack of understanding about just what
SCP-027 is, how its anomalous effect functions, and how it jumps to a new host has led the
SCP Foundation to classify it as Euclid. The current host for the anomaly is being
held in a five by five meter cell with a raised, grated floor that is connected to a strong
vacuum system to trap any vermin that appear. Any creatures that are removed from the cell
are to be incinerated, except for a small portion which are sent to research teams for
analysis, though so far all animals have appeared to be completely non-anomalous in nature. SCP-027-02 is to be monitored by at least
two Foundation personnel at all times and in the event that the subject exhibits any
odd behavior or an unexpected species of animal is discovered in the cell, it is to be reported
to a Level 4 personnel immediately. Security personnel assigned to 027 duty are
to be vaccinated against all possible animal-borne diseases and have permission to subdue the
subject with tranquilizers should the need arise. Should the subject appear to be experiencing
a serious medical event, all high-value personnel should be moved far away from the current
host to lower the chance of them becoming a host to the anomaly, and no personnel of
Level 4 Clearance or higher should approach within 200 m of the Subject at all until SCP-027
and its strange properties are better understood. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, and… Ow… Make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications,
so you don’t miss a single anomaly, as we delve further and further into the SCP Foundation’s
classified archives.
