SCP - 027 "The Vermin God"
Object Class - Euclid
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Site-19, SCP-027 Containment Cell
Officer Kieran Fawley—now designated Subject 027-02—sat on the grated floor, knees pulled to his chest. The hum of the vacuum system was constant, but it couldn't drown out the skittering, buzzing, and scratching all around him. Flies drifted in a cloud above his head. Cockroaches crawled in and out of his jumpsuit. A mouse darted across his foot.
Dr. Emily Jameson stood on the other side of the glass, watching. She pressed the intercom. "Good morning, Kieran. How are you today?"
He glared at the camera. "How do you think? I haven't slept. There were spiders in my mouth last night. Spiders, Doc."
Emily's voice was gentle. "Any new symptoms?"
He scratched his scalp, wincing. "Just the usual. Itching. Crawling. I think there are more rats now. I hear them in the walls."
Later, Emily sat across from Kieran, both of them separated by a thick pane of glass. Two guards stood behind her, tranquilizer guns ready.
"Kieran," she began, "do you feel anything… inside? A presence, a voice?"
He shook his head. "No voices. No urges. Just… bugs. Everywhere. I can't get clean."
She hesitated. "Do you remember when it started?"
He closed his eyes. "I woke up choking. There was a fly in my nose. Then the rats came. The Foundation said I was the new host. Like it was a promotion."
Emily's pen hovered over her clipboard. "Do you want to talk about your family?"
Kieran's voice cracked. "Don't. I don't want them near me. Not like this."
That night, Emily reviewed the logs of Subject 027-01. The file was grim:
"Autopsy revealed a colony of rats nesting in the subject's abdomen for at least ██ generations…"
She shuddered. The phenomenon always found a new host. No one knew how, or why.
Her radio buzzed. "Dr. Jameson, Subject 027-02 is requesting a sedative. He says the bugs are getting worse."
Emily sighed. "Prepare the injection. And double the guards."
The next morning, Kieran pressed his face to the glass, eyes wild. "Emily, please. You have to get this out of me. I can't take it anymore."
She swallowed. "We're trying, Kieran. We really are. But until we know more, you have to stay here."
He slumped to the floor as a fresh wave of gnats buzzed around his head. "Promise me you'll keep my family safe. If this thing jumps, don't let it find them."
Emily nodded, tears in her eyes. "I promise."
Epilogue
As Emily walked away, she glanced back. Kieran was surrounded by a living tide of vermin, a man lost in a sea of crawling things.
She whispered, "We're all just hosts, in the end."
End of Log