Item #: SCP-532
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: At present day technology it is physically impossible to hold 532, or keep it away from the populace at large; its composition and the fact that it can split and divide its form into multiple "tendrils" negates all feasible methods. As of now, the only form of contact will be observation and tracking, which in itself presents difficulties.
Description: 532 is a stream of raw sewage that rushes down subterranean tunnels and sewers. It tends to circulate underneath the bigger cities. It is made up of feces, urine, dirty water, trash and garbage, and dead animals and is identical in every material respect to regular waste products. However it presents several noticeable unique qualities, particularly in the area of locomotion, including:
- Ability to defy gravity; it will frequently reverse its course and go against the flow of the normal refuse, even climbing up pipes and entering vertical shafts and channels.
- The main mass (or what can be determined to be) can slow down or speed up regardless of the current.
- Can fork and split and the offshoots will posses all the same traits as long as they are attached, however tenuous and slim the link is, to the central body.
It uses these deviations for one purpose; to inject itself into clean systems. Tendrils have been observed entering everything from water treatments plants to farming equipment attached to pumps. However, its target is always one individual in particular, and all actions taken are simply steps in the goal to kill that person through poisoning. Its first step of attack will always be to surround the victim's house, plug all pipes and drains with its mass that lead out (all of the person's waste becomes part of SCP-532 and is recycled back in; their own toxins are often what kills them in the end), and infiltrate their plumbing, so any activation of the faucets will lead to sewage coming out.
Through a poorly understood memetic or telepathic effect, the person consuming or using the sewage will visualize it as normal hygienic water, albeit sometimes a smell, thickness, or slight murkiness is detected. They will continue drinking, cooking, cleaning, and bathing in the sewage until death, most likely from infection, disease, or organ failure. They can notice fully their decline in heath, and mentally understand all remarks on their appearance (such as tangled dirty hair, black substances hanging on their body, and a sickly pallor,) and stench (often breath and body odor are described as "reeking") but nothing can be done about it, no conclusions are reached; due to their own confusion and the bafflement of their doctors (who realize what cause the symptoms correspond with, but cannot find the source; everyone else sees the water as pure as well), and often the response to criticism is more washing (17 of the victims have been found in bathtubs full of sewage, with soaps and scrubbers of many kinds all around them, their skin raw and bleeding), leading to a even speedier demise.
When the person goes out into public, at least one tendril will follow them directly underground. It will then contaminate anything they attempt to drink from, quickly moving up into place, including bubblers, soda fountains in fast food joints, and glasses of tap water at restaurants (somehow it knows when to come out of the spigot, and which cup will be given to the victim). It does the same to food; seeping into boiling vats, bubbling up from grates and "burping" onto carried snacks, and in one instant a jet of liquid excrement shot out of the toilet, covering a cook from head to toe, and then dripped onto the prepared meal. Because washing your hands is mandatory in the service business, the victim can virtually go nowhere without consuming part of 532.
After the victims death, chunks, puddles, and small miniature rivers of 532 will inch and flow back into the plumbing, and erase all evidence that they were ever there.
It is unknown how or why 532 chooses the people it does.
Addendum [SCP-532-a]: A review of security footage from Observation Post [REDACTED], whose entire personnel at one point developed signs of sewage poisoning consistent with a manifestation of SCP-532, showed that whereas nobody in the site noticed SCP-532's infestation, it was possible to see the sewage tendrils in the recordings. It is theorized that remote surveillance can reveal SCP-532's presence, due to the usually greater separation between the surveillance site and the location of SCP-532.
Addendum [SCP-532-b]: Due to the impossibility of physical transportation, SCP-532 should be contained on site. The proposed surveillance plan is to randomly install chemical sensors in the clean water supply of several houses in a randomly chosen city of the United States; these sensors must be disguised as government-approved water meters.
As soon as one of such sensors detects the presence of sewage — and thus, the presence of SCP-532 — the proposed action plan is to deploy a mobile task force with orders to forbid all residents of the affected building from eating, drinking, or activating the faucets. All and every single plumbing line leading towards the affected building, as well as any faucet or water drain, must be hermetically sealed as quickly as possible and by any means necessary, and security cameras are to be set up and monitored from a separate continent. Once its presence has been confirmed, the residents must be held in their place until temporary containment measures are constructed, after which the affected building must be surrounded with an appropriate sarcophagus.
A proposed plan to use Class D personnel placed in abandoned buildings to attract SCP-532 is currently under review by Level 4 staff.