Below Pressure(SCP-015)

Dan Mulrooney, fifty years old with thirty of those in the pipes, sat hunched in his rusted van outside the assigned job: a boarded-up, five-story brick corpse of a building tucked deep in ███████'s decaying industrial zone.

“Mulrooney, you get there yet?” his dispatcher, Rhonda, buzzed through the radio. “Client says the whole basement’s backed up again. Weird noises. Bring the snake.”

Dan scoffed. “This place looks condemned, Rhon. There is no client. Just an empty shell.”

“Company says go in. You don’t, they’ll dock the day. Your call, old man.”

He muttered curses as he grabbed his flashlight and toolbox, his knees cracking as he stepped into the humid air. The building loomed—bricks stained black with water and time, windows shuttered with warped plywood, doors chained but unlocked, and he stepped inside.

The interior groaned. The silence was heavy, interrupted only by the occasional creak or muffled clank—pipes settling, he told himself.

He clicked the radio again. “Inside now. Smells like piss and metal. I’ll check the basement.”

“Copy that,” Rhonda replied. “Keep me posted.”

Dan found the basement door easily enough—it looked like it had been forced open recently. The hinges were bent, and something sticky coated the handle. He wiped his hand on his overalls and flicked on the flashlight.

The stairs groaned under his weight as he descended, the air thickening with every step. A moist, mechanical scent clung to everything, mixing with mold and decay. The beam of light trembled over rusted walls and broken concrete.

And then he saw the pipes.

Not just lining the walls—filling the space. Thick pipes, thin ones, twisted into grotesque tangles. Some shivered like they were breathing. Others were slick and pulsing, as though something crawled inside.

He whispered into the radio. “Rhonda. You copy? Something’s—off. The basement’s...full. Pipes all over. Some are...not right.”

Static. Then: “Say again? You’re breaking—”

A clank snapped his attention sideways.

One of the pipes had shifted. Just slightly.

Dan backed up, flashlight trembling.

He made a mistake. He opened the toolbox.

As soon as his hand touched the wrench, a pipe behind him burst with a violent hiss, spraying black oil and something squirming.

He dropped the wrench.

“Jesus Christ! Rhonda! I’m under attack or somethin'—pipes are alive! They’re bursting!”

The radio cracked. “Mulrooney? What—did you say something’s attacking you?”

A pipe burst from the wall to his right—glass shards in a spray of red fluid. Something hissed. Another pipe bent toward him, gaping open like a mouth.

Dan stumbled backward. “I-I’m leaving! I’m leaving!”

But the basement entrance was gone.

The stairs were no longer stairs. A wall of wet, veined tubing had overtaken the door. It was growing.

He slammed a fist into the mass. “Let me out!”

Another pipe erupted above him—rats, hundreds of them, squealing as they poured over his shoulders and arms, vanishing into other holes.

He screamed, beating them away, slipping on wet metal. His flashlight flickered.

“Dan, we’ve got a report of an SCP containment breach in that area,” Rhonda’s voice crackled faintly. “Get out of there. Reinforcements are en route. Do not touch anything. Do you hear me? Put your tools down.”

Too late.

A jagged pipe from the ceiling shot downward, impaling the toolbox with a screech.

Dan ran, his boots thudding on wet concrete, trying to navigate the ever-changing maze. Pipes shifted, growing around him, slamming shut passages and opening new ones—a digestive system learning to trap its prey.

He stumbled into a large, hollow chamber, surrounded entirely by walls of bone-pipes and twitching valves. A single vent above began to shake, moaning with a distant human voice.

Screams echoed through the plumbing—not his own.

“Let me out... it burns...”

A pipe below his foot exploded, sending up molten iron, splashing his boot. He shrieked in agony and collapsed, crawling backward—only for another pipe to split and release a gush of sea water and entrails that soaked his chest.

His skin blistered. He couldn’t breathe.

From the far wall, a section of piping unfurled like tendrils—metal tubing twisting into crude arms, dragging something wet and sobbing behind them.

The corpse wore a janitor’s uniform.

Dan crawled until his back hit the wall. The pipes around him began to whisper his name.

“Mulrooney… Mulrooney…”

He closed his eyes.

Three hours later

The SCP Containment Unit arrived, cloaked and precise. Drones were sent in first. All data streams failed. Then came the rapid response squad.

Rhonda, pale and shaking, waited outside with her headset.

“He was just a plumber,” she whispered.

Dr. Halworth of the Foundation didn't answer. He simply marked another tally beside the missing count and turned to the structure as pipes shifted behind the bricks, growing silently, feeding again.

SCP-015 Status:

Location Breach: [✓]

Casualties: +1

Expansion Attempt: Active

Containment Reinforced: Pending

Foundation Incident Report – SCP-015

Site Command: DR. HALWORTH – FIELD OPERATIONS LOG

Date: ██/██/████

Location: SCP-015 Perimeter Zone – ███████, Abandoned Industrial Block D

Status: ACTIVE EXPANSION EVENT CONTAINMENT – PRIORITY RED

[BEGIN LOG – AUDIO TRANSCRIPT]

Dr. Halworth (Field Command Lead):

“Field Ops Log, SCP-015 engagement. Local contact — Dan Mulrooney, civilian contractor — declared missing inside the structure at approximately 0943. Final comms confirm anomalous aggression consistent with prior SCP-015 triggers. Last known position: lower sub-basement sector. Temporal distortion inside SCP-015 prevents real-time location tracking. Presumed deceased.”

Containment Officer Brynne:

“Perimeter sealed within fifteen minutes of expansion confirmation. Baseline growth rate is elevated. Estimated increase of internal pipe mass by—”

[DISTORTION: LOUD METALLIC CREAKING AND DISTANT SCREAMING OVER COMMS]

Dr. Halworth:

“...forty-seven percent in the last six hours. Expansion nodes have reached into nearby utility corridors. Foundation-level suppression foam failed. Pipes are now adapting to chemical agents.”

Containment Officer Brynne:

“They’re resisting the rebar mesh. Burrowing through the concrete like it’s drywall.”

Dr. Halworth:

“Send in the Mark-IV Drones. Full atmospheric read. Thermal, biological, and any irregular EM spikes. I want that basement mapped before we lose the floor again.”

[Drone Telemetry Feed: ACTIVE]

Camera: DRN-04 “Charon”

Visual: Entry via cracked basement stairwell. Walls vibrate with an irregular pulse. Pipes visibly twitch in infrared. Unknown biological residue coats the floor.

Audio: Metallic moaning. Multiple overlapping human vocalizations recorded at frequencies outside the normal human range.

Notable Timestamp – T+03:21:

Drone captures partial skeletal remains in a janitorial uniform embedded in the wall piping. Bones replaced by ceramic piping. Human teeth embedded in surrounding valve casings.

Dr. Halworth (viewing feed):

“Jesus... They're not just growing — they're assimilating. Brynne, prep the dissection team for post-extraction analysis.”

Containment Officer Brynne:

“Sir, team Delta-7 just lost visual. The pipes—one of them closed the corridor. Just bent itself in like a door.”

Dr. Halworth:

“015’s reacting to the drone heat signatures again. Fine. Prepare deployment of the Echo-9 mobile suppression team. No tools. No weapons. Just tranquilizers, signal beacons, and non-aggressive mapping gear.”

Field Deployment Orders:

Echo-9 Objective: Passive Entry and Data Retrieval

Special Notes:

Absolutely no interaction with plumbing components.

Tools, wrenches, cutters, or sharp objects are forbidden.

Personnel trained in silent traversal.

Emergency extraction contingent on Bio-Signal Termination Trigger.

[Echo-9 Enter Log – Redacted for Brevity]

Status: Two members lost to spontaneous pipeline rearrangement. One absorbed through the chest cavity via pipe expansion. The final beacon signal indicated cardiac arrest followed by internal pressurization and displacement.

[POST-INCIDENT DEBRIEF]

Dr. Halworth:

“SCP-015 is behaving more aggressively than previously recorded. Civilian interaction with tools continues to trigger adaptive defense behaviors. Audio logs confirm verbal mimicry of victims. It is now producing human-like groaning patterns through vent systems. Internal chambers appear to be mimicking human lungs and vocal cords using rusted valves and flexible tubing.”

Containment Officer Brynne:

“Recommend permanent zoning of a five-block radius around SCP-015. No construction. No public access. Plug sewer access points with Foundation-grown non-reactive polymer roots.”

Dr. Halworth:

“Agreed. All civilian reports of ‘haunted pipes’ or ‘screaming in the walls’ must be intercepted. Deploy cover story: chemical leak and unstable structure collapse. Mulrooney will be listed as ‘killed in illegal urban exploration.’”

Foundation Internal Memo – Level 4 Clearance Required

Subject: SCP-015 Escalation Potential

To: Overseer Command

From: Dr. Halworth

SCP-015 may be evolving. This entity is no longer passive and shows clear signs of neural mimicry.

We have found neural tissue samples embedded within newer pipe growth.

I believe 015 is learning from victims—absorbing behavior, knowledge... even names.

I recommend reclassification to Keter-Exponential Threat Potential.

We cannot afford another expansion event like what happened in ███████.

It doesn’t just want to spread now.

It wants to be heard.

END OF LOG

SCP-015 Containment Status: UNSTABLE

Next Scheduled Assessment: ██/██/████