SCP-381

Item #: SCP-381

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-381 is to be kept in a standard containment chamber at Site-77. The chamber is to be kept at ambient temperature and humidity, and must be equipped with air conditioning. SCP-381 may be moved into a holding cell during testing, but must remain within the containment room at all times.

Description: SCP-381 is a large, solid wooden house, with a flat roof and two windows. SCP-381 does not appear to show any cracks or other signs of damage. SCP-381 was dubbed “The Crowded House” by those in the area shortly after the discovery of its anomalous properties, although it has no identifying feature that would lead to this nickname.

SCP-381 has two anomalous properties which manifest when it is in a populated area. If a human being enters the crowd of SCP-381 while they are there, they will be unable to leave until they leave the crowd. As long as there is at least one human being in the crowd, however, a ceiling will form over SCP-381 whenever it reaches a certain size. This ceiling will remain for approximately thirty seconds before falling back down. When this happens, any humans within it will not be harmed by this fall, as long as they have not left the crowd.

If a human being exits the crowd and stands outside of it, however, none of them will be able to leave SCP-381 until the last human being leaves it. At no point during this time will any human being be able to leave SCP-381 safely and immediately escape its anomalous properties, even if they are severely injured or cannot move due to their injuries. The only way to escape this crowding effect is to die.

Addendum:

SCP-381 was discovered on 8/22/1962 in a town in ████████, ██████. The town had been evacuated due to the discovery of an unusually large crowd at SCP-381, which had previously only been observed once before on 10/13/1955. SCP-381 was found in the center of the town, and its anomalous properties were confirmed when it became clear that all of its occupants could not leave it. Due to the unusual nature of this outcome, SCP-381 was quickly moved to Site-77 for further containment and investigation.

The following is an interview with Dr. ████, who came up with the idea of the use of amnestics in this case.

Interviewed: Dr. ██████

Interviewer: Agent █████

Foreword: Interview conducted upon the discovery of SCP-381.

Agent █████: Alright, I know you're here to talk about the Crowded House, but can you first tell me how you came up with that idea?

Dr. ██████: Actually, I thought of a couple things before I got there, but I didn't think they'd work. When I got there, all I saw was a bunch of people standing around, blocking any exit out of the building. At first I was really disappointed that it wasn't going to work, but after a while I noticed something interesting — no one was moving!

I never thought about it before when I was trying to make it work, but as long as you're not moving around too much and everyone's there, it'll work! So I called the site supervisor over and asked him if we could try it out. He agreed, so we moved everyone back into line and tried it out. We had the whole thing take about thirty seconds — we just let everyone sit there and wait until the ceiling came back down — but then it worked! It actually worked! And I finally figured out why it worked!

Agent █████: Okay… what did you figure out?

Dr. ██████: You see all those people in front of me? All those people trying to get out? Well they're stuck there because they're all pushing and shoving each other and they can't move away! Because nobody's pushing them out of the way! They're all pushing each other, pushing against each other, trying to get out of each other's way! But if someone died or went missing in there, that would just push everyone else out! That's why everything works! If one person dies or goes missing in there, everyone else just pushes everyone else out! No one can ever get out without making sure that the last person goes out!

Agent █████: Oh man… that's so sick… sick sick sick sick… We were thinking about using amnestics to keep people from getting hurt or missing inside of there… but we were worried about breaking containment somehow… I'm glad you were able to figure this out though. So do you have any suggestions or anything for how we can make sure this doesn't get used as a cover story again?

Dr. ██████: Well… uh… yeah… There isn't really anything else that could be done, but… well… you could always just write it off as a “freak accident” when you move someone in there again. You know all these people probably aren't gonna want their friends or their relatives taken away from them for ever now that they know about this place. So maybe some innocent bystander died there or something that shouldn't have happened because of what happened at the house. (laughs) Or maybe someone broke a window or something and died from falling out of it. Or maybe some kind of plague swept through the place and everyone caught it and died together. I mean… whatever you think will make it look like nobody died there…

Agent █████: (laughter) Yeah… don't worry about that stuff right now though — we'll find something to do with this place later on. When we're ready to move someone in there again, we'll give it a few more minutes before we let anyone get killed by falling off a window or something like that.