Linray stood on the busy street, looking left and right, and sighed.
Site-Ω's teleportation wasn't exactly generous — it hadn't even dropped him at the mission location. Just... somewhere in a city.
"What am I supposed to do, dive into a random sewer?"
For now, all he could do was ask around — find out where pipes had been acting up.
He wandered over to a newsstand on the street and struck up a conversation with the owner. After some small talk, he got a lead.
"No idea what's wrong with the pipes, but that amusement park out in the suburbs? That place has been cursed lately."
The owner leaned back, belly hanging over his belt, burger in hand. "Several people died at that park on the outskirts."
"Everyone thought it was a ride malfunction at first. But when the staff inspected the equipment, nothing was wrong."
Days later, nobody dared set foot in the place. People called it cursed. Some even said it was haunted.
"They just put out a notice today — park's closed indefinitely. No reopening date."
"I mean, who'd want to go there before they figure out what's killing people?"
The owner seemed ready to keep chatting, but Linray was already gone.
"Rude bastard!" The owner clicked his tongue and sat back down.
---
Linray jogged through the streets without tiring — another reminder that his body wasn't normal anymore. Before long, he arrived at the suburban amusement park.
It was a typical children's park. Small-scale, low-thrill rides, nothing that should have been dangerous. A sign by the entrance declared the park closed for "rectification," with no reopening date listed.
Under the bright afternoon sun, the place looked harmless enough.
The front gate was locked, but the fencing had plenty of gaps. Park management clearly wasn't a priority here. The security booth and ticket office were both empty — no staff in sight.
Who would bother guarding a haunted amusement park that couldn't even operate?
Linray tested the gate and it swung open. At least he didn't have to climb a wall like a burglar.
The moment he stepped inside, something shifted. It wasn't a thought — it was deeper than that. A biological instinct, etched into his DNA, stirring to life.
*This is where the Pipe Nightmare has gathered.*
The park wasn't haunted. The rides were malfunctioning because SCP-015 had infiltrated the infrastructure.
The question was: how many rides had it reached?
From what the newsstand owner had said, only one ride had actually caused casualties — but that was days ago. The ongoing problems were centered on the Ferris wheel, the park's main attraction, one of its "three treasures."
The Ferris wheel loomed in the distance, painted in cheerful rainbow colors. Thirty meters tall, its bright panels looked like a rainbow pinned against the sky.
But it had stopped turning. It just stood there now, silent, taking on wind and weather without purpose.
"The Ferris wheel that carried happiness... turned into a stairway to nightmares."
Linray's expression darkened. The closer he got, the more his senses screamed danger from every direction.
He spotted a sewer manhole cover nearby and his guard went up even further.
Then he grabbed the cover — and ripped it clean off the ground.
"I'm this strong?!"
The cast iron cover had to weigh at least fifty kilograms. A muscular man couldn't casually lift one, let alone swing it around. Linray had done it like it was nothing.
"Since I got transported here... I'm really not a normal person anymore."
It wasn't like he was complaining, though. If he were still a regular human, walking toward an SCP would just be walking toward his own funeral. D-class personnel had proven that much — in the Foundation's world, a quick, quiet death was a luxury. Some SCPs didn't even give you that.
And maybe he was crazy for doing this voluntarily. No orders, no team, no extraction plan. Just him and a pipe monster in a dead amusement park.
But if he didn't go — he'd never get home.
That thought settled him. The superhuman strength, the body that wasn't quite flesh anymore — he could process all of that later. What mattered right now was that he wasn't helpless, and somewhere on the other side of this mission was a way back.
He dropped down into the sewer.
The darkness swallowed him instantly. The air was thick, damp, and rancid. His feet landed in sticky, foul water and rotting debris.
"No pipes?"
There was nothing here — no sign of the Pipe Nightmare at all. Linray moved through the darkness, retracing the approximate location of the Ferris wheel above.
Surprisingly, he could see clearly in the pitch-black sewer. His eyes had adjusted instantly. Another way his body was no longer human.
After more than ten minutes of searching underground, he'd found nothing. No danger, no anomalous pipe connections. Nothing.
"This should be right below the Ferris wheel."
A set of stairs on the left led upward. He pushed open the manhole cover and emerged directly beneath the towering ride.
"Pipes...?"
His eyes locked onto something near the Ferris wheel's motor — a wrench, hanging off a support beam.
A grin spread across his face.
*Can't find the Pipe Nightmare? Let it find you.*
SCP-015 reacted to tools and aggressive behavior. All he had to do was grab the wrench — and the anomaly would come to him.
The instant Linray's hand closed around the wrench, the Ferris wheel screamed to life.
It spun violently, wildly — way beyond any normal operating speed. Wind howled around him and Linray threw himself backward to a safe distance.
Then the cabins started falling.
One tore free from the wheel and plummeted straight at him like a meteorite. The massive cabin grew in his vision — too fast, too close. No human reflex could dodge this.
Even with his enhanced body, Linray couldn't outrun the falling speed of a two-ton cabin.
But at the last possible instant — the cabin shifted. By an inch. Maybe less.
It slammed into the ground right beside him. A wall of dust and debris erupted, the shockwave snapping at his clothes.
Linray threw his hands over his face as dirt and wind hammered him — but he was alive. Untouched.
More cabins rained down. Every single one veered away at the last moment, crashing around him in a circle of destruction, burying him in rubble.
When the dust settled, Linray slowly lowered his hands. Not a scratch on him. It was as if his body — or something on it — had automatically deflected everything.
"Wait... I gave the raincoat to Zheng Zha." He looked down at his own clothes. Just a normal coat. Nothing special about it. "So why did everything dodge me?"
He didn't have time to think about it. The Ferris wheel wasn't done. The entire structure began tearing itself apart. Steel support pipes wrenched free from the frame and aimed themselves at him like javelins.
"Shit!"
Linray dove back into the sewer.
The moment he dropped through the manhole, he heard the steel pipes hammer into the ground above him like a machine gun. The earth around the opening was skewered like a hedgehog.
Several pipes even shot down through the manhole cover, blocking his escape route.
"THIS is a 'non-dangerous' containment object?!"
"THIS is 'simple containment'?!"
Linray wanted to scream. He was supposed to be the Overseer — the highest authority in the Foundation. And THIS was his first assignment? A death trap in a sewer under a haunted amusement park?
"The Overseer who does his own fieldwork," he muttered, slumped against the tunnel wall. "Just great."