SCP-7631 : Your Next Sip

Name: Your Next Sip
Author: Anyar
Rating: 55/73
Created at: Sun Jul 06 2025

Are you sure you should be drinking that water?

Item #: SCP-7631

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-7631 is currently uncontained. Foundation assets in the WHO, CDC, and other public health organizations are to promote campaigns discouraging the use of public drinking fountains due to sanitary concerns. Occurrences of SCP-7631 are to be dismissed as rumors or attributed to irreproducible manufacturing defects.

Description: SCP-7631 is a rare phenomenon that mixes small amounts of an unidentified colorless acid into the output of water fountains. This typically results in severe but non-lethal chemical burns to an individual's tongue and surrounding oral tissue. Although these wounds heal at a greatly accelerated rate, individuals continue to report loss of taste from healed tissue, as well as ticklish sensations while chewing food.

To date, all fountains involved have been made of stainless steel. Whether this is a meaningful factor remains unclear due to limited statistical data, as attempts to safely replicate the anomaly using marble or other nonliving receptacles have thus far failed to produce results.

Addendum 7631.1: Shortly after D-class testing was approved, SCP-7631 was successfully reproduced on 05/19/2025 using D-17413 and a drinking fountain in First Landing State Park, Virginia. The subject was instructed to repeatedly tap the push bar and sip water; upon the 117th repetition of this procedure, SCP-7631 occurred.

A portion of the liquid was harvested from D-17413's mouth. Other than expected contents1, the liquid also contained 1% of concentrated nitric acid2 and a mass of unidentified living cells, designated SCP-7631-A.

When isolated and dried, samples of SCP-7631-A appeared inert and died in minutes. However, after the remaining mass was re-introduced to D-17413's mouth, SCP-7631-A began vibrating on a microscopic level and spread across the subject's oral cavity. It congregated within her open wounds to form clusters visually identical to fungiform papillae3, even in locations where such structures would not form naturally (including her gums, cheeks, and uvula).

Within one hour, all wounds were sealed. Afterwards, it was observed that the papillae retracted from surgical instruments, but when food was inserted into D-17413's mouth, the papillae re-emerged and wriggled vigorously.