SCP-087 The Endless Staircase: the bottomless stairwell and the faceless face

Imagine stepping through a door and standing at the head of a pitch-dark staircase. You go down, and down again, and on forever without ever reaching the bottom. In the darkness below, a child's voice calls for help, and somewhere a chalk-white face is silently watching you. This is SCP-087, also known as The Endless Staircase, one of the most haunting objects in the SCP Foundation universe.

What is SCP-087?

SCP-087 is a descending stairwell that appears to have no end. The object was found as a doorframe opening onto a dark stairwell, its concrete steps spiralling down into the earth with landings roughly every 13 steps. Strangely, any light source brought inside is swallowed by the darkness, illuminating only a few metres ahead. No instrument has ever recorded the bottom of the staircase, which has made SCP-087 a symbol of endless dread among fans of SCP Foundation.

Object class: Euclid

SCP-087 is classified Euclid. In the Foundation's system, a Euclid object is one that people do not fully understand and whose behaviour cannot be entirely predicted. It is more dangerous and harder to control than the Safe class, but does not reach the destructive threat level of Keter. The Endless Staircase received this classification because of its anomalous spatial nature and the unpredictable appearances of the entity hidden inside it.

Containment procedures

According to the file, the entrance to SCP-087 is sealed with a steel door and opened only when a test has been approved. A number of safety rules are laid down:

• Personnel are strictly forbidden to descend beyond the permitted depth without a direct order.
• High-powered lighting is useless there, so exploration teams must carry a backup plan.
• Radio contact with the surface is usually disrupted and lost as the descent deepens.
• Anyone who comes face to face with SCP-087-1 must withdraw immediately.

Description and the chilling story

What makes The Endless Staircase haunting is not only its infinite depth but what lives in the dark. Exploration teams repeatedly hear a child of about seven calling for help from below, as though trapped and begging someone to come. Yet however far down they go, no one has ever found that child.

More frightening still is SCP-087-1, an entity that appears as a face with no pupils, no clear nose, its mouth open as if screaming in silence. It flickers in and out of an explorer's field of vision, and deep descents often end in panic. No one knows whether SCP-087-1 is the child calling for help, or the thing that produced that cry to lure victims further into the earth.

In closing

SCP-087 shows that the greatest fear is sometimes not a monster but the endless and the unexplainable. Please note: SCP-087, The Endless Staircase and the whole SCP Foundation universe are works of fiction in the creepypasta and collaborative-fiction genre, entirely unreal. They exist to feed the imagination and a love of stories that are mysterious, extraordinary and strange.