Chapter Text
DATE: 29/12/20XX
TIME: 09:08
DESCRIPTION: Out of the water, the subject most often takes on a female humanoid figure with an average volume of 90L comprised entirely of water. [DATA EXPUNGED] it becomes nearly indistinguishable from its surroundings when submerged in water.
Research halted due to [DATA RETRACTED] which left two MCs dead and one scientist injured.
CAUSE OF ENTRY: UNSTABLE SCP - 054, unusually hostile towards experimentation, requires sedation.
INMATES FOR SERVICE:
KOGANE, KEITH
SHIROGANE, SHIRO
MC PERSONNEL SUPERVISOR:
[CLASSIFIED], MICHAEL
-34 minutes before breach
“Move, inmates,” a guard barked at Keith and Shiro as they trudged through the thick concrete doors that led to what was extremely likely to be their demise.
Keith narrowed his eyes at the man. Fucking coward, he thought. Most of the personnel in the SCP Foundation felt the need to belabor the fact that Keith was beneath them . In every way, shape and form.
But as Keith dragged his feet closer to the foot-thick wall of concrete that separated him from what could be certain death, he couldn’t help but find it laughable: the same man who felt the need to shove him through the prison wing corridors with the barrel of his automatic, couldn’t even maintain his pride by stepping towards the steel-locked door separating the three of them from an Unstable.
It was always the cocky bastards that liked to make prisoners do the dirty work. Keith could make a pretty educated guess and say that the MCs were the school bullies back in the day, terrorizing the underclassmen to make themselves feel better.
It had only been a year or two since Keith had entered the SCP facility. A faulty connection from the accelerator on his bike had cost him not only the close-to-fifty-grand he had gotten away with, but also his freedom. He’d made a mental note to kick Hunk’s ass into the Sun for the humiliation once he got out of here. But Keith had thought he could handle this, after all, he’d been in this situation before.
As a kid he’d been caught for vandalism and the like, been taken to juvenile detention, all that. This was something completely different for him, though, probably one of the biggest scandals of the government he’d ever experienced in his lifetime.
He, along with all of the other prisoners here, were being held here to, essentially, die in place of the people In Charge. They were being used, the same way engineers testing the safety of a car would use crash dummies. The word ‘prisoner’ was just a pretext; there was no lawyers, no court dates, not even a sentencing. It was twisted, to sacrifice civilians (no matter whether or not they were just petty criminals or not), just to save a few bills on employee replacement. So much for laying it down on Hunk.
Next to him, Shiro exhaled sharply. He had been holding that breath ever since the two of them had reached the cell. Unlike the MC, Keith could sympathize with Shiro. He’d lost an arm to an Unstable of similar caliber before, which had been replaced by a robot-like prosthetic. It’s also how he got that scar across his face, one that nearly split his features in half.
It was no surprise the reason he was reluctant to go back into that field. He was damaged. He was broken. And it made Keith sick to his stomach to think that any authorities here even pretended to pale in comparison to Shiro in a situation like this.
The younger boy smacked Shiro on the shoulder amicably, which made the man jump.
“You alright, Shiro?” Keith tried to keep his voice even, even though his own insides were practically liquid at this point.
Shiro had barely opened his mouth before a metallic kchnnk made both prisoners startle back a step. The whirring of rusty tumblers were followed by the scraping of cement on cement, signaling that the door was opening.
Keith gulped, knowing what was about to happen and not having an immediate plan on what to do if something went wrong. Slowly, the room expanded as the doors parted from either side. There were stained concrete walls flowing into a metal floor, riddled with both bullet holes and claw marks. And there, in the corner, lay the SCP, her body emitting some sort of bioluminescence which glowed in the otherwise dim room.
A cloud of knotted hair cascaded from her brightly lit head to the ground like a waterfall. The blue, almost white skin was worn away nearly to what looked like bone from an unsurprising Unstable-y freakout, and she was letting out the wheezy breaths of a frightened child. The glow of what would have been human legs seemed to melt from the humanoid figure and trickled into a drainage filter in the center of the room.
Shiro shot a suspicious glance at Keith. Unlike the younger man, Shiro had seen 054 before, in a huge tank filled with spring water, so bright that he could barely see the creature herself. She’d put her hand against the glass that separated them, watching him curiously. Her bright hair seemed to dissolve into the water around her, but he could still see her dark eyes clearly. He remembered the way she had smiled at him, not expressing malice like the others he’d encountered, but a gentle, childish one, akin to a puppy who couldn’t yet distinguish right from wrong, just wanting someone to pay attention to her.
But now, the only water in the cell was from the SCP’s body. She was hunched in on herself, obviously untrusting of the men who’d entered her home; she didn’t even really seem to recognize Shiro (or if she did, she didn’t show it). Something’s wrong. Why would they be provoking a naturally passive SCP like this? It was like they had brought the men down to the sector just to be killed.
The small figure stammered out a string of words in a language only it knew, and backed further into the corner as if it was trying to disappear.
Keith took a step forward, in front of Shiro, holding his hands out in front of him, hoping he wasn’t conveying malice. The only real reason Keith could guess they were in here was to stop the Unstable from subconsciously killing itself, which neither Keith nor Shiro really knew how to do (or wanted to, for that matter.)
“Careful, Keith,” Shiro said softly, as if he was hoping the SCP wouldn’t hear. “You never know if they’re gonna lash out or not.”
“Why are we even doing this,” Keith groaned quietly to Shiro.
Both men had their hands in front of them, as instructed, trying to keep an Unstable SCP from leaving the confines of the metal walls around it. The objective was to corner it enough that a scientist could retrieve and sedate it. Although, the fact that the SCP was this on edge didn’t exactly make either of them optimistic about the mission being a success.
Shiro didn’t answer. His face was twisted in a grimace as he took in the damage to the kid’s fluid body. Keith wondered for a moment if Shiro was thinking of his own scar because of this.
“Hey,” he said calmly, “what’s your name?” It was a stretch, but he could tell the creature was petrified, and he wanted to at least let them know he wouldn’t hurt them.
The kid blinked, and momentarily glanced at Keith. Seeming not to take Keith nor Shiro as a threat, she whispered, “A-Allura,”
Allura, Keith thought, getting a feel for her name (if it was her name, and not more gibberish. He didn’t even know if the girl could understand him). It was so different from earlier, when the higher-ups and military experts were only referring to to them as “SCP 054.”
It sounded degrading now, seeing them in the state she was in, and Keith felt the overwhelming urge to take a swing at the MC that still lingered behind them, on the safe side of the cell.
When Keith didn’t speak up, Allura growled, thrusting a slick, dripping finger toward the entrance. A gesture that said just leave me alone. Keith opened his mouth to say something when—
“No, you don’t,” the MC, deciding now was a good time to show his authority, apparently thinking that Allura had meant to obliterate the entire quadrant, raised his automatic and aimed directly at Allura. This was enough to pull a scream out of the kid, and she shot up and bolted directly past Keith and Shiro, leaving the two in a state of complete shock.
The lights went out, and on came the stale, bleach colored warning lights. It was only procedurally, even though Keith was 99% sure most SCPs could see in darkness anyway.
To make it worse, the ear-splitting,constant bd-d-d-d of automatic weaponry caused Allura to growl this time, and in the dim light Keith could make out Allura’s fluorescent blue glow, her hands curled into icicles. Even with the child only but ten feet away from him now, the MC still felt the need to fire round after round at Allura, although with her hardened skin, the bullets could hardly penetrate through the frost, instead sending shards of titanium and ice every which way.
Keith, seeing this as an opportunity to flee, turned back to Shiro, who was frozen.
“We gotta get out of here, man,” he said and grabbed Shiro by his human arm, and ran towards the entrance of the cell.
From there, he could see the panicked face of the MC, who addressed them without looking away from Allura. “Don’t leave your posts, prisoners,” he was backing away from the SCP, who was walking closer menacingly. “You’re supposed to be subduing oh-five-four,”
This was Keith’s final straw. The fact that a man who went through training for this kind of thing couldn’t understand that it was him hurting the situation, was enough to make Keith want to kill the man with his bare hands. It would be a mercy killing honestly, better than anything an Unstable SCP would do to him, but instead, he clicked his tongue in disgust and whipped around, dragging Shiro behind him.
“Hey, stop right there!” Keith turned around just in time to see the MC turn on them with his gun, so that it now pointed directly at the man’s chest.
In that moment, Keith’s world moved in slow motion. He couldn’t think. He knew that he was definitely going to die if he didn’t do something soon, but at the same time his brain couldn’t process that he was even in the way. Every single fight-or-flight response that naturally painted itself out in his mind instead showed nothing but a blank canvas.
He’d dodged bullets before, it was necessary in living the kind of life he had, but this time he ran the risk of Shiro becoming a victim in his place. His brain fought against his own promise to put himself first, to never let his sympathy for someone else interfere with his own survival. But now, Keith couldn’t fight the pang of desperation in his chest. When he had first arrived in the Prison Wing of the containment building, Shiro had been so good to him when he’d first arrived, more than anyone else in the entire facility. If it had been someone else, anyone else, Keith would have disappeared without hesitation, but since it was his only comrade, saving himself felt like betrayal.
He blinked, and in that split second, everything went from frozen, to about four times normal speed, like someone was flipping through his life like it was a television program.
In that moment, huge, pointed shards of ice spewed from Allura’s hands like a shotgun. Shiro whipped around to find the SCP, now instead of withdrawn, there was a steely gaze in her eyes. She was completely different from the figure they’d seen just moments ago. It was beautiful, the way Allura had completely done a 180 on her tone, her hair now floating above her head like it defied gravity. Her arms were covered in frost up to her elbows like Cinderella’s gloves, her figure could beat that of a model on the cover of Vogue, if she was human. But Allura wasn’t focused on them. She was watching her kill.
Keith watched with both horror and fascination as three feet worth of ice was buried in the MC’s chest, blood saturating one end of it. He stood stock-still, dropped his automatic on the floor with a steely clang.
Allura raised two fingers, and as she swiped them back behind her, the frosty (and now bloody) chunk followed in suit, driving itself into the concrete wall behind her. A spider web of cracks made their way across the entire wall, and for a moment, Keith thought the whole building would come down. The momentum of the icicle’s departure from his body sent the MC forward, stumbling until finally falling to the floor. After that there was no movement. Just blood permeating the floor around him.
Allura then turned to Keith, who took a preemptive step back. But then, she smiled at him. The same gentle smile she’ given to Shiro all that time ago. Her eyes were filled with what could have been tears, but it was too close to her actual make-up to tell. She waved to both of them, and then descended into the grate beneath her. As soon as she was gone, the stagnant white lights, turned into red, blaring ones.
The sudden mechanical scream of sirens pierced through Keith's brain and echoed through his skull, pounding through his head despite having clapped his hands over his ears. A robotic female voice sounded over the speakers, saying: “Warning. There is an active SCP breach in the Right Wing of the Euclid Ward. This is not a drill. All personnel are required to capture and detain—” and that’s when the voice cut off.
Keith debated his morals for a time, wondering if it was necessary to check if the MC was still alive after Allura's attack. Definitely Not, but he decided an automatic weapon would be useful against Keter-Classed SCPs, so he shoved the carcass with his boot, and hefted up the gun, getting a feel for how it sat in his arms. Keith’s mind was set on the fact that this was his chance to escape.
Taking advantage of this opportunity Allura had given him would mean his freedom. No more confinement, no more risking his life for a cause he didn’t care about. He could finally do all of the things he had wanted to do after imprisonment, all of his aspirations in petty thievery could be fulfilled. He was about to tear off down a random hallway when Shiro called at him.
“Keith,” he said, straininly. “Are you going to try to get out of here?”
At first, Keith frowned, thinking Shiro had apparently had taken offense to the fact that Keith was leaving without him.
“Why don’t you come with—” he started, but Shiro cut him off by saying, “I’m going after her. She’s not dangerous. I can’t bear to leave her behind knowing what they’re doing to her.”
Shiro didn’t wait for a response before he fled in the direction they had came. The distant expression on his face, the hurried pace he had set himself in, had been things Keith had never seen from him before. It was odd how he was sacrificing his own freedom for 054, but Keith didn’t call after him.
He just turned and made his way down the hallway, determined to find some sort of escape route. If Allura had enough courage to risk being exterminated, if Shiro had enough courage to go after her, then Keith sure as hell wasn’t count to sit around and play the common prisoner.
It was like fate had brought this situation to him. Feeling for the gun’s trigger, it was decided. Keith wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way this time. This was his cue to escape, once and for all.