Note to readers: Alright, this was a longer wait than the wait for Half Life 3. Sorry! >w< But it's here now!
Enjoy reading, oh... I also made it not end on a cliffhanger this time.
You're welcome. Enjoy everyone!
EDIT: GUESS WHAT EVERYBODY! THIS NOW HAS THE SWEAR 'fuck' IN IT BECAUSE SETH HAS THIS THING THAT CHANGES EVERY H.E.L.L. WORD TO 'fuck'. ENJOY THE fuck OUT OF THIS ONE.
Chapter 4 - Yellow, Green and Blood
“Why…”
Dani remains quiet for the entire fifteen minute walk through the facility, Sinuyan mute as well, with few attempts to speak but quickly backing down to a small sigh.
After the incident with Tortie, Sinuyan took the lead, and Dani trailed far behind him, deep in thought and shock. Sinuan makes sure she was never lost, but couldn’t bring himself to say anything to her, not knowing what to say, if at all, that would make things better.
The two manage to find the security part of the facility which divides the building into two parts, “dangerous” and “less dangerous”. But without enough clearance, they decide to sit against the clearance gate on either side of one of the doors, hoping that the others are on their way and meet them there. The two sit in silence for a long time. Dani cuts through the silence with a piercing question, “Do you think it hurt?”
Sinuyan bites his lip. “I… I don’t know. I really hope not.”
Another pause. Dani looks down at her hands, and without warning, bites her thumb hard. Sinuyan gasped, and Dani winced and yelled “ow!” She bit her thumb hard enough that is was now bleeding. She started to suck on the tiny wound as Sinuyan spoke up again.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, or why we’re capable of feeling pain but…” his voice trails off as he tries to look for something to say. In the absence of speech, Dani groans and sits up, her spine sore from resting it against the hard black gate windows. She takes a short look around, and finding a shelf, she observes the contents. A few unimportant documents, confidential work that won’t mean anything to her, and a health kit. She picks it up and flips it around in her hands, examining every little bit, until she’s bored of it.
“I don’t think we need this.” She mutters. “Wait… gah, I’m so stupid for saying that. I mean, like, I HOPE that we don’t need it... ” After realising that what she said came out wrong.
Sinuyan shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.” She looks back at the kit and stuffs it into her invisible, infinitely large-pocketed bag. She walks over to Sinuyan and sits down next to him. “I’m so, so sorry I got you into this,” he apologizes. He turns his head away.
“No, it’s fine. You had no idea what was going to happen, and you did what was best for the rest of us in a split second decision. It’s all okay, as long as one of us gets through. We have skilled and able people with us. Just trust in us, we’ll all be fine!” She gives him the widest, most sincere smile she’s had in a long time.
Sinu looks at her and smiles; an expression of a little thing inside called hope.
Seth looks left and right, adrenaline running through every part of his body as his girlfriend lay unconscious. Fire looks at her and tries her hardest not to cry, wiping her eyes repeatedly. With Brian and Torrie away looking for help, Fire has no choice but to lie by Jeb’s side and hope for relief. She takes her hand and squeezes it, every now and then checking her pulse… or checking FOR her pulse.
With Seth finally calm, he tries his hardest to not look at Jeb’s injuries, or the pool of blood surrounding her, or her arm covered in a small “bandage” that Seth ripped from his shirt. Jeb’s long brown hair soaked in the red dye, the area starting to smell a little foul, although it’s not much worry for the two lovers. All they can do now is wait and try not to give in to their despair.
Brian panics as he looks high and low, not worried about any SCP or the military, just focusing on as much as he can. Torrie looks around. “Got a battery?” She asks Brian.
“W-What? Why would that help us!?” He yells. Torrie motions for him to quiet down.
“Shhhh! Dummy, who knows what kind of SCP could be listening? I was thinking that if I can find two batteries for the nav system, I’ll be able to find rooms easier so we won’t run into dead e-”
“Fine, fine!” Brian interrupts. He mentally adds ‘batteries’ to his ‘to-find’ checklist inside his head, scanning the small office space. He sighs, “We need to go into the higher-security part of the building.”
Torrie opens the door to the next part of the building, and looking around, she suddenly squeals. “Brian! Look!” She runs off into another room. Brian, starting to get a little over-excited, gets his hopes up as he runs after his friend. “What is it!?”
“SCP-914! The Machine!”
Brian’s smile wipes off his face, realising it’s not a med-kit, although he manages to convince himself that finding SCP-914 isn’t entirely a bad thing. In fact, it’s pretty good. In only a few seconds, Torrie hurriedly upgrades the level 2-card which she pinched from Jeb’s pockets while Brian and Fire were having their petty argument.
She looks at her new omni-card, the gateway to the exit. It almost shines in her hand. Torrie smiles and holds it in the air triumphantly, resembling a popular scene from Zelda where Link would hold his newly found treasure up in the air, music cheering him in the background. It lightens the mood a little as Brian can see the scene as well. He manages to let out a small giggle but it still sounds a little uneasy which of course is to be expected from such a situation.
After Torrie’s little gesture of success, she finds the battery on the shelf and immediately puts it into the nav-system, almost shoving it in. She turns it on and upgrades it as well in the machine, to make it easier to use. They get right to work. The next room leads into a small hallway, and on the right is the doors leading to the book of diseases and the cursed ring. The two ignore it and walk along, not wanting to interfere with anything but storage containers and shelves.
Very conveniently, after addressing the fact that they’ll have better hope in the higher-security levels of the facility, through the next door, Brian and Torrie come across the border, separating the two parts of the very large building. Torrie suddenly screams. Brian looks towards her in bewilderment, only to realise her scream was from happiness as she points at the window. Through it is Sinuyan and Dani, sitting against the glass. Both of them were asleep, with Dani’s head on Sinu’s shoulder.
Brian looks at Torrie. “Quickly! Let’s go and get them!” Torrie nods and opens up the door with her high-clearance key card, the sound causing Dani and Sinu to slowly wake up from their naps. Dani, realizing she’s had her head on Sinu’s shoulder for a good twenty minutes, quickly snaps her body straight, blushing hard from embarrassment. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I-I didn’t realize I was doing that… Really!” Sinu laughs as he gets up. “Nah, it’s fine.” Torrie walks over to Dani and gives her a big hug, almost squeezing the air out of her. “Dani! I missed you so much!”
“I missed you too! Man, we’re so glad you found us! We’ve had a hard time getting this far.”
“We’re glad to see you guys too!” Torrie stopped hugging Dani and looked around. “Wait… where’s… Tortie?”
Dani chokes a little, wanting to avoid answering as she walks with her head down through the gate to the other part of the facility. Sinuyan sighs, “Yeah, that’s part of the ‘hard part’ of getting here. She’s... not here anymore.”
Torrie immediately gasps, her hands over her mouth in shock, unable to say a word. Brian shakes his head. He remembers his original plan for coming here, and Jeb, who’s quickly losing blood and could die at any moment. He yells, with urgency in his tone, “We came here for a Medkit! You guys got one?”
Dani nods and simply hands it to him. “Oh my god, you really have one.” Brian quickly decides the best course of action for their short amount of time. “Okay, someone needs to get back to Jeb quickly. Who’s the fastest runner!?”
They all look at each other, no one answering. After a few seconds of stomach-wrecking silence, Torrie finally volunteers. “I’ll go. I may not be fast, but I have endurance. I can make it there in time.” Brian nods and gives her the medkit.
Sinuyan salutes. “Stay safe.” Torrie smiles and runs off.
Brian asks once Torrie is out of sight, Brian asks a burning question. “So, is it true guys that you can feel pain in the game?” Sinuyan just looks at Dani, who shows him her once-bleeding thumb, and nods. “Oh. Thanks, just... wanted to know.”
They set off the way Torrie went. Brian looks at Sinuyan before asking, “So, I guess we’re heading this way?” Brian points to the left hallway.
Sinuyan shakes his head. “I thought she went that way!” Sinuyan pointed to the left.
Dani gives her input. “There’s a possibility she went straight too…”
The three of them just look at each other. Suddenly Brian remembers. “TORRIE HAD THE NAV-SYSTEM! SHE FORGOT TO GIVE IT TO US!”
Everyone groans and chooses the left hallway, hoping to have chosen the right hallway. Probably not.
The familiar buzz radiates through the entire facility, every Yan quiet, Torrie panting as she runs through countless numbers of rooms and hallways. Aakash speaks. “Yans, I don’t know if this got through before but I said that I’ve altered the ending of Gate B. Trust me on this but you need to go through Gate B.” Torrie leaps over a desk. “Gate A might be the simplest option, but it’s not 100% safe. Gate B is nearby and I can tell you this now, B is for better. From here I’ve already turned off the automatic doors...” Torrie slams the button, opening the door to where Jeb is. “...get to the AI...” She runs through the passage. “...get to the gate. You guys better not die, I know Tortie has and I can guarantee that once you die… you don’t come back.”
Torrie crawls to Jeb’s side and immediately opens the med-kit. Inside is a bunch of equipment, some tools even used for surgery. The first-aid kit looks a lot like a portable hospital. Fire takes the bandages off Jeb’s arm, while Torrie takes out a needle from the kit with liquid pain-killer inside. Immediately with the help of Seth, she injects it into Jeb’s arm, who’s still unconscious. Torrie gets to work on Seth’s girlfriend, stitching up her arm with ease. Fire looks at Jeb’s arm, the skin around the wound red with blood and sore tissue. She sprays some disinfectant into Jeb’s open flesh. Luckily, between the strong painkiller and an unconscious mind, Jeb doesn’t react at all.
Fire suddenly squeals, jerking her hands away from Jeb. Torrie looks at her. “Uhm… you okay?”
She looks at her hands; “W-Why do my hands feel tingly?”
“Do you need a lie down or something?”
“NO!” She yells. She retracts herself, regretting her accidental tone of voice. “I’m sorry… It’s ju-” She screams again, and in her palm is a small blue slightly transparent orb, floating in her hand. Torrie notices and freaks out with her. “WHAT THE fuck!?”
Fire squeals, “What!? What am I doing?” The blue orb slowly turns into a long trail, leading towards Jeb’s wound. Fire attempts to grasp onto the blue mist but her fingers go straight through it, not affecting the orb at all. The snake-like body of whisp wraps itself around Jeb’s arm, the wound starting to heal itself! Fire, with wide eyes, can only stare at her work. “Is this what Aakash meant by mutation? Oh my gosh, I can heal people! THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO KNOW A FEW HOURS AGO!!” She yells at the ceiling, hoping he would somehow hear.
In only a few seconds, Jeb’s arm is completely healed. She suddenly jolts her body up, finally awake. Seth cheers and glomps her onto the ground, Fire immediately worries about Jeb’s head, wondering if Seth accidentally banged her head against the hard floor. “Ooh, careful!” She nervously scratches the back of her head. Torrie puts the med-kit equipment back into the small red box and wipes the sweat off her forehead.
Jeb smiles, Seth and her kissing each other as if they had been separated for years. “Seth I’m so sorry! I couldn’t control myself, I-”
“Nooo, It’s okay! I understand. I know you wouldn’t have done it.”
Seth gently picks up Jeb’s arm and kisses it, she blushes and slowly starts to get up, Fire helping her to ease herself on her feet. “Alright, so… Who, what, when, where, why?”
Fire takes a while to process what she said, but Torrie says very enthusiastically, “We found SInu and Dani! That’s where we found the med-kit. I had to sprint back here to heal you, so they should be back here any-” Torrie cuts herself off as she feels the shape of the nav-system in her pocket. She takes a big nervous gulp and hopes that they can be found again.
Fire continues the story. “We just healed you, and it’s been an hour I’d say. We’re still at the SCP composition thing but it’s closed off so the area is safe.”
“Uhuh. Has anyone found the exit yet?”
“We apparently need to go through Gate B. Aakash tuned into us again and told us he made that gate safer to go through. The doors are turned off, so we need to find the A.I. guy...”
Several minutes pass by as the group explains what had happened, and waited for the rest to get here. After quite awhile, the door opens, and in comes Sinuyan, Dani, and Brian.
“See, I told you we were going the right way!” Brian says.
“Maybe just the last few turns, but you got us horribly lost at the beginning! I was right, she did go straight!” Dani brags.
Torrie lets out a silent sigh of relief and walks over to the incoming group. “I should have given you the nav…”
Brian’s snarky attitude comes out. “You think?!?! Would have saved us time and a run-in with SCP 173!” Torrie just grins half-heartedly in apology and walks toward the rest, where Sinuyan already is, after ignoring the banter.
Brian approaches Fire without any hostility. “Hey, I apologize for… back there. I understand now that she was in a lot of pain, and I should have been more sensitive to her feelings.”
Fire smiles and hugs Brian in acceptance. “Apology accepted. Friends again?”
Brian nods. “Friends.”
Sinuyan’s the first to ask. “So… what’s all that happened?”
Jeb looks around, using Seth to lean onto. With everyone together and fully caught up, they decide to put down the plan. Sinuyan scratches the back of his head. “Okay, so, we need some people to volunteer to go to the A.I., while the rest heads to the electrical room. Who wants to be on which team?”
The Yans look at each other, wondering who will step up for what task. Torrie bites her lip. “I’ll go to the A.I., but I’m taking Brian and Dani. If nobody else wants to join, the rest should go to the mechanical room and flip the switches.”
Sinuyan looks at her with worry. “Are you sure? The chances of you being able to make it there is very slim. Nobody knows where it is, and what could be on the way there.”
She nods. “I know. But we’re not afraid of death, now are we?” Torrie looks at Dani and Brian who smile in response. “If nobody has any questions, then we better get moving.”
Jeb says before they set off, “Don’t let him fool you!”
Brian says in retort, “What do you take us for? You guys just remember to not turn on the power until we’re done talking to it!”
“We’ll try not to!”
As the group splits up, Dani tries to lighten the mood before both teams exit the range of ear-shot. “Team Torrie rules!” The groups split ways with smiles on their faces.
Each group heads different ways, trying to explore every nook and cranny of the facility. Torrie’s group walks past the tesla-gate, Sinu’s group going in the other direction. Brian, Dani and Torrie make it past the gate just fine, but not without an increased heartbeat from Torrie and a sad glance from Brian.
Fire looks at the door leading to the two mysterious SCPs, the ring and the book of diseases. With herself at the back, she quickly sneaks into the room and grabs the book, wanting to keep herself pre-occupied with something whilst walking, something to ease her nerves and get herself to calm down. She has no idea what power the book holds, but that is the key of curiosity.
Sinu and Seth have a little chatter at the front, with Fire flipping through the pages at the back. She reads the title: ‘The Book of Diseases’, labeled SCP-1025 from the plaque in front of the door. Still walking, she picks a random page, landing straight on the page with the most content. It’s labeled boldly- ‘Cardiac Arrest.’ She mumbles in interest as she begins to read it. Further ahead, Jeb looks down the entire length of the walk, holding tightly onto Seth’s hand, still very sorry over the fact that she had done such a stupid thing. Seth squeezes her hand every now and then to comfort her, or at least, try to.
After what feels like a good long hour, Sinuyan’s group finally manages to find the power control part of the facility, with a small staircase leading up into the room above that may or may not contain SCP-173. The group pauses at the door, and Jeb announces, “Wait! Before we go up there, we should wait. There’s no point in turning the door control back on when the other Yans haven’t talked to the A.I. yet, and we shouldn’t take a chance with 173 when we don’t need to. We NEED to wait.”
Sinuyan bites his lip and looks around. “I guess. Sounds good actually. Yep, let’s do that. How long should we wait though?”
“I don’t know. It could be hours before they find the A.I. I doubt it’d be days though. God please let it not be days.” She pleads to the ceiling with her hands together in a sort of prayer motion.
The group turns around and Seth yelps, Sinu and Jeb’s attention drawn straight to what he’s pointing at. Fire is lying on the ground, clutching her chest.
“Was it… gruesome?” Brian hesitates to ask.
“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t actually see what happened but… I could hear it. Her cries. She was pleading for us to open the door, but we couldn’t do that. Then when the monster caught up, I could hear him… Well, I don’t really want to remember it…” Dani’s voice turns into a mutter, and Torrie puts her arm around her to comfort her.
“You don’t have to say any more. Damn, ugh, I hope we don’t lose too many. I’m sure we’ll make it through this though.”
“And what if we don’t?” Torrie looks at Brian, her face as white as a ghost. The combination of everything from traumatic shock, blood, suspense, and the overall horrifying experience in only 5 or so hours have really taken their toll on her.
Dani shakes her head, not wanting to think of any such thought. “We will.”
Brian points ahead and exclaims, “Look! Dammit, I knew we missed the turn back there. Good thing we turned around. The A.I. guy is straight up ahead.”
Dani with wide eyes looks in the direction and squeals in excitement. “No way!” She rushes over to it and beckons Torrie to come over and use the keycard to gain entrance. With one swipe, the trio walk through the huge metal sliding doors. They’re greeted by the A.I., his voice rough, hard to hear but intelligent, and spaced out as if it was spoken by a person from a foreign country. They go right up to the bars, and the A.I. takes notice, knowing exactly why they’re there.
“Human, listen carefully. You need my help, and I need your help. You have disabled the remote door control system. Now, I am unable to operate the doors. This makes it significantly harder for me to stay in control of this facility. It also means your way out of here is locked. Your only feasible way of escaping is through Gate B, which is currently locked down. I, however, could unlock the doors to Gate B, if you re-enable the door control system. If you want out of here, go back to the electrical room, and flip it back on. Until then, I have no business speaking to you.”
Dani nods. “Will do, A.I.” After listening, the sub-group starts to head back the way they came, towards Gate B where they’ll hopefully find the others. As they reach the other part of the facility, Brian overhears something from a room near them. Footsteps. Heavy footsteps.
Brian presses his ear against the door, and suddenly Torrie squeaks out quietly, grabs his collar and forcefully pulls him back, making him gag a little. “It’s the military!”
Brian shoots her a look. “What!? How do you know?”
“I can hear them.”
“How!?”
“I just can! Look, just trust me and come this way!” Torrie almost yells out. They start heading back the way they came. The group leaves the room just as the MTF arrives, wielding guns and heavy armour.
“Fire!” Jeb squeals and runs over to her, her eyes are open but unresponsive, her mouth open, body lifeless. Sinu and Seth both stare at her, lying on the ground, Jeb checking her for a pulse. She shrieks, “She’s not breathing! What’s going on!? What do we do??”
Sinu starts to panic, pacing back and forth. “Oh no, oh no, oh no… What do we do?”
“What do we do?? I don’t even know how this happened!! Did something attack her, silently??”
“I don’t think so, what kind of SCP is silent and deadly-” Jeb pauses.
Seth hugs Jeb and burrows his face into her shoulder. A few few feet away lay the book of diseases, open to the page on cardiac arrest. Jeb gasps and shakes her head, not wanting to accept Fire’s fate. “Oh my gosh, Fire! You… You idiot! Geez, why would you ever think anything would be safe if it’s behind a door? Why!!” She cries out and immediately places her two hands on Fire’s chest, pressing down and lifting up, once, twice, over and over, replicating as much as she knew about CPR from what she’s seen on television, hoping to get some response. Any response.
Sinu rests his forehead against the wall, his arms by the sides of his head. “I don’t want anyone else to die! This is all my faul-”
“This isn’t your fault, Sinu!” Jeb continues on attempting to perform CPR.
“Noo, but it truly i-”
“SINU! If Dani were here, she would tape your mouth shut with such language! Get a hold of yourself, we can’t have you breaking down!” She puts in a few more pumps to her chest. “Gosh damn, Fire! Why do you have to die now!? You’re the healer! MY healer! You saved my freaking life, you jerk!”
Jeb, lost in an emotional state cries harder and harder, and with every pump to Fire’s still heart, gets weaker and weaker. Seth tries his best to cheer her up through touch, not saying a word. Sinu takes a moment, sighs and lifts himself from the wall and straightens his body, standing tall. “Alright. I promise to you guys, we’ll make it out of here. There may be more deaths but I swear, we will make it out of here. I won’t let this stop me from getting to our goal.” He looks towards Fire. “I guarantee it.”
Jeb stops pushing onto Fire’s chest, and sitting on the ground she looks at Fire’s body and mutters, “She’s dead.”
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