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|| It didn't hurt at first. ||

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You found the server farm again after roughly five minutes of wandering. It didn't take as long as you had expected. Nearing the room, you couldn't help but wonder what would happen after. What would you do after you got to one of the gates? You had decided upon gate A when you had first awakened but, you had no idea what would happen. The foundation would likely put you in containment, wouldn't they? You were an anomaly.

Maybe it wouldn't be too bad. You were still human or, at least, human enough. Despite occasionally being a menace at times, you weren't necessarily dangerous. Then again, it would be better than the GOC and you weren't excited to get involved with the Chaos Insurgency either. Amidst your musings, you wondered what would happen when the game plotline "ended".

Would time continue to reset with each death? You didn't know but it didn't matter to you. Even if you actually died or if time reset, it was a still win-win for you either way.

As you entered the server farm, the intercom announced the arrival of the Mobile Task Force Epsilon-11. A faint frown pulled at your lips. Yet another threat to keep an eye out for. How annoying. Even though you weren't a D-Class, you didn't doubt they would shoot you on sight. Aside from being a nuisance, weren't they a bit too late? If your perception of time was anywhere near correct, it would have been about half an hour already. The MTF wasn't that tardy to containment breaches, were they? Or maybe today was just bound by game rules.

You pressed the button and stepped onto the catwalk of the server farm. You checked the S-Nav again. According to the layout of the halls, you would have to go down the server farm to reach the third door. Unsurprisingly, the navigation device showed that 173 was down there too. Fun. You sighed and closed the door behind you. You walked around to the side of the catwalk with the staircase while the 408s followed you.

Cautiously, you descended down the stairs. Peanut... peanut... where was it? You meandered through between the servers, trying to find the anomalous statue so you could somewhat, make it through the server farm safely. You hesitated in your steps, unable to find 173. You blinked and that had been a mistake.

Immediately, your neck was snapped and your body fell to the ground. The death was quick, much like your other encounters with the peanut.

Silence surrounded you. Then, you opened your eyes. Just outside the server farm again. Four or five butterflies circled around you. Maybe you were going insane but they seemed... agitated, somehow. You grumbled to yourself, rubbing the nape of your neck. What was this, the fourth death? That sounded about right. Well, you just had to be more careful this time.

Entering the server farm again, you didn't bother to look at the S-Nav. Down the stairs again you went. Okay... Left, three rows forward, all the way to the wall. Look left, then right. No Peanut. You walked right against the wall until you got to the next row. You turned and walked forward to what you estimated to be the center of the room. Your eyes shifted around, trying to find 173. Last time, you blinked about 10 steps ago. Right in front of you was the small area that lacked any servers but did have the bookshelf off to the left.

You hesitantly blinked and to your surprise, didn't die. Instead, the SCP you were looking for appeared right in front of you. Keeping your gaze on it, you quickly speed-walked backwards, around the servers and up the stairs. The 408s had no problem keeping up and at the top of the stairs, you pressed the button of the door. It opened up and you stumbled through before hurriedly closing it again. Good, good.

You let out a sigh and leaned against the wall. This was fine. After catching your breath, you took a look around and found you were at a different checkpoint. This was the right place then. You slid the keycard through the scanner and walked through. The hallway you arrived in was a T-shaped one. Uncertain of where to go, you checked the S-Nav. The one leading to the left was a dead-end which meant you needed to go straight ahead.

The room behind the door was the large testing chamber. You could see a catwalk on the other side across from the one you were standing on. To your left was an entrance with stairs leading down. You closed the door behind yourself as usual and descended down the stairs. It was dreadfully dark which you should have gotten used to by now but alas, it was what it was. Still, the lights were surprisingly dim, even for the previous halls you had ventured through.

It didn't take long to get to the bottom where you pressed the button that closed the door. Another flight of stairs presented itself which you needed to climb. How tedious. At the top, you found yourself at the other catwalk. The closest door was to your left but there was another one on the other end of the catwalk. You didn't need to go through the farther one so you turned to your left and pressed the button to the door.

What was behind revealed itself to be one of those three-way gas catwalks, shaped like a "Y". You went left. Several twists and turns later as well as a lengthy thought process about how often SCPs actually broke containment, you found the hallway to 079's room. It was on the right side with the door already opened. You stepped in, the white walls different from the vast majority of Heavy Containment. There was a poster of 079 like the other ones you had seen that was taped up on the wall.

Never mind, you realized it was sticky tack on the back of the paper, not tape when you looked closer.

At the end of the room were stairs leading down to a blast door. Since you had turned off remote door controls, that meant you could actually get in. 079's offer in the form of a monologue was pretty long and you had to stick around long enough for him (It? They? You weren't sure.) to finish. That being said, you had no guarantee that he would make that offer despite the fact you were operating with the pretense that he would. If he didn't, you were basically screwed. You exhaled loudly and the 408s paused in their fluttering to land on your head.

"Thanks," you said.

You walked to the end of the room and down the stairs. As you inserted the keycard, the blast door opened up and you were allowed entry. There was a small room before 079's chamber where you found a dead MTF or guard's corpse. You avoided the body and briskly walked to the other side of the room where there was yet another blast door. Sliding the keycard once more, you finally stepped into 079's chamber.

A small set of stairs going down were the first things in the chamber with a door to the right at the top of them where you were. You went down the small set of stairs and faced the caged-off corner of the room where the AI was held. As you approached the corner, SCP 079's face flickered on, indicating he was paying attention now. With a beep, he began his monologue-slash-offer.

"Human, listen carefully," he started. As expected, his voice was robotic. "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."

You nodded along halfheartedly. Same speech as the game. You wondered, if you were to try to escape again or some other D-Class tried, would 079 make the same offer? To be fair, not every circumstance would be like this one. Life was fickle after all. You had mostly tuned out at this point, eyes trailing to the 408s that fluttered about.

"... If you want out of here, go back to the electrical room, and put it back on. Until then, I have no business speaking to you."

The AI said his last words that he needed to you, closing with another beep. His avatar then changed to a white "X" on a completely black screen. You blinked back into focus. Oh. He was done. Okay, okay, you weren't completely screwed then. This was good. You exhaled and turned around to exit. You weren't particularly interested in looking into the observation room and you also didn't have the severed hand anyways so you left fairly quickly.

You went through the way you had come in but in reverse, rather quickly finding your way to where you were sure the checkpoints were. You had encountered 173 on the way as one typically did. The Peanut really liked showing up a lot, didn't it? Annoying as ever, indeed.

Pausing before opening the door, you pressed an ear to it. Sobbing sounds echoed from behind it. Oh. SCP 096 found his way here from the small server room. Well, that was fine. You just had to stare at the floor as you went through this section. Absentmindedly, you wondered if it was possible for the 408s to trigger 096. Butterflies could see, you knew that, but if an individual one saw 096's face, would 096 only try to kill that specific butterfly or would he try to kill the entire swarm? If by that logic, would 408 technically keep an eye on 173?

Or maybe the 408s didn't count as a "someone".

Ah. Maybe that thought process was the reason why cross-testing between SCPs was frowned upon despite how often it happened. You shook away those thoughts. Keeping your eyes pinned to the ground, you pressed the button to open the door. Seemed to just be 096 in this room then. You took cautious steps into the room, fumbling when closing the door behind you. You had to go straight across to the other side of the room.

Look at the floor. Walk. From 096's quiet whimpering, you were rather certain he was closer to the left side of the corridor. 096 wasn't too difficult to get around as long as another SCP like 173 wasn't in the room. Straight ahead, that was all you had to do. You quietly said "whoops" as you bumped into 096. Ah, he moved. Of course he did.

"Mind moving just a bit so I can get to the door, buddy?" you asked.

Surprisingly, he did. You cooed quietly. This settled it, 096 was probably your second favourite here at the moment. The 408s were a close first. You happily exited the room and shut the door behind you. You probably wouldn't be seeing 096 for the rest of this containment breach but assuming you ended up getting contained here, you might end up seeing him again.

It was just a few rooms away from the checkpoint when you had gotten a little careless. You hadn't checked the S-Nav since you thought you had known which way to go. You looked between the two paths in front of you. You probably had to go right from what you remembered. Upon opening the door, what greeted you was not silence like the other halls you had traversed through but rather, bullets.

It didn't hurt at first. You took a few steps back as shock numbed the pain. Then, the MTFs began to shout and you were pretty sure there was something ringing in your ear as a burning sensation grew around your body. More gunshots echoed as your body collapsed to the ground. The items you had kept in your pocket spilled onto the floor, covered in the blood. Your blood. Oh. You were losing a lot of blood. Your eyes grew unfocused as green blurs moved across your vision. Medkit... You wanted to laugh. You had forgotten you had a medkit. This was the worst.

"Unknown person..."

"SCP 408-"

You closed your eyes and time rewinded once again. You found yourself in the room right before the one with two choices. Staggering towards a wall, you brought your hand up to your mouth. So that was the MTF, huh. You coughed and let your hand drop. A ringing sound still echoed in your ear and your vision remained out of focus. The anomalous butterflies fluttered anxiously around you and you smiled grimly.

Ah. Not right then.

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New SCPs in this chapter:

N/A

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Published: April 30, 2021

Word count: 2,133

Death Counter: 5

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The death counter includes all previous deaths and the deaths in the current chapter. It isn't that high right now but I'm hoping to rack it up some more. We're coming to a close for arc 1 soon. Thanks for reading!