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|| Like many other things, you ignored it. ||

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In light of how badly your conversation with 343 went, you hoped the foundation took it as a cue to never put the two of you in the same room again. You weren't sure if they got the cue or not but you sure had a good two days of rest after that conversation. With the assurance and slight disappointment that 343 couldn't erase you from existence (if he could, he definitely would've), you could spend your time not thinking about him.

Whether the lack of ability was due to plot armour or some universe bullsh*t, it didn't matter.

You were hardly going to let your guard down after though. Lots of things could still kill you and the taste of ash in your mouth after dying was still unpleasant. You didn't end up divulging the contents of your conversation with anyone. What happened could remain where it was. 073 didn't ask and you appreciated it.

There was only so much time that could pass before life threw its next problem at you and so, on a perfectly regular morning, you found yourself rudely interrupted with your death.

The culprit? Why, a certain Dr. Alto Clef, of course.

Another situation that was taken entirely out of your hands. You could absolutely not talk to him if you ever saw him in the halls but if he was actively going after you with the intent to kill you (for reasons you could figure out), well, there wasn't much you could do to avoid him now could you?

So yes, your first interaction with Clef went great.

You cursed under your breath as time rewound the first time. The only good thing about this segment was that you weren't in your containment chamber. If you were, you would've been trapped in there, you doubted you could've gotten out of there. Quickly, you got moving. If you didn't start now, you'd die again.

Unfortunately, you didn't start running nearly early enough.

You didn't get any warning at all when a shot went off and you were thrown back into death again. Shotguns were messy, your body probably would have been mutilated and your blood would have splattered everywhere. Gun wounds hurt. A lot. You should have expected Clef wouldn't have used any other weapon. When you awakened again, you didn't hesitate to take off.

How long would you have to run in order to get him to stop? You would either have to incapacitate him first (something you didn't really have the tools to do now) or wait until he got tired of chasing you. Ideally, he would stop trying to kill you and you wouldn't have to talk to him after getting him to stop.

You did not like your chances. Former GOC, literally known for how good he was at terminating SCPs versus you, just some person who wanted to not keep dying. There really was no such thing as peace in this universe, you woefully lamented. Your best bet would be to go to the cafeteria which had the most obstacles you could put in Clef's way. It was also one of the only places you could actually reach without a keycard.

And then bullets ripped through you and you died. Again.

You only kind of wanted to scream.

Third time's the charm, right? At least you knew exactly where you wanted to go this time. The moment the world came into focus, you ran. You ducked around and between various people, offering a small apologetic smile at times but never stopping. The halls were not empty but they weren't full either. On occasion, you heard gunshots echo behind you. You didn't stop.

You wondered how much property damage Clef was causing. It probably didn't matter much since this was the foundation and they had enough money to repair sites but still, this seemed like a bit of a waste. In order to make the direction you were going all the more confusing, you circled around a few halls, taking twists and turns that would have gotten any other person lost.

Unfortunately, Clef was not just "any other person" but hey, neither were you.

You reached the cafeteria fairly quickly by your standards. It was, fortunately, empty. Clef showed up soon after. You weaved between the tables, occasionally ducking under them when he aimed and shot at you. Evidently, he had no regard for the amount of damage he was causing.

Ah, whoops, he was getting a bit too close for your liking.

You threw the nearest object at his face which happened to be a chair. You heard him curse as he ducked under the chair. Thankfully, you were prepared with the next nearest object to throw. A water bottle. It hit him smack in the forehead. He cursed again and stopped in his tracks. You warily watched as he massaged his head where a bruise was likely forming.

"Guess it's true," he said under his breath. Then, he lowered his gun.

You squinted at him.

This wasn't a stalemate, you knew that. He stopped only because he figured out whatever it was he wanted to. While you could gander a guess about what it was, you felt like if you said anything too suddenly, he may just shoot you again. After a moment of silence, he offered, "Wanna get pizza?"

Really? He was really going to ask that after chasing you halfway across the Light Containment Zone? You weighed your pros and cons. Pro: Pizza. Con: Dr. Alto Clef was a f*cking a*shole. Pro: You would get pizza. Con: This was Clef, was he even telling the truth? You silently sighed. You could take your chances this time.

"Fine," you reluctantly agreed.

He grinned at you.

This felt like one of those times where you didn't need to be drunk to make bad decisions. The adrenaline in your blood was finally dying down a little. You wiped your sweaty palms against your jacket. Clef made a vague gesture to follow him. Now that you were in slightly less of a hurry, you gave him a quick glance over.

He was quite short, shorter than you were, and wore a Hawaiian shirt under his lab coat along with cargo shorts. He also wore sandals with socks which you could definitely judge him for. A light brown cowboy hat laid upon his head and he had a ukulele slung over his back. You counted the number of eyes. One blue, one green and sometimes, when you blinked, you would see a hazel eye. Huh. Interesting.

There were very many things that could possibly be Clef's backstory though there remained at least one constant. The constant being that he worked for the GOC under the name Agent Ukelele (yes, with three 'e's and not spelled as Ukulele as one may have expected). Apparently, he was 166's father though that was less of a hard fact and more of a "the fandom has deemed this the truth". Unless 4231 was true, in which case yeah, he was 166's father.

Other than that, he could be anything from literally the devil, just some guy from Cornwall or both. Ehh, you could probably figure out a definitive backstory at some point if you put enough brain cells into it. Maybe. Probably. Most likely. Whatever, it didn't matter what his backstory was, he was still alive and here in front of you which was good enough for you.

He didn't say much, and neither did you. You preferred it this way. You continued to trail after Clef. This was the third time you've been in this hallway in the last 5 minutes.

"You're just lost, aren't you," you idly commented.

"... No."

"Take a left, go through the doors, take one right, up the stairs, and go forward if you want to go to the core room," you directed anyways.

He followed your directions and the two of you ended up in the Core Room. You gave him an unimpressed look. He ignored it, of course, and continued up to the center of the Core Room.

"We're going up?" You stared up at the floor above.

"Where else?" he retorted.

Was he even allowed to bring you up there? Who were you kidding, once someone had high enough clearance, it didn't matter what they were and weren't allowed to do, only what they could get away with. You know, like basically every single one of the senior staff. There had been so much stuff they had done that they weren't "allowed" to. Well, it wasn't like the foundation could fire them so you supposed it didn't really matter.

The guards didn't even blink when you and Clef walked past them into the elevator. The doctor pressed the button with the arrow pointing up and the door closed. The neat thing about the elevator in the Core Room was that it was made of glass which meant you could see everything around you as you went up. Also, it played elevator music despite the other floors not even being that far.

Clef tapped his foot all the way up the ride. You didn't mention it.

"Now arriving at Sublevel 1," the elevator announced.

The doors opened up, folding like shower curtains. Weird comparison but that was what it was like. There really wasn't much to say about the top floor of the Light Containment Zone in all honesty. There were hallways, corners, more hallways and offices. You know, the usual. As expected, there wasn't a single room that contained SCPs.

You spotted a roomba or two. If you could, you would have taped knives to them.

If you were getting pizza up here then the only reasonable place to get it would be the cafeteria. Probably. A few people gave you strange looks as you passed, as always, but didn't say anything considering you were following after Clef. Some poor person looked like they were going to pass out. The person next to them smacked their head and they moved on. SCPs probably didn't come up here all too often.

The cafeteria was mostly empty when the two of you arrived. Clef bee-lined to a side table where a pizza box was. Once you got close enough, you recognized the Little Caesar's pizza box. Oh, nice, it was 458. Seemed like you were actually going to get pizza today.

"Can I...?" you left your sentence unfinished.

He snorted. "Yeah, go ahead."

You opened the pizza box.

The pizza in the box was your favourite. You hadn't eaten it in a long time. The familiar aroma of it made you a little nostalgic for better times. Easier times when you weren't in this universe where you were treated like an object. You took a slice after realizing you were waiting too long. Hm. Tasted exactly like you remembered.

Clef typed something on his phone before tucking it away. Then, he stole a slice of pizza. Like many other things, you ignored it. The silence was... alright. Unexpected but good. You would prefer this over taunts, especially when you weren't sure if you had the patience to not start picking things apart. You figured it would probably end in more deaths.

The entire pizza was demolished quickly by the two of you.

"Thanks for the pizza," you said while wiping your hands on some tissues. While the process to get here was... questionable and involved you dying, you could at least be polite enough to thank him for the food.

"Your taste is sh*t," he taunted.

"Sure, say that when you didn't eat half of my food." You rolled your eyes.

"I never said it was only for you."

"Fair enough. I don't suppose that was all I needed to be here for?"

"It was." He shrugged carelessly.

"I'll be leaving then," you told him.

"Go ahead."

He didn't move and neither did you. There was a sh*t-eating smile on his face. Ah. Was he testing you?

"You know," you began, "you're far too valuable for the O5 to really punish you. So I'm sure that if anything happens while I'm on this level will be fine when it was you who brought me up here."

He looked at you, like, really looked at you. You didn't care much for provoking him or not, you would leave before he killed you again. Two eyes. Three eyes. Two again. You chuckled quietly.

"See you around, Dr. Clef," you bid him farewell with a note of amusement in your voice. Then, you escaped the cafeteria before he could respond.

The keycard that you stole from him really didn't weigh much at all in your pocket. If Clef was going to let you run around on this top floor without considering what you may do, he deserved to have his keycard stolen. It really was careless of him to assume you weren't going to take something to help yourself. There was far too much to explore up here for you to not take advantage of the situation.

Everyone around you did the casual thing of "I simply do not see" when you walked past them. Very kind of them, really. The halls weren't too busy, most just people walking around with papers in hand. Most people were probably in their offices or elsewhere, working on testing. Well, except for the person that had run past you earlier with someone hot on their heels.

There wasn't much to say about the top floor as you walked around but you managed to mentally map out the layout of it. It was much easier than the other floors since there were actually a few signs around to guide you. Go figured they would put signs on the one floor where there weren't meant to be any SCPs formally contained.

You were content to wander back to the Core Room to get back down when you had explored what you could. It seemed like your plans rarely ever went the way you wanted them to go though when the person running earlier crossed paths with you again.

The glimmer of the amulet under the light caught your attention.

Ah. So this was who this was about. The easiest way for you to interfere would be to pull Bright away before the person chasing him could catch him. But, did you really want his attention? Then again, looking at the gun that was in the chaser's hands... You were not a good person but you could be merciful.

Hm. If you were correct about where they were headed, then you could cut them off in a hallway. Without anything else to do, you made your way to a hallway that they would probably pass. An ideal hallway would be a short one with at least one door close to a turn. Honestly, doing this was probably more trouble than it would be worth.

You found an empty hallway easily. There were two rooms. You ducked into a storage room, the door already open. It was the closest place that Bright would be able to reach before whoever was chasing him would turn the corner. You waited. Then, came the footsteps. The moment he was in reach, you pulled him into the storage room and behind the wall.

Silently, you were glad that it was actually Bright and not just some random guy who was passing by.

"What-" his words died as you brought a finger to your lips to mime a "shush".

He shut his mouth and stayed silent. The two of you waited as footsteps passed. You counted to 100 in your head before finally letting out a sigh. You stepped away from Bright. He stared at you with wide eyes. The body looked remarkably like what you figured his original one would look like.

"Look, I just saved you the trouble of getting a new body," you said sharply. "You could at least stop staring at me."

He continued to stare. Well, if he wasn't going to stop, you were just going to leave. Just as you were about to leave him standing there, he abruptly pointed at you.

"You!" he exclaimed.

You tilted your head. "Me...?"

"I've been looking for you!"

Ah. This must be what impending doom felt like.

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New SCPs in this chapter:

N/A

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Published: April 29, 2022

Word count: 2,717

Death Counter: 15

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Bright's here! Only took like 15 chapters and one interlude. Have you been waiting for him? This is early by 1 day because I got impatient. Thanks for reading!