[Third Person]
The darkness in Vault 3-C was a living entity. It clung to them, swallowing the light from their flashlights and filling the air with the metallic scent of blood and the strangely sweet aroma of the amnestic agent emanating from the creatures that stalked them. They were trapped in a circle, back-to-back, the space between them a small island of sanity in an ocean of terror.
Axel, propped against a shelf, whimpered softly. His leg was shattered, but worse was the effect of SCP-939's amnestic. His gaze was glassy and confused. "Silas? Where... where are we? We were supposed to go fishing..." he muttered, his mind retreating to a distant, safe memory.
"Shut up, Axel!" Eva hissed, pressing a field dressing to his wound. "Your voice is a beacon for them."
"It's no use," Leo said, his voice strained. He didn't take his eyes off the darkness, but his true vision was his System interface, which painted the world with data. [Tactical Analysis] was draining his Focus at an alarming rate, but in return, it showed him air pressure changes, rebounding sound waves, the ghostly silhouettes of beasts moving just beyond his sight. "They're surrounding us. At least four of them. They're toying with us."
As if to confirm his words, a new voice echoed from the shelves to the right. It was a perfect imitation of O5-7's voice, pulled from some psychic residue or intercepted transmission, cold and authoritative. "Insurgency subjects, your resistance is illogical. Surrender for processing."
"Don't listen!" Silas roared, but the tactic was effective. For a split second, they hesitated. And in that hesitation, one of the creatures attacked.
It wasn't a direct assault. It was a feint. A blood-red beast lunged towards their left flank, drawing fire from Silas and Eva. The thunder of gunshots filled the vault, and in the chaos of muzzle flashes and noise, another creature, moving with unnatural silence, glided in from the right, directly towards the disoriented Axel.
Leo saw it. Not with his eyes, but with his System. A red trajectory line appeared in his vision, ending directly at Axel's throat. There was no time to shout a warning. No time to aim.
Skill Activated: [Willpower]. Spend 200 XP for a momentary Agility boost!
Leo didn't think. He accepted. He felt a jolt, like an injection of pure adrenaline directly into his heart. He lunged sideways, intercepting the beast not with bullets, but with his own body. The impact was brutal. He slammed into the nearly 400-kilo creature, the stench of rotting flesh and chemicals enveloping him. It was like hitting a wet, leathery brick wall. The monster's claws raked his tactical vest, tearing away chunks of ceramic and fabric.
Pain erupted in his side, but he had achieved his goal. The beast, surprised by the unexpected attack, stumbled, giving Silas the opening he needed. He spun and fired a point-blank burst, exploding the creature's skull in a spray of dark fluids and reddish tissue.
Leo fell to the floor, gasping, his side ablaze.
-50 Health PointsBruised ribs. Minor hemorrhage.+150 XP (Protecting a Squadmate)
"Leo!" Eva shouted, as she helped Silas drag the creature's corpse away from them.
"I'm... fine," Leo gasped, pushing himself up with difficulty. The pain was intense, but the XP notification was a strange, welcome distraction. "But we can't keep doing this. They're adapting. They're wearing us down."
Silas nodded, his face grim. His magazine was almost empty. "We need an exit or a distraction, now! We can't win this fight!"
It was then that Leo's mind, racing with adrenaline and fueled by the constant data stream from his System, found a solution. While his [Tactical Analysis] had been tracking the monsters, it had also been passively scanning everything else in the vault. Shelves of anomalous objects, each a piece in a puzzle he didn't know he was solving.
"Commander," Leo said, his voice strained with effort. "Shelf 12-C. About thirty meters away. There's an object... SCP-2140. No, that designation is incorrect, it's a prototype. My System labels it as 'Sonic Displacement Resonator'."
Silas stared at him, incredulous. "What in hell are you talking about?"
"It's some kind of sonic weapon! Unstable! The description says if its containment core is breached, it'll release an omnidirectional sonic shockwave. It's not a thermal explosion, it's a pure force wave. It'll make a hell of a noise, draw these things in, and probably knock down some of these shelves! It can give us the cover we need!"
The idea was insane. Unleash another anomaly in the middle of a containment breach. But it was the only card they had.
Silas didn't hesitate. Desperation was a great motivator. "Do it! Eva, give me suppressive fire towards ten o'clock! Axel, if you can hear me, shoot anything that isn't us! Leo, run!"
The battle transformed. It was no longer a static defense. It was a desperate assault to support a single man's suicidal dash.
Eva and Silas became a whirlwind of violence. They moved as one unit, their weapons spitting fire in controlled bursts, keeping the two remaining creatures at bay. Muzzle flashes lit the cavern in strobing flashes, revealing monstrous shapes lunging and retreating, seeking an opening in the wall of lead. The ghostly voices intensified, now a chorus of pain cries and contradictory orders, psychological warfare designed to break their concentration.
Leo ran.
The pain in his side was agony, but he ignored it. The world had narrowed to a tunnel. His objective was a flickering light across the room. Shelves rushed past him like trees in a dark, deadly forest.
Danger! Target approaching from right!
His System's warning blazed in his vision. Without thought, he slid across the polished concrete floor, the momentum of his enhanced Agility carrying him under a low shelf. A second later, one of the 939 beasts crashed into the shelf he had just passed, tearing metal away with its claws as easily as a man tears paper.
Leo scrambled to his feet and kept running. He didn't look back. He could hear the wet, rapid sound of the creature pursuing him.
He saw his target. On shelf 12-C, inside a plexiglass containment box, sat a polished metal sphere the size of a soccer ball, with copper coils wrapped around it and a soft blue hum emanating from within.
He reached the shelf and, without stopping, used his rifle butt to shatter the plexiglass box. Fragments flew everywhere. The sphere was now exposed, its hum growing louder.
[Tactical Analysis]: Energy containment core located at device equator, protected by iridium casing. High-velocity impact required to fracture.
"COVER YOUR EARS!" Leo screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing in the vault. He aimed his rifle, not at the center of the sphere, but at a thin line his System had highlighted in red.
The creature pursuing him was almost upon him. He could smell its foul, amnestic breath.
"NOW!"
He squeezed the trigger.
A single bullet shot from his rifle. It impacted the containment core. For an instant, nothing happened. Then, the soft blue hum escalated into a piercing, high-pitched shriek that climbed in pitch at terrifying speed. The sphere began to glow with a blinding white light.
Leo didn't wait to see the result. He turned and sprinted back towards his team, his heart threatening to burst from his chest.
"TO THE NORTH WALL!" Silas yelled, already dragging Axel. "THERE'S A VENT GRILLE! IT'S OUR ONLY WAY OUT!"
Leo saw what he meant. About ten feet up the concrete wall, there was a large industrial vent grille, just big enough for a man to fit through. It was their one desperate hope.
The resonator's shriek was now physically painful. The 939 creatures, disoriented by the ultrasonic noise that was beyond human hearing but surely agonizing to them, had stopped attacking and writhed on the floor, hissing in rage and confusion.
They reached the wall. "Boost!" Silas ordered. He laced his hands together. Eva used them as a springboard, leaping up and grabbing the grille. With a grunt, she tore it from its moorings and pulled herself into the dark shaft.
Then, Leo. He climbed, his side protesting loudly. From above, he and Eva leaned down to help pull the heavy, mostly unconscious Axel up to Silas. It was a Herculean effort, their muscles screaming in protest.
Silas was last. He jumped, grabbed the shaft's edge, and with one last powerful heave, pulled himself inside just as the sonic sphere reached its critical point.
There was no fiery explosion. There was no thunderous boom.
There was, first, an absolute silence. An instant where all sound in the universe seemed to be sucked into the vault. And then, the wave.
It was a wave of pure, silent force that expanded from the sphere. They saw, from the safety of their tunnel, how multi-ton metal shelves buckled and crumpled like aluminum foil. Anomalous objects were flung from their shattered containers. The air rippled and distorted.
Immediately after the force wave, came the sound.
It wasn't a sound that could be heard with ears. It was a sound that was felt in the bones, in the teeth, in the very core of being. An infrasonic note of devastating power that shook the very foundations of the facility.
They covered their ears, but it did no good. The world vibrated around them. Through the chaos, they heard the high-pitched, panicked shrieks of the 939 creatures that had survived, now completely disoriented and drawn to the epicenter of the disturbance, far away from them. They also heard the distant, alarmed shouts of Foundation guards who were undoubtedly feeling the tremors several floors away.
Leo had created his boom.
Huddled in the dark, dusty ventilation shaft, deafened and badly bruised, they were alive. They had escaped the death trap. But now they were lost deep within the facility's guts, a labyrinth of metal and darkness, with a wounded man, limited ammo, and the entire Foundation army now converging, not on them, but on the chaos they had unleashed.
They were out of the tiger's cage, only to find themselves lost in the jungle. And the night was far from over.