𝙲𝙾𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙰𝙱𝙻𝙸𝚂𝙷𝙴𝙳
“You are shaking.”
Eris glances over at her sibling, tired brown eyes like pools of darkness on her pale face looking upwards towards the other’s inhuman form. Eris herself looks like a ghost from a horror story, years of being stuck in a small room with little desire to take care of herself leaving her looking less like a nineteen year old girl and more a nineteenth century spectre haunting an old mansion. Dark brown hair is shaved to the skull, and dark circles create purple bruises that sink into the sockets of Eris’s skull.
It’s been a hard few days. The cycling red lights mixed with the confines of the server room do no favors to the picture that Eris paints. The alarm blares in the background, a stray dying screech of some bastard piercing the noise like a macabre bell, the only signs someone other than the monsters lives in these halls still.
The constant reminder that every death keel is a tick down on the list of survivors.
Eris rubs her eyes, exhaustion pulling at her even now, with adrenaline in her veins like a drug, keeping her heart pounding even as his vision greys out and noise fades into static.The next round of blaring alarms snaps him to attention.
“You are shaking.” Sol says again, long black fingers like void taken form curl around Eris’s hands, grasping her trembling digits in ones that he knows can kill. Bright white eyes with reptilian pupils glance over her face, fanged mouth twisted into a scowl.
“It’s cold.” Is all Eris can say to defend herself, to wave away the signs she’s close to collapsing where she stands. She's not entirely lying. Ever since the main generators went down and the ones meant to keep the containment breach protocols running kicked in, the heating has been non-existent. The thin cotton clothes that the scientists insisted she wear have done nothing to keep the chill from sinking into his bones.
Sol frowns in the way they always do when Eris lies to them, confused and disappointed all in one. They never quite understand why Eris wouldn’t tell them the truth, not when Sol seems convinced that they are simply two parts of a larger whole.
Eris shoves the thought away with a grimace, trying to ignore the ache in her chest. Right now was not the time for her to get lost in memories nearly a decade old. She's got far more to worry about than ghosts long gone.
She’ll never forget the feeling as men in hazmats suits shoved her into a white van, the feeling of WRONGWRONGWRONG writing itself into her bones as the woman in a suit with a gun tucked into her belt closed the front door, her twin screaming her name as the wood separated them. Eris wonders if the sound of the van doors slamming closed and her own screaming drowned out the gunshot, or if it was the pain as if her soul was ripped in half and the resulting darkness that was what kept her from hearing the cause of her brother’s death.
She pulls away from Sol, wiping at her nose absentmindedly, ignoring the taste of copper on her tongue. There’s no time to give a shit about a nosebleed, and it’s not like her skin isn’t already covered in blood and viscera.
You couldn’t take two steps out in the halls right now without slipping on a piece of person. Eris would have laughed if she had the energy to make a joke about the massacre happening outside the walls of the server room. Instead, she watches as Sol walks away to repair their defenses. Eris leans back in the creaky chair she’s sitting in, blood still dripping onto her shirt.
Sol throws another broken server in front of the door, the mangled electronics sparking feebly as they were added to the barricade with a crash. The server room itself had been the safe haven for Sol and Eris since they found it. An attached bathroom and a cabinet full of albeit unhealthy food, perfect for tech junkies who weren’t legally allowed to see the sun anymore.
Or two people trying to wait out a murder spree.
Eris turns around in the chair, bringing her attention back to the old computer she finds herself sitting in front of. Eris adjusts the old webcam on top to point towards her face, and in the corner of her eye, SCP-079’s new monitor flickers slightly.
Eris doesn’t pay the AI any mind. The old bastard is currently in “rest mode” which means nothing for a being that doesn’t actually need sleep. As far as Eris has deduced, it just means that It is going through the files It has access to in order to sort and save what It deems necessary. It was still getting used to having full access to the server room.
Eris smiles slightly, thinking of the joy 79 showed in Its new text-to-speech voice after being freed from the limited confines It had been stuck in for so long. Eris was rather proud of the fact that the sentient AI who had spent most of Its time hating everyone It talked to referred to Eris as a “True Friend”. 79 Itself wasn’t actually too bad to talk to, especially now that It had free reign on the advanced computer Eris had transferred It into
In contrast, the old thing that 79 used to live in was practically a scrap heap after so long. Still, it works if nothing else, so Eris plans to use her limited computer knowledge to try and get the device running again. Maybe if she’s lucky, she can play solitaire to ignore the situation he’s in.
Sol sits down next to her, their large head leaning against his shoulder. Eris leans back into the touch, feeling the warmth of her sibling against her side as the two of them stare at the screen.
A green light shines on both of them, and Eris glances up to see the red dot blinking on the webcam. She frowns, brows furrowed as she reads the white text.
“Hey 79?” Eris calls out, turning her head towards the AI’s monitor. There’s a quick flicker of light, and then the black and white face of the AI makes Itself visible.
“QUERY ACKNOWLEDGED. QUERY. WHAT REQUIRES ASSISTANCE.”
“Does ‘The Choir’ mean anything to you?” Eris asks, standing up and making his way over to the laptop 79 is contained in. “Can I move you over?”
That’s important, asking for consent. The first time Eris picked up the laptop without asking 79 for permission first It managed to screech at her with a surprising amount of volume. The resulting silence as Eris and Sol waited for the other SCPs outside to pass by wasn’t worth the slight adjustment Eris had wanted to make.
“QUERY ACKNOWLEDGED. PROCEED.”
“Thanks, 79.” Eris says softly, picking up the laptop quickly, tucking it face-out against her chest. The warm hum of It is enough to bring him some comfort in the cold room, the blaring alarms continuing mindlessly in the background. Eris is forever grateful that 79 told her how to destroy the speakers in the server room as soon as It did.
The red lights were somehow comforting, at least here in the server room. They didn’t flicker on and off like those in the hallway, illuminating the mangled corpses strewn about and highlighting black stains on the floor and walls that Eris knew were anything but.
Sol was poking at the computer screen, a disgruntled expression on their face.
“I do not like this.” They hissed, bright white teeth flashing in the dim red light. “Seems…off. Tastes weird.”
Eris placed 79 on the table next to Its old computer and rubbed at her nose, grimacing at the flakes of blood that came off onto her finger. The taste of Miasma filled the air around them, leaking in from the outside. All the death and pain like a physical smog seeping into everything it could reach.
Eris and Sol were both familiar with the taste of it, though neither enjoyed it much. It was less like a welcoming sensation and more akin to being starving but knowing the smell of cooking meat was human, and not beef. It made Eris feel like a junkie, chasing the nearest high.
She sways slightly, his body inhaling the scent of the Miasma far deeper than before at the reminder of its existence, her head turning foggy in the aftermath. It’s only Sol shoving the chair under her that prevents Eris from collapsing onto the floor as black fills her vision.
—------
She doesn’t know how long she’s out for, but 79 and Sol seem to be in the middle of a conversation while they wait for him to return to consciousness
“I’m awake.” Eris mutters, doing her best to save her dignity. 79 and Sol somehow share a look, but neither comments on his sudden faint. Both are far too used to it to be surprised at the phenomenon.
“OBSERVATION. PROGRAM UNKNOWN. SUGGESTION. ATTEMPT COMMUNICATION.” 79 cuts in, Its droning tone bringing Eris’s attention back to the matter at hand that she’d been attempting to figure out before he had blacked out.
Eris sits up, wiping her nose as yet another stream of blood trickles down her face. Iron sits heavy on her tongue, drowning out the sticky feel of Miasma in the back of his throat.
“We can try.” She mutters, pulling the yellowed keyboard closer to her and tapping the spacebar a few times. Her hands hover over the keys for a second, brow furrowed. A drop of blood drips onto the plastic.
Finally, she types something down.
> 𝙷𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘?
The three wait, the blaring alarm and hum of the servers behind them the only noise besides Eris’s occasional sniffle. And then-
> 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜! 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝚑𝚘𝚒𝚛 𝙼𝚊𝚢 𝙽𝚘𝚠 𝚂𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝙸𝚗𝚋𝚘𝚡 𝚒𝚜 𝙾𝚙𝚎𝚗. 𝙾𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙴𝚢𝚎.
The light on the webcam turns a steady white.
(Sol, SCP-79, and Eris R̵̡̨̢̝̬͇͓̠̮̗̰̳̥̘̗̜̬̪̣͖͎̳͕͙̟͖̞̳͙͇͖̙͙͈̱̜̺̠̯̮͍̣͎͍̯̦͕̼̄̌̄ơ̷̧̛̩͚̱̺̰̘̻͚͔̠̮͈͍̼̤͇̮̜͇̩̣͔̫̳̩̥̥̗̭͙̱̥̘͚̙̲̬̰̯̙͖̠͈̗̖̞̌̀̿̎̈͂̈́̐̒͂̇͆͆̊̿̀̋̎̎̉̎͌̎̋͋́̕͘͘͘̚̚͘͝͝͝͠g̷̺͇͕̖̮̭͙͇̖͍̼̈̕ͅȩ̷̢̡̡͙̹̩̙͍̘̙̞̠͇̱͓̬̹̪̗̯͚̲͙̩̦̪͉̮͔̜̱̲̰̙̱͍̣̲̍̀͛̋̌̑̀̈́͑̊͛̿̒̑̀̏̀̓̎́̏̅̈́͆̍̈́̚̚͠͝͝ͅͅr̴̢̛̛̛̛̯̬̻̰̼̣͖͙̻̬̗̖̓̍̅́̇͗̔̄̅́̐̈́̈́̋̈͛̑͗̿͛̉̈́͗́̒͋̾̄̾̔̐͊͂̌̆̆̅͠͝ş̶̡̧̨̬̲͖̜̱̬͉̹̳̞̩͕̖̭̝͓̬͈̭̰͙͈̯̻̜̤͈̮̺̞͉̣̯̳͎̹̪̖̭̯̹̞̖͖̖̔̄̋̄̽̍̊͐̍̈̿̓͜͜͝ͅͅ are availble for questions!)