France
Paris
Suburbs
7:31 PM, 17th of March 2017
The air in the room was heavy, a suffocating mixture of decay, rain-soaked debris, and the high-tension scent of spent energy—the metallic reek of blood, ozone, and wet limestone. Émile Dubois, nineteen years old, was numbly registering the true weight of the world's end. It wasn't the sudden catastrophe foretold in fiction; it was this grinding, slow-motion erasure of all comfort and sanity. Two weeks ago, his only anxiety was academic; now, it was the sound of his own ragged breath.
He huddled with his remaining companions—Jules, whose hands were white-knuckled around a makeshift tire iron, and Léa, who had been weeping silently for hours, soaking the ruined silk of her scarf. They were inside a deserted pastry near the Sorbonne, the faint, lingering smell of stale yeast a cruel, hollow memory. They were starving, perpetually cold, and acutely aware that every moment was merely a reprieve from the hunt.
The outbreak had been immediate and absolute. The initial news reports of a 'violent influenza' were the first, desperate lies crafted by officials either too slow or too inept to grasp that this was a prion, a neurological agent of tireless, relentless aggression.
Émile's greatest loss—the one that had carved a permanent fissure in his soul—had been slow. His sister, Aurore, only seventeen, had been caught in the initial crush near the Louvre, returning with a deep, septic scratch on her forearm.
For two days, they had hidden, applying the useless bandages, engaged in the desperate, exhausting denial of the inevitable. The shift began with the unnatural stillness, followed by a fever that seemed to cook her flesh, and finally, the absolute, cold transformation: the wide, hyper-dilated pupils and the familiar warmth in her eyes replaced by animalistic hunger. She had stood in the small apartment bathroom, silent for a moment, before lunging at the door.
Émile, Jules, and his mother had desperately rammed the wooden table against the door, barricading the bathroom. They listened for agonizing hours to Aurore's rhythmic, tireless battering, her guttural cries twisting her name into something unrecognizable. It was his mother who finally stopped the noise. She used the antique double-barreled shotgun his grandfather kept in the cedar chest.
His mother vanished shortly after, armed with the shotgun and consumed by a hopeless quest to reach a rumored military safe zone. Émile, unable to process the grief, found Léa. His mind was now an engine focused purely on cold, systematic survival.
"We need to move," Émile whispered, checking the bolt on the old hunting rifle he carried. It was lighter his mother's shotgun but precious. The magazine held four rounds.
Jules, his features obscured by smeared grease, peered through a crack in the boarded window. "They're circling the pharmacy again"
Léa flinched, clutching her head. "I thought I saw Maman's face in the reflection. She was looking right at me."
"Léa, you have to stop," Émile said, his voice flat, drained of any emotion. "It wasn't her. It's the sickness, and it plays tricks. You know the rules now: no names, no faces." That was the protocol he'd adopted after Aurore; it was the only way to retain the capacity to kill when necessary.
They left through the shattered back window, easing into the chill of the alleyway. Their objective was the former municipal archive, a massive, reinforced concrete bunker rumored to still hold preserved rations and a functional air filtration system. It was ten blocks away, but in this ruined Paris, it felt like an impossible pilgrimage.
They moved in hushed tandem, navigating streets choked with the wreckage of military vehicles and civilian cars overturned by violent militant action weeks ago. The soundtrack was the distant, non-uniform thump of gunfire and the irregular, terrifying chorus of the infected roar. They had to bypass a checkpoint held by a ruthless militia known as "The Purists," former police officers and survivalists who were executing anyone showing so much as a tremor or a cough. The cruel irony was not lost on Émile: the infected were predictable monsters, but the surviving humans were often driven by a colder, more immediate malice.
They were two blocks from the archive when their luck—or fate—ran out.
They had to cross a wide avenue, a stretch of open ground marred by scattered debris and the burning husk of a city bus. Jules, heavier and slower, slipped on a slick patch of fuel near the burning wreckage. The moment of hesitation was fatal.
A hulking figure, its clothes shredded, its eyes a feverish yellow, burst out of the smoke. It moved with unnatural speed, a sprinter's focused aggression.
"Jules! Run!" Émile yelled, raising his rifle. But the infected mass, once a simple man, slammed into Jules before Émile could align the sights. A wet, sickening crunch of bone and metal followed, and Jules's scream was immediately choked into a gruesome gurgle.
Léa froze, a silent mask of shock tearing at her features. Émile grabbed her, hauling her with brutal force toward the shadow of a collapsed granite statue. "We can't help him! Go!"
They ran, propelled by a primal terror, the terrible sound of Jules's final moments fading behind them. They reached the archive's basement entrance, a neglected service door, and threw themselves through the gap, slamming the heavy steel door shut and bracing it with two enormous I-beams they found nearby.
They were safe, momentarily, but the cost had been exacted. Léa, trembling uncontrollably, collapsed against the cold, damp concrete.
"He's gone. They're all gone now."
Émile remained silent. He inspected the rifle. Three rounds left.
He looked at Léa, noticing the tear in her jacket sleeve near the shoulder. His eyes dropped lower, to her wrist. There, just above the cuff, was a deep, crescent-shaped tear in the skin, bleeding slowly into the filth. She must have scraped it on the debris during their fall and frantic sprint. His mind, like a clockworks, immediately began counting the hours until the fever would rise. The grim memory of Aurore, the denial, the screams, the gunshot—it all flashed in a second.
He knew the timeline. He knew the procedure.
He slowly raised the rifle. Léa met his eyes, not with panic, but with a vacant, terrible understanding. Her sobs did not wait— as slowly, she slumped into the ground, begging for a miracle that wouldn't come.
A single, dull, muffled shot echoed in the cavernous concrete space. The archives were quiet again. Émile had two rounds left.
He spent the next six hours in the absolute, lightless dark, sitting beside Léa's motionless body, listening to the hollow drip-drip of water from a broken pipe, waiting for the inevitable breach. He was emotionally exhausted, incapable of moving, his survival reduced to a purely mechanical function.
When the breach came, it was subtle but decisive. The frantic movements of the infected outside, driven by the scent of recent blood, had finally compromised a weak point in the aging infrastructure above the bunker.
A sudden shower of black, foul water and splintered rock rained down, followed by a heavy thud and a screech. An infected, small and emaciated, had fallen into the chamber. Its eyes, even in the faint light filtering from the gap, held the same empty, corrosive rage as the others.
Émile acted without conscious thought. The rifle barked once. The back of the creature's head erupted against the far wall. One round left.
He was pinned. He could hear others clawing at the newly opened access point. There was no way out. The archive was a tomb. The world above was chaos, the Foundation fractured, and no rescue was coming. He was tired of the killing, tired of the fear, tired of the endless, hopeless running in the Administrator's broken world.
Emile, noticing the inevitable fate— slowly raised the rifle, turning it around facing his own skull. His quiet sobs and tears were muffled by the screams of terror outside in the streets, and silently, he pulled the trigger.
And so, the rifle roared, taking the life of its own user.
————————————————————
USA
Georgia
Hundreds of meters above the air
28th of February, 2017, UH-60 "Arrow 1"
The massive helicopter, a heavy, droning silhouette, thrummed through the high Georgia airspace. Far below, the dense canopy of the Georgian plains and forests stretched out, a deep, wild green that concealed countless animals and the secrets held within its borders. This untamed, primeval landscape offered a stark contrast to the distant, restless glow of the cities—pockets of intense, electric activity that would instantly betray their presence and their mission to the wrong eyes. They were flying over a blanket of obscurity, the perfect shroud for what lay beneath.
Site R-1, known simply as "The Citadel," was the primary, hidden garrison for the Mobile Task Force assigned to The Administrator. The facility was a former cold war bunker, where unknown Operations of the US government were held, modernized by the Administrator privately, it now housed the last remnants of the Administrator. The facility housed over 800 personnel— 400 of which were Resh Operators, the rest being technical officers, engineers, doctors, and so on.
The facility was built to be invulnerable and completely self-sustainable, designed to withstand any catastrophic attack or an end-of-the-world scenario with impunity. Its structural integrity relied on meters of reinforced concrete and specialized geothermal shielding that not only protected the inhabitants but also effectively masked its presence from most satellite and seismic surveillance. Deep within the earth, beneath the administrative levels, were its proprietary workshops functioned. These high-tech industrial sections utilized specialized equipment to reverse-engineer and mass-produce the unique weapons systems, countermeasures, and highly advanced gear required by the Resh-1 teams.
Furthermore, independent hydroponic gardens and a closed-loop water reclamation system ensured the population could survive indefinitely without surface support, making the sheer scope of its infrastructure less of a base and more of an underground fortress dedicated solely to the mission of The Administrator.
Deep inside, a reactor powered the facility— but it had short limitations as the quantity of Uranium was low, they could only supply the basic workshops for now as they found a new alternative to fix the problem of energy shortage.
It's compromised of 6 underground levels, with level 6 being of utmost importance and holding the personnal Barracks of the Resh, and Commanding Officers of the Citadel. 1 was compromised of airlocks, vehicle bays and administrative processing centers, designed to handle logistics and important superficial tasks, it was the forefront of the Foundation, it lastly contained the underground hangars for the helicopters used by the Operatives, containing 4 Blackhawk helicopters, 2 CH-47 chinooks, 6 MH-6 Little Birds, and 1 AH-1Z attack Helicopter.
Level 1, located just forty meters beneath the surface, served as the critical interface with the outside world. This heavily armored zone contained the main airlocks, vehicle processing bays, and initial administrative and screening centers, acting as the necessary decompression chamber between the facility's secrecy and the outside world.
Level 2, located ninety meters beneath the surface, held the bulk of the community: the main barracks, vast dining halls, recreation rooms, and general meeting spaces. It was the primary station for the hundreds of engineers and maintenance personnel responsible for keeping the facility alive. Deeper still, at one hundred and fifty meters, Level 3 housed the general command centers, classrooms, and intelligence hubs, serving as the nerve center for the Ground Service Personnel or Site Security. This level's function was the coordination of regional operations and constant intelligence gathering, demanding a minimum Level 3 keycard to prevent unauthorized access.
Further down, two hundred and fifty meters underground, Level 4 contained the main industrial heart of the site. Here lay the facility's reactor, generating independent power, alongside extensive workshops, production lines, and high-precision 3D printing machines. This critical zone required a Level 4 clearance or designation as personnel directly involved in the handling and operation of the manufacturing equipment.
Sub-Level 5, situated four hundred meters below the surface. This domain was the Research and Development level, a laboratory complex that housed the site's brightest minds and where new inventions were forged with the aid of advanced AIs—rumored to be discreet copies of highly classified, sentient systems. This level also contained specialized containment cells for lesser anomalies—capable of safely holding entities like SCP-173 or SCP-939, though not equipped for higher-risk special containment.
Sub-Level 6, resting six hundred meters in the bedrock—the absolute bottom and the most secure sector of the entire installation. This was the house of the Resh, a self-contained complex dedicated solely to their four-hundred-man strong force. It was equipped with custom barracks, tactical planning rooms, and all necessary logistical support for an elite operational unit.
More disturbingly, this level held the site's most guarded secrets, including torture and interrogation centers sealed deep within the foundation, along with the main server cores that maintained all classified surveillance, data archives, and specialized comms systems used by The Administrator. Entry to this final depth was reserved for the Resh Operatives and specific, hand-picked command staff, a silent, heavily guarded citadel within the Citadel, designed to execute operations far outside the moral or legal boundaries of the surface world.
The convoy of helicopters sliced through the chilled air, their heavy rotor wash kicking up icy spray as they neared the designated landing zone. On the mountainside below, three helipads appeared—barely discernible white 'H' marks against the snow-dusted granite, camouflaged by complex, terrain-matching panels that rendered the massive structure virtually invisible from above. On the pads, several black-clad soldiers stood rigid, their tactical helmets and heavy snow gear marked with the clear patches of the SCP Foundation. The lead aircraft, Arrow 1, settled with a grinding shudder, its engines immediately spooling down as ground crew, moving with practiced efficiency, rushed to secure the heavy airframe, which was now descending several meters underground.
The helicopter bay was not on the surface; the external pads were merely staging areas. A crew member in a thick uniform and thermal mask directed the passengers toward a concealed entryway—a section of rock face that smoothly retracted to reveal a tunnel wide enough for a Humvee. The air inside was warm, controlled, and tasted heavily of ozone and filtered machine oil. They had entered Level 1 through a secondary airlock, forty meters below the visible surface. After a quick, sterile decontamination process, they stepped out into the bright, humming silence of the main administrative sector. The massive vehicle processing bays stretched out, housing the armored columns and the concealed helicopter hangars where the fleet—Blackhawks, Chinooks, and Little Birds—rested, ready for their subterranean ascent.
The Operatives were met by the two figures who represented the apex of the Citadel's military power: Colonel Nikolai Volkov, commander of the Resh Mobile Task Force Regiment, and his Executive Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Russell. Their sharp uniforms—black and purple—bore insignia signifying relentless, zealous service. Yet, the fanatical light in their eyes was reserved for the figure before them, Konrad, The Administrator. Colonel Nikolai stepped forward, his posture rigid and his voice a disciplined rasp. "My lord, we are profoundly pleased you were able to grace us with your presence today." Konrad accepted the handshake, unfazed by the fanaticism.
"On the Chinook, there are several SCPs. Immediately divert them to Level 4 installation, and SCP-914 shall be guarded by Resh personnel at all times," Konrad commanded. He spoke quickly, with the heavy, foreign fabric of SCP-262, the 'Coat of Many Arms,' resting on his frame, emitting an unsettling aura that charged the air around them.
"We will take you over to Level 6, sir. Most of the Companies are assembled and await your address," Russell interjected, adjusting his cap, his gaze repeatedly drawn to the coat. "We will see about that. Unload everything, secure the entire site, and raise all external surveillance immediately," Konrad responded, a final, cold directive as he dismissively dusted the shoulder of 262. The walk that followed was a brisk, controlled procession. The Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel led the way, their movements precise, past startled personnel handpicked by Konrad to support his personal kill teams. The entire event, dominated by The Administrator and SCP-262, was a jarring, fear-inducing event for everyone present.
The brief, chilling interaction concluded, and the procession resumed. Konrad led the way, his frame cloaked by SCP-262, the heavy coat a silent power source. Colonel Volkov and Lieutenant Colonel Russell, faces masks of fanatical obedience, walked slightly behind him. The entire movement was designed to broadcast total authority to the base.
The final plunge ended at Sub-Level 6. The moment the lift doors opened, the oppressive silence of the command level washed over them, afront of them, a heavily armed checkpoint was set up with several Resh operatives recognizing their overlord and both superior officers- Colonel Nikolai and LTCOL Russell were quietly standing beside the Administrator, whos mere presence allowed their identities to be verified and be let pass.
Konrad walked forward to the massive security checkpoint, his gaze completely unbothered and a slight grin playing on his lips. He casually saluted and greeted the guarding operators, who stood at rigid attention beside their heavily reinforced emplacement, complete with an M2 Browning machine gun mounted for extreme security. His nonchalant confidence contrasted sharply with the deadly preparedness of the checkpoint. He quickly entered the main facility, where the group immediately encountered a long, severe concrete bifurcation; they turned left, walking toward the main warehouse and rally point. As they stepped across the threshold, they saw dozens of seated operators—not dozens, but hundreds—resting in chairs, already assembled and waiting for their High Command. Konrad merely waved as the hundreds of elite soldiers watched in unison, their bodies straightening further as their leadership, Volkov and Russell, took position behind him.
Reaching a small, raised podium, Konrad paused. The stark logo of Resh-1 was emblazoned on the backdrop directly behind him, flanked by the rigidly fanatical figures of Colonel Nikolai Volkov and Lieutenant Colonel Russell. The podium, clearly prepared specifically for his arrival, held a simple microphone. Konrad didn't bother adjusting it; he simply leaned in, his casual demeanor holding absolute command over the hundreds of dedicated men. The silence in the massive warehouse was total, a vacuum created by the presence of The Administrator, and he began to speak.
"I'm warmed by the presence of all of the 8 Legionary Companies of the Regiment the foundation speaks and fears so much, but I'm here to deliver news, not comfort."
"SCP-008 has already reached the northern ports of canada, and is expected to take over the United States by September, effectively, we expect the government to fall."
"Many of you might have doubts onto my recent course of actions, and the decision to provoke an XK class end of the world scenario, and I'm here to clear my actions and to provide all of you with a testament of what is comment."
"Humanity was doomed to be lost one way or another, inevitably, the SCP foundations existence would get discovered and our operational integrity would be compromised, releasing far worse dangers into the world that would completely erradicate humanity."
"By doing this, we can chop off our worsening infection and preparing ourselves for world domination!"
"The world and fate of our race depends on us, we do this to preserve humanity from itself, protect them from the dangers they themselves create. As a foundation, as a group, it is our only will to control this world in order to persevere and progress as a planet and race, not as independent nations, no more flags, no more constitutions, no more impurity. This world will be governed by us and us only, the planet shall fear and respect us for being their sole keepers and custodians!"
"The SCP foundation did not have the balls and guts to protect humanity from themselves, and so they failed!
"It is only I that will guide all of you, I will guide you to purification!"
Konrad speeched fanatically as his soldier vitored in celebration, their roars of excitement and glory as Konrad nodded in satisfaction, looking at his subordinate officers, Nikolai and Russell, who were staring at him with pride, their chests puffed with pride as their gazes were unrelentless.
"Tomorrow gather yourselves at Overwatch, we will make some moves." Konrad simply said as he retired from the room, leaving the Operatives and young officers alike.