Chapter 26 "Coming From All Sides"

William ripped part of his shirt and then started to wrap it around Grace's forehead, stopping the bleeding that was coming out from her head. It might not be much, but it'll do for a while until they find something else.

"Wait here for a moment. You have suffered a pretty significant injury on your head. It seems that debris from the explosion hit your head really hard. I'll try to find a way out of here." said William as he finished wrapping her head.

He then ran through the hallway to see if there was any way that they could've taken to go to the main floor. He saw a stair that led to the upper level, but it was blocked again by debris from the explosion. The elevator seemed to have not been working, and there was no way for them to advance.

William goes back to where Grace had been sitting the whole time. Seemingly not knowing where he should go right now, he said to Grace, "They really know how to plan an infiltration, somewhat too perfect for blocking off our entrances and exit so that we don't have anywhere to go. Do you have any idea?"

She coughed for a moment, rummaged through her pocket, and pulled out a walkie-talkie. William grabbed it and tried to activate it, but it seemed that it wasn't working. It must have broken since the explosion because there are no signs of a red light indicating it was working.

He was running out of possible options to contact anyone within site. William sat down for a moment. His wound had already healed, and he could move without having to worry about anything. As for Grace's condition, he wasn't sure about it.

Grace remembered something, "The Control Room…."

He looked at Grace and pondered, "What about the control room?"

"Every containment area is designed to have one control room to manage and monitor all of the containment rooms. A few select operators and researchers were tasked to handle it there to keep every SCP according to the condition. We should go there and use that to communicate with the Command Control." said Grace.

"Is there any power in that room? I'm taking a blind guess since we had a power outage back then, and it would be just a waste of time if there was no way to contact them."

"The Foundation always had an emergency generator that was good enough in times like this. Anticipating such events to prevent any system failure on the containment room that was supposed to hold those SCPs."

William thought about it for a moment and said, "Do you know where it would be located?"

She nodded, "It should be in the middle of this containment area. Since we're on the 2nd Wing of this floor, we should go toward the way you came before and proceed to find the room."

William then stood up, "Alright then. We should go there immediately and report to Dr. Erik regarding the situation. Do you need help?"

"No need. I can walk on by myself." She then goes to the position where she was lying before and picks up her gun, preparing for anything to come that could threaten their life.

Seemingly that was the case, and the two set up on a journey to the control room of the Keter containment area. Grace walked behind William, knowing that she hadn't fully recovered yet and her reaction may be slower than usual. He knows for sure that Grace isn't in her best condition, so he takes the lead.

As they were walking through the hallway, they saw some strange marks that were imprinted not only on the wall but also on the floor. They didn't know what it was, but many of them were there. Small holes that felt like a gun bullet, but there were no bullet casings to be found.

Both Grace and William weren't so sure that this was caused by an SCP or those Chaos Insurgency members. Either way, it seems that they had to prepare for the worst of both scenarios when they encountered one of them.

After a few minutes, they found several dead bodies lying on the ground. It was the Foundation guards. Most of them had their throat been cut by something. The cut marks on their throat don't seem like it was done with a military knife or anything similar. It was clean and deep enough to leave the guards suffering from blood loss.

Grace looked at one of the guards lying on the ground, drenched in a pool of blood around its body. William stared at her for a moment, and he asked, "Do you know them?"

She didn't leave her gaze towards the dead body and answered, "Yes. They are the people from my squad that had been given the duty for tonight's patrol. I don't know what could've killed them, but they're trained by me. Someone or something must be very experienced to take them out that easily."

William didn't know what to respond, and he could only look at her from a distance. It was a harrowing scene for her to look at, but she knew deep down that this was not a perfect time to mourn. She had to find out what had killed them and end it to prevent more casualties.

They have arrived at a hallway junction, and there was a marker on the wall that pointed to the Keter containment area control room for the researchers to navigate. William thought they had almost arrived at their destination. But he heard something.

Steps can be heard from a distance, coming from one of the hallways at the junctions. It doesn't sound heavy like a normal human footstep but more of a small creature. Hearing this, Willaim raised his hand to give Grace a signal.

"Stop, something's coming." as William swayed his hand.

Grace stopped her steps and began to remove the safety on her weapon. She was ready to fight whatever was coming in their way, if it was a hostile creature or someone from the opposing force.

The steps are getting closer and closer, ready to ambush whoever walks into their path. As the shadow gets closer, a small hairless creature walks in. Its size was no more than an average chihuahua, its skin was wrinkled, and it walked like an average mammal.

"It's a dog?" William was confused by what he had just seen, and it was really bizarre to see this kind of creature walking around the site.

The small hairless dog looked toward William and Grace, started to growl, and stared at them with an intimidating look.

"I think we shoul-" before Grace finished her word, the dog started to pounce on William and try to attack him.

He stopped it by grabbing the dog in mid-air. It was an aggressive one, and it tried to scratch and bite William with its short arms.

"Why is there a dog here?!" said William in annoyance while keeping his arms straight to prevent the dog from hurting him.

Grace was as confused as William. She said, "I don't know! The Foundation wouldn't allow any kind of pets roaming in the area, and certainly, this isn't someone's dog!"

"What should I do with it?!"

The dog stopped attacking him. Instead, it started to bark multiple times. William and Grace sighed for a moment as they thought it started to be friendly. But then they heard a sound coming from all the hallways.

The footsteps were coming closer and closer, it was heavy this time, and there seemed to be multiple footsteps echoing throughout the hallway. They had a guess what was coming towards them this time, and it would be very unpleasant to them.

William looked at Grace, "Captain, I hope you have enough bullets for us to get out of this situation."