Chapter 49 "Panic and Chaos"

As he took his hand back, the old man gave William a gloomy expression. William was a little taken aback by the person who had arrived behind him so quickly, and after realizing it was SCP-1440, he took a few more steps back.

He had to be careful with SCP-1440 because making contact with him would only make his situation worse. There's a possibility that William could copy its anomalous abilities if they made contact.

Carrying anomalous abilities like SCP-1440 would be a painful thing to deal with. Destruction and havoc are imminent. William would have to live in solitary for the rest of his life if he had its effects.

The Foundation would have a lot of work dealing with William if he managed to get SCP-1440 anomalous ability since there would be two ticking time bombs on the planet that may hurt the general public. SCP-1440 already caused them a headache to deal with.

"Look, son. I'm here to ask for your help. It was pretty hard for me to find you people." said the old man with a slight hoarse sound.

William was a bit confused by his statement, "A help? What do you expect from a person like me that would be able to help your condition?"

"Because I know that you are from the Foundation, I've met people like you before, but they weren't able to do it because they refuse to do so." answered the old man.

This was not surprising because the Foundation was not the type of organization that would destroy or kill an anomaly. They would prefer to contain it and research it for other purposes.

Destroying an SCP only happened a few times. Attempting to do so could only happen if the SCP is deemed to be harmful and could cause wide-scale destruction that couldn't be handled in the future.

William then asked, "What makes you think that I would be able to do that?"

"I just hope that someone, whoever it is, could put an end to my life and all the miseries that were happening around me. If you can't, then I'll find someone else from you people to end me."

William pulled out his walkie-talkie and prepared to tell Grace and the others about SCP-1440 to support him in this situation when he noticed that SCP-1440 hadn't moved from his position.

However, it appeared that the walkie-talkie wasn't functioning properly as he only pressed the button. The tiny speaker can only produce buzzing and static, which was probably the result of the SCP-1440's anomalous effect.

The taser that was on his waist suddenly exploded from its holster, William becoming more aware that the anomalous effect of SCP-1440 had become more apparent to every element in the building, including his equipment.

When William had to avoid making touch with SCP-1440, he was a little concerned about how he was going to handle the situation on his own. William was going to have a difficult time dealing with this.

—

Grace followed Clarence as he walked up to the front of the stage, waiting for SCP-2331's performance so that he could make the announcement regarding the party cancellation.

Clarence looked at the stage, looking a bit worried that he would let down most of the audience at the party. But looking at Grace's expression, he knew that he must do it, or things were going to be disastrous.

Clarence entered the stage from the front, interrupting SCP-2331's performance of his music as he was about to begin the next one, and seized the stage's microphone.

Everyone stopped their dancing as he saw Clarence on the stage, seemingly confused regarding what had happened with all the music and lights had been turned off.

"I'm sorry for everyone that is attending the party, but I must announce that the rest of tonight's performance is going to be canceled and rescheduled for another day." said Clarence to all of the audience in front of him.

All of the audience was booing and showed a disappointed look at him. Some of them were even mad about the announcement. They were having the best time of their night and were canceled by the event organizers.

Clarence then continued, "I know that you guys are upset, but we have an emergency situation that forced us to stop the event and reschedule it later. We will inform all of you of the schedule later in your email."

Grace then turned to face two Foundation security guards who were standing on the other side of the stage and ordered them to begin taking SCP-2331 to the getaway car that had already been prepared.

SCP-2331 was quite perplexed as to why they would approach him and begin to take him away when two of them approached the stage and began to lead him off. Since Clarence was the center of attention for the audience, it didn't look suspicious enough.

One of the audience shouted from the sea of people, "What's the matter?! We have booked and waited, especially at this time to have fun. Some of us had to leave other matters for this party!"

The other audiences shouted in agreement. They were a bit upset as to why the event had stopped just as it was getting started. Clarence was a bit overwhelmed by this and confused about how he would handle it.

The audience's heads were about to be hit by the lighting equipment that was perched on the roof of the building at that precise moment. One of the lamps nearly knocked someone's head off, so everyone moved away from the area.

Everyone began to fear the situation and ran for the exit as more lighting equipment was set to collapse. They were all rushing out of the building, pushing everyone toward the exit door.

Grace then pulled out her walkie-talkie, "SCP-2331 had been secured by the containment team. What's the situation on your end, Alpha One?"

But there was no response from William. Grace thought that either William was in trouble facing something, or he was doing something that he shouldn't have done.

—

Both William and SCP-1440 heard about the commotion that could be heard at the end of the hallway they were in. Something was happening out in the main venue, and it wasn't something pleasant.

Panic, screaming, and shouting can be heard from the distance, William was a bit worried about what happened there, and he guessed that another problem had arisen. SCP-1440 fixated his eyes on him and didn't pay any attention to it.

"Both you and I knew that we didn't have much time to spare. Just do what you must do." said SCP-1440 to him.

William wasn't really clear on how we would handle SCP-1440. But just as he was about to act, he noticed something hurtling toward him from the other end of the corridor.

Something small, white, and moving quickly caught his attention. SCP-1440 turned to look behind him, but the thing flew through above their heads when he did.

It was a bird, an eagle to be precise. However, there was something strange about the eagle; it didn't appear to be a typical eagle, and it was small in size.

The eagle turned its direction to them and flew straight above their heads again, but William clearly looked at the eagle. It was entirely made of paper, specifically a paper that was folded into the shape of an eagle.

Both of them saw someone was standing in front of the corridor. A blonde lady wearing a black dress to her knees was holding a book in her left hand. As soon as it landed on her right hand, the eagle began to fold itself into a tiny, crumpled piece of paper.

"Never have I ever thought I would run into one at a place like this." said the blonde lady as she put the piece of paper into the book.