Prologue: Devolution

"Bring them in," shouted the security officer as a truck full of orange tracksuit donned men and women in their mid-30s to 40s entered the facility.

The heavy iron doors behind them shut with great force, yet made no noise. The walls around them were flushed grey with occasional patches of bright light that reflected off of the mundane grey.

The men in orange followed the security guard with their hands cuffed. The women followed a female officer in the opposite direction of the men. The team headed by the male officer turned westward and took a flight of stairs that led upstairs. On the first floor, each of them was provided with a pair of clothes with an identification number stitched onto the left breast pocket. The men were then introduced to their individual living spaces, a small, cramped 6 meters long and 2 meters wide room with sound muffling foam integrated into the walls. A bed stretched across the eastern wall of the room and a table was placed behind it with a chair before it. A portion of the left side of the room was caved in to house the toilet and the shower.

"Listen up!" began the officer who had brought the men to their new home for the rest f their presumably short lives.

"You bottom-feeders have been given another chance at life by the very government that condemned you. For the rest of your miserable lives, you will be experimented on with no say in the matter. All we ask for is for you to abide by the rules and live a peaceful life here with us.

"I will now explain why you are here and for what reason." The man took a moment to catch his breath and continued. This is the SCP foundation. Our job is to contain anomalous objects and entities that threaten natural law or violate it. You are all death-row inmates who have been handed over to us to be used as test subjects used to decode the truths hidden in the SCPs. The SCPs are entities with varying levels of danger. Contact with any such entity is strictly prohibited unless we give you permission, and defiance of this rule will get you killed" he then whispered under his breath "you better hope it's one of us that kills you."

The man proceeded to introduce the men to their living quarters and then reported the course of events that would take place for the upcoming week.

Moments later all the prisoners were locked into their rooms, leaving behind 6 officers guarding the hallway outside.

Subject D-3491 lay down on his bed. He had been transferred here from the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai, India. He was jailed for the murder of seven families and had been caught five years after his first killing.

The Subject tried to think back to his life as a child but no memory was recalled. He was a blank slate. A dead person's mind in a living body. The bearded man tried to recall his name but to no avail. His life in prison was gruesome and it had forced him to give up on his past life and suppress any memory of it. In the end he decided to call himself D as it was the first letter of his identification.

The SCP foundation reminded him of nothing more than the prison he spent a portion of his life at, if not worse. He denied going through the same experiences again and he knew he had to escape somehow.

But how does one escape from a place they never knew existed? How does one run away when they don't know where they were, to begin with? How would he fight against the hundreds of soldiers and officers that awaited him outside the comfort of the claustrophobic white room?

He pushed the thoughts aside and closed his eyes, waiting for sleep to take him away.

He discarded the thoughts about his future and the escape. But little did he know that they would soon return to him as the fear for his life would grasp him in the face of the unknown.

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D woke up to the loud clattering of batons against the metal door of his cell. He walked out to see what the commotion was about. His hair was unkempt and he had no way to fix it because the cells didn't have any mirrors. "Maybe it's so that the prisoners won't kill themselves by smashing the mirror into pieces." He thought.

Standing a few feet away on his right he saw an African American man. He was 6 feet 7 inches tall, a giant compared to D's miniature 5 feet 4 inches. The man's ID read D-3492.

An officer stood facing D, asking him to turn around. D followed his orders obediently, a side effect of the beatings he underwent at his former jail. The officer cuffed D's hands with great force, making him wince as the metal rings tightened around his wrists.

D was then pushed forward by the guard and they moved to the hallway at the left. D, through the corner of his eye, saw the African American being led in the opposite direction. Shifting his focus to what lay ahead of him, D walked through a series of pathways as he was directed by the man behind him. Finally, they reached an iron door that opened into a testing chamber.

D was asked to wait in the corner of the room. Complying with the request, D seized the opportunity to try and understand his surroundings. There was another room connected to the one he was in and a huge glass window stretched across the wall that connected the two rooms. D hypothesised that this was a one-way window and the other room was the actual testing site.

His time for observation was cut off as a group of white-clad men and women walked into the room with three security guards behind them. D was soon led into the next room which, he noticed, was much smaller than the one he was previously in.

"Please step onto the platform ahead of you," said a guard in a polite voice. D was lost in the unnaturally soft tone of the guard's voice, unable to comply with the request.

"I said step onto the platform!" came a hoarse voice instilling fear into D who was shoved onto the platform ahead of him. D refused to believe that the two voices belonged to the same man.

As D looked in front of him, he found a simple machine kept inside a glass enclosure, waiting to be opened. He wanted to smash the glass and take out the contents, but he waited patiently for his orders.

It had been two minutes now and the guard behind D had left the room, followed by the loud thud of a lock.

Suddenly a voice from the speakers spoke.

"We will now proceed with the Experiment 3769-E related to SCP-3769, Evolutionary Rescission Device. Subject: D-3491."

"SCP?" "Evolutionary Rescission?" D was confused at the gibberish the people on the other side of the glass spoke.

"Subject D-3491, please remove the device displayed in front of you using the gloves placed on your left."

D looked to his left and found a pair of yellow rubber gloves. He slid them on and lifted the glass that had trapped the device within.

The Evolutionary Rescission Device, or ERD, looked like a simple calculator with keys displaying numbers and a decimal point. D found it peculiar that none of the functions like addition or multiplication were present. The device also had a screen that displayed the number typed into it.

It was a fairly odd device but D wondered why he needed to use gloves.

"Subject D-3491 please place the device onto your bare forearm."

D did as he was told, unimpressed by the whole situation. That was until his body began to tremble as the device sunk itself into D's arm. It was painful but within D's capacity.

The shock was only temporary as D was instructed to wait until further notice.

5 minutes passed and a guard walked in with a chair and strapped D onto it. D was confused but went along with it for his own good.

"Officer, please pick up a pair of gloves and type in the number 0.0005," said the scientist through the speaker. Once the officer had secured D's arms and legs, he proceeded to type in the number with his gloved hands.

He then walked out of the room once again, but D felt like he was running away more than he was walking out.

And then the pain hit him. He felt the device sink into his arm further and further, as if incorporating itself into him. He felt as it tore through his flesh. The pain was worse than he had ever felt in his 13 years of prison life. It was agonizing, but unfortunately, that wasn't even the worst part.

Slowly he felt the effects of the device crawl up his arm and towards his brain. He felt every cell in his body change and shift from one place to another. He could feel his organs break down and build up again. His tissue transforming its structure- elongating, shortening, growing.

He pulled at the chair trying to get his arms free and tear out the device from his body. He shook and writhed in agony as he stared at the mirror beside him. How were the scientists dealing with the fact that a human was crying out loud in pain right before their eyes? Were they sad to see another one of them go through this intense change? Of course, they didn't. They had no empathy for their test subjects, and rightfully so, they were all ruthless criminals after all. D had watched his victims writhe in pain as well, begging for mercy as life slowly left their eyes.

He had no right to feel agonised by this experience.

After accepting his fate, D went through excruciating pain as his body metamorphosed into another being. "Maybe this is my hell," he thought but then the pain shockingly came to a stop.

"Rescission time: 2 minutes. Subject shows change in physical structure of their face and darkening of their hair. No other effects visible as of yet. DNA analysis will begin in 10 minutes."

As D heard the scientist announce the end of his misery he also felt the grip of the device loosen. He felt the monstrous object retract millions of its teeth back into itself and let go of his arm. A sigh of relief was accompanied by the guard unbinding D's arms and legs and taking him away from this nightmare-inducing experience.

As he walked to the next room D managed to take a look at his arm. There were no signs of any protrusions on the skin where the SCP had clung onto him. He felt a chill run down his spine as he left continued to think about the device.

He continued to ignore any thoughts of the device despite knowing that something deep within him had changed. He would soon find out that his newly acquired power would be his key to escape once and for all.