Chapter 9

trains are loud, and the screaming of trains running down their respective tracks echoed off the walls of the underground tunnel as another train roared into the station. I scanned the crowd trying to find a group of people who looked a little too agitated for no real reason.

after almost two hours of searching, I began to question if I had chosen the right spot for my search when without warning gunshots rang out, but not from the platform, from a bit down the tracks. everyone began to panic and move back up the platform, I slowly fought my way through the fleeing crowd as the sound of automatic fire rang out again.

I sprinted down the tunnel towards the sounds, realizing halfway I had no plan. I activated Thoughtful Management on the way, feeling as if everything seemed to move imperceptibly slower as my brain functions sped up. Turning a corner I saw a bloodbath, about a dozen Hydra soldiers, not even in Shield uniform were in the tunnel, and about half were dead, just beyond the fighting a little girl no older than three walked down the middle of the tracks clutching a teddy bear and humming to herself.

I took off, moving through the chaos hoping to go unnoticed by the now-deranged soldiers. past the bloodied man still beating the cooling corpse of his fellow man, past a soldier who upon attempting to fire and finding his clip empty decided to forgo reloading in favor of gripping the barrel of his rifle and using it as a club to smash in the visor of a nearby man who was firing rounds of pistol shots into another to seemingly no effect as his target barley even flinched on their way to club him to death.

I skirted around everything as best as I could, however as I approached the little girl I started to feel pressure in my head, suddenly a pop-up appeared in front of me

[Congratulations!

due to constant use and some luck Thoughtful Management has reached level 2

Achievement Unlocked- Hard Work

You leveled up an ability completely on your own without using system points! you have Unlocked the following for your efforts

-Skill leveling progress bar

- daily missions

for being your first natural level the skill Thoughtful Management and its future upgrade paths will permanently have double efficiency]

instantly the pressure in my skull reduced but didn't disappear completely, only increasing as I drew closer to the little girl. on my way by I grabbed a pistol from the holster of one of the corpses, unfortunately, a check of the clip revealed it to only have a few shots left, so I took the knife on his vest as well.

at this point the gunfire had all but disappeared, seeing as people were too eager to murder each other to bother with reloading. looking back I found only two people still standing, I locked eyes with one, they were unfocused but seemed to burn with a hatred for anything that moved, his eyes drifted to the gun in my hand. with a scream, he pushed a knife into his former comrade's throat and began to sprint at me. I raised the gun and fired until the click of an empty magazine reached my ears. two bullets struck the man's chest and one his throat, he staggered but ultimately continued running at me, blood gargling out of his mouth and throat, his lips and eyes locked into a maniacal smile. I turned and ran, but under the adrenaline and being a professional soldier I was caught quickly. knocking me to the ground and wrapping his hands around my throat he began to strangle me, but as the blood left his body so too did his strength until, just before I passed out, he slumped to the side.

gasping for air I slowly climbed to my feet, and the pressure in my head began to increase again, I looked to the side to see the little girl standing there looking at me quizzically.

"Hey, there kid, what are you doing here" I huffed out pushing myself to my feet. "You are still here," she said as if it was alien to her that I existed. "yep, last I checked" I replied "you wanna go get some chocolate?" her eyes lit up at the mention of candy. "can we?" she asked with glee "of course, but we gotta make a stop at some friends first.

thirty minutes later I was watching a little girl in a yellow dress eat chocolate at a small table surrounded by toys in a humanoid containment chamber. the Overseer stood next to me, a clipboard at the ready. "all right, make a new entry. SCP-053 is a little girl who has the anomalous effect to induce uncontrollable and erratic behavior centered around the emotion of rage, subjects that spend more than 10 minutes in her vicinity, and that make physical contact or eye contact all seem to enter an uncontrollable rage state, often forgoing personal safety, reason, and a show a complete disregard for anything other than killing other subjects in the vicinity. if no other people are around during this mental state then subjects will attempt to harm 053, subjects who have attempted this have suffered extreme heart attacks, strokes, and other naturally occurring phenomena that have led to death within seconds of dealing any physical damage to 053. 053 seems to have a healing factor strong enough to heal any injury completely regardless of severity, this process often happens almost instantly and can be missed if an observer even blinks. 053 is to be contained in a five-by-five standard humanoid containment cell with ample access to toys, games, and a selection of children's shows at her convenience, food will be provided three times a day, and healthy snacks as requested with sweets like chocolate and ice cream being provided after each meal excluding breakfast. due to the nature of 053's abilities in which she shows no control or knowledge of only one researcher is to be allowed inside at once for no more than 10 minutes with no physical contact, researchers that show altered behavior are to be removed from the containment cell immediately." I rattled off the containment procedures as quickly as I could before retreating to the humanoid containment cell I was currently using as a bedroom slash office.

I took a glance at my skill Thoughtful Management, which had leveled twice more on the way over here while combating the little girl's abilities, the pressure in my head felt like it was going to crack my skull. I bought the strongest painkillers the system had, already not looking forward to the backlash from overusing the skill, the memory of the headache from my negotiations with Fury still haunted me, and I hadn't experienced any pressure during that usage.

I took a deep breath, swallowed the medicine, and deactivated the skill. I was immediately assaulted by pain so intense I temporarily lost vision as my head swam and nausea set in, my eyes throbbed in their sockets and my ears began to ring as I fell to the floor and blacked out from the pain.

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sorry for the delay again, I've got some personal stuff going on IRL, I can no longer guarantee the stability of chapter releases [not that I ever could] but I also refuse to rush and write chapters with declining quality, that's not fair to myself or the people who take time from their day to read this book. the only thing I can promise at this point is that I will do my best to release quality chapters and that I won't drop this book, no matter how long it takes I will eventually release a chapter, thank yall for reading