The world had narrowed to a single, savage truth.
Either its skull would split open beneath my claws...
Or I would be torn apart.
Rain hissed and steamed against the burning husks of buildings, turning the streets into a slick mire of blood, ash, and shattered concrete.
I hauled myself upright, my body a map of agony. Regeneration crawled through me like molten glass, too slow now, each torn muscle and splintered bone knitting back together with wet, grinding pops. Across the ruined avenue, SCP-096 unfolded from the rubble like a nightmare given sinew and bone. Its pale, emaciated frame glistened with rain and its own dark ichor, mouth stretched impossibly wide in that endless, soul-shredding wail.
It wasn't afraid. It had never known fear.
Only rage.
Only me.
The scream clawed at the air, shattering windows for blocks and liquefying what little courage remained in the fleeing crowds. Some poor bastards still stood frozen on the sidewalks, eyes wide, piss staining their pants as they watched two abominations tear each other apart. I drew in a deep, ragged breath through blood-clogged nostrils.
Its scent had changed.
Not weaker.
Different.
Wrong.
Stage Five thrummed in my veins, a living cancer rewriting every law that once protected this thing. My attacks no longer bounced off its impossible durability, they sank in. Every collision taught my body how to violate whatever grotesque force kept it alive.
096 lunged.
I met it head-on with a roar that matched its own.
The impact was cataclysmic. Our bodies slammed together like colliding freight trains, caving in the face of another building in a thunderous crunch of rebar and concrete. We vanished into the choking cloud of dust, a whirlwind of violence too fast and brutal for human eyes. Fists like pistons. Claws like meat hooks.
I felt its ribs crack under my knuckles, sharp, wet snaps like green branches breaking. It drove me backward through three load-bearing walls, each one exploding into shrapnel that sliced deep gashes across my back. Plaster and wood splinters embedded in my flesh like needles. I tasted my own blood, coppery and hot.
But I caught its momentum mid-charge. My hands clamped around its too-long arms, fingers sinking through paper-thin skin into dense, rubbery muscle. With a savage twist, I hurled us both back into the open street. The pavement erupted beneath us in a spiderweb of fractures.
Its scream spiked, louder, rawer, almost frustrated.
Good. Let it feel something new before it died.
I didn't flail this time. Stage Five had sharpened my instincts into something surgical and cruel. I struck where reality frayed around it, joints, throat, the soft hollow beneath its jutting jaw. My claws raked across its chest, peeling back pale flesh in long, flapping strips. Blackish blood, thick, almost tar-like, sprayed across my face and chest, burning where it touched.
096 staggered.
Only for a heartbeat.
But it staggered.
Its elongated fingers shot out, grabbing my shoulder. Bones in my collar cracked like gunfire as it flung me through a storefront. Glass and steel framing shredded my side, laying open muscle in red, glistening sheets. We exploded through the far wall together, the entire building groaning and collapsing behind us in a roar of dust and falling timbers.
Civilians screamed as debris crushed cars and bodies alike. A woman's leg was pulped under a falling girder. I didn't care. Neither did 096.
I hit the ground hard, skidding across asphalt that tore skin from my back in bloody ribbons. Rain mixed with my blood, turning the street into a red-black slick. I dug my claws in, halting my slide, and rose.
The creature stood opposite me, chest heaving. Rain poured into the deep gouges I'd carved across its torso, washing pale strips of its own flayed skin down its body. One of its arms hung at a sickening angle, bone protruding through torn meat in a jagged white spike.
Neither of us moved for a moment.
Its scream had dropped into a low, vibrating growl that rattled my teeth.
I rolled my shoulders, feeling broken ribs grind together. "You're not giving up," I snarled through a mouth full of blood.
It answered by charging, faster than before.
So did I.
We collided again beneath the storm, two engines of annihilation. This time I got inside its reach. My fist hammered into its face, not the face that triggered it, but the side of its skull. Bone gave way with a sickening crunch, caving inward. Its jaw dislocated with a wet pop, hanging crooked, strings of saliva and dark blood swinging like ropes.
I didn't stop.
Claws hooked into its throat. I ripped downward, opening a canyon of meat from collarbone to sternum. Viscous fluid gushed out, steaming in the rain. 096's scream became a gargling choke as I drove it back, slamming it through a row of abandoned vehicles. Metal screamed. Glass exploded. One car's engine block punched halfway through its spine as I piledrived it down.
It thrashed beneath me, nails gouging deep furrows across my chest, peeling muscle away in bloody flaps. One of its kicks shattered my left femur, white-hot pain lancing up my leg but I laughed through it, a mad, bubbling sound.
I was winning.
Stage Five was learning faster than its anomalous bullshit could adapt.
I seized its head with both hands, claws piercing through scalp and bone. With a roar that drowned out its dying wail, I slammed its face into the pavement again and again. Each impact sent fresh cracks spiderwebbing outward. Teeth and fragments of skull skittered across the street like bloody hail.
Its limbs flailed weaker now, black blood pumping from the ruin of its throat in weakening spurts. The endless scream had become a broken, wet rattle.
I leaned in close, my voice a guttural whisper over the dying storm.
"You're just meat now."
Then I tore its head from its shoulders with a final, wet *schlick* of ripping sinew and cracking vertebrae. The body convulsed once, spraying arterial filth across my chest, before going still.
Rain washed the gore from my face as I stood over the corpse of SCP-096, chest heaving, body broken and regenerating in agonizing fits.
The town around us burned and bled.
But I was still standing.
High above the carnage, an SCP Foundation helicopter hovered at a safe distance, its thermal camera feeding live footage to Mobile Task Force command and distant Overseer eyes. The operators watched in stunned silence as Devin dropped to his knees beside the decapitated husk.
"Jesus Christ…" one whispered.
Devin's claws sank into the open chest cavity with a wet, tearing sound. He ripped out handfuls of still-twitching organs, dense, black-veined meat that smelled of ozone and rot and shoved them into his maw. Jaws unhinged wider than humanly possible, he tore into the torso like a starving animal. Ribs cracked and splintered between his teeth. Dark blood and shredded tissue spilled down his chin in thick ropes as he chewed, gulping down chunks of anomalous flesh that should never have been consumed.
The Foundation personnel watched in horrified awe as the creature that had contained entire nations in fear was reduced to nothing but gore and bone. Limb by limb, organ by organ, Devin devoured it. The pale, elongated body disappeared piece by bloody piece into his expanding belly, erased completely from existence. No remains. No corpse for containment. Just the wet sounds of rending flesh and satisfied grunts echoing up to the chopper's microphones.
Minutes passed.
Devin straightened. The savage, feral haze in his eyes slowly receded. His body had healed completely, bones realigned, gashes sealed into faint scars, muscles knit whole and stronger than before. The grotesque bulge in his abdomen shrank as Stage Five finished processing its meal, converting the impossible into raw power.
He rose to his full height, rain sluicing over fresh, unmarred skin.
Then he tilted his head back and unleashed a deep, primordial howl that rolled across the ruined town like thunder made flesh. It carried for miles, low, resonant, and utterly terrifying. A sound that promised there were worse things than SCP-096 now walking the earth.
The few remaining civilians still hiding in basements or behind overturned cars clutched their ears and wept. Children screamed. Survivors who had barely escaped the battle felt their blood run cold, knowing the nightmare wasn't over.
It had only changed its shape.
Elsewhere in the deep forest..
The forest had swallowed the sounds of the town.
Rain drummed steadily against pine branches, washing ash and dust from the leaves. The deeper Lira had gone, the quieter everything became.
She sat with her back against a large moss-covered boulder, knees drawn close, listening as the howl reached her.. She then began listening with her mind, she suspected that he may have won so she let her telepathy expand cautiously, brushing against the scattered thoughts of frightened civilians and first responders still fleeing the outskirts of town. She avoided looking through anyone's eyes for long, gathering only fragments from their minds..
...it's over...
...that thing was eaten ...
...I saw the wolf thing eating eat ...
...run before he comes here and eats us too. ...
Lira opened her eyes, a bit stunned..
Then.
A small, relieved laugh escaped her before she sighed, letting the back of her head rest against the cool stone.
"...You actually did it."
The tension she'd been carrying since Devin told her to run finally loosened.
Closing her eyes again, she focused.
Instead of searching, she sent.
A gentle pulse of thought spread through the rain-soaked forest.
Devin...
I'm here.
Follow my voice.
She repeated it, careful not to push too hard.
Not a command.
Just a beacon.
Back with Devin.
I froze.
There.
A faint tug brushed against the edge of my thoughts.
Not instinct.
Not scent.
Lira.
I blinked once, then couldn't help smiling.
"So that's where you are.. .."
The mental call came again.
Clearer this time.
My nose caught her scent a heartbeat later, rain having carried it through the trees.
Without another glance toward the ruined town behind me, I broke into a sprint.
The forest blurred.
Mud splashed beneath my feet as I weaved effortlessly between ancient trunks. Branches bent aside as I passed, the rain steadily washing away soot, dirt, and the last traces of the night's battle from my fur.
The storm had become strangely comforting.
Cold.
Clean.
Alive.
The further I ran, the stronger the familiar scent became.
Then...
I saw her.
Curled against the boulder exactly where the mental trail ended.
She looked up the instant I stepped into the clearing.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Relief crossed her face so quickly she couldn't hide it.
"You came back."
I gave a small nod.
"Told you I would."
She stood and hurried over, stopping just in front of me.
"...Are you .. okay?"
I glanced down at myself.
The rain had washed most of the grime away. My breathing had settled, and the worst of my injuries had already faded beneath steadily healing skin.
"I've been better," I admitted as I stretched out, flexing my arms.
She let out a breath that sounded suspiciously close to a laugh.
"I was expecting that answer."
The rain continued to fall between the trees.
For the first time since they had escaped containment, there were no alarms.
No helicopters overhead.
No shouting.
Just the sound of the storm and two fugitives standing in a quiet clearing.
Lira looked back toward the distant glow on the horizon where the town lay beyond the forest.
"They're going to come looking for us again."
" yeah, They will, they always do those pests ."
"And they'll probably bring something worse."
I met her gaze.
"Then we keep moving until we figure something out ."
She nodded.
"...Together?"
A faint smile crossed my face.
"Together."
Without another word, they turned away from the distant lights and disappeared deeper into the rain-soaked wilderness, knowing the brief silence around them was only the calm before the next pursuit.