Site-81's Special Containment Wing was blazing with harsh lights, the air thick with the sterile tang of disinfectant and ozone. Cold, clinical, and ominous. My shoulder wound—bandaged under heavy bio-isolation dressings—throbbed. The medical report labeled it a "minor infection" but attached a lengthy warning about "potential unknown pathogen risks." I was ordered into a Level-5 isolation ward for seventy-two hours of observation. As the metal door clanged shut behind me, it felt like crossing an invisible boundary.
Below, the captured SCP-939 sat strapped in its reinforced transport cage, guided by robotic arms toward the subterranean containment chamber. Everything seemed routine—until, at the last moment, it snapped awake. Every dorsal eye-spot flared open as it unleashed a screech that rattled steel. With a single fanged swipe through the cage bars, it mauled a D-class technician's right arm, shredding it in an instant. Blood sprayed.
"Goddamn it!" Irene's voice crackled over the emergency channel. "Administer additional sedatives! Open fire!"
In the chaos, Irene noticed something new: the creature's eye-spots sparkled like gems—but there were more of them now, arranged in a bizarre, uneven pattern that hinted at some hidden geometry.
Meanwhile, Zach's fingers flew over the holo-keyboard before him. On his display, the spectrogram of the anomalous audio signal—captured back in Pinewood—flickered and finally froze on a perplexing mathematical pattern.
"Captain, Irene," he buzzed in over the intercom, excitement and dread entwined in his tone, "I'm almost certain that signal's origin lies deep beneath Pinewood. Its structure… it isn't random beast calls. It's encoded instruction. I've decoded a fragment—and it mirrors the brood-or-nest commands of certain insects. I fear—other SCP-939 may be operating under this 'program.'"
In an adjacent isolation room, Thomas's condition deteriorated. The dark red filaments creeping across his left arm had reached his shoulder; the veins writhed like twisted worms beneath the skin. He raved incoherently, eyes unfocused, whispering a single phrase over and over:
"Red… the world is born…"
The lead physician signed the risk waiver: prepare experimental phage therapy, codename "Purifying Fire."
Containment specialists ran remote scans and physical probes on our restless prisoner. What they found chilled them to the bone: deep within its muscle, countless microscopic red crystals—identical in composition to the shard recovered from the Pinewood mine, but far denser—embedded like parasitic seeds. Under electrical stimulation, they pulsed with faint, rhythmic energy.
"Like… parasitic seeds," muttered a veteran specialist at the microscope.
Though confined, my mind raced. I tapped into the encrypted operational channel:
"Director, the subterranean infrastructure in Pinewood is far more complex than anticipated. I recommend immediate dual-mode chemical and thermal sterilization of the underground network. Lambda-5 survivors can provide tactical support."
The Foundation's terse reply crackled back:
"Captain Falcon, your recommendation is noted. However, O5 directive remains: prioritize in vivo study of the captured SCP-939 variant—designated 'SCP-939-B.' We must ascertain its full potential."
The bureaucratic finality tightened my chest.
Irene volunteered to conduct a non-invasive biopsy and neural scan on the contained subject under maximum protection. Her findings were unprecedented: this variant lacked a centralized brain. Instead, it possessed a primal yet hyper-efficient distributed neural network spanning its entire body.
"That may explain their superior intelligence and coordination," she noted in her report. "They may share a collective—or multiple—distributed consciousness."
Late that night, Site-81's power grid flickered inexplicably. In the containment cell, the suppressor field sagged by five percent. Simultaneously, my isolation ward's monitor speakers burst to life with a little girl's sobbing—identical to my daughter's cries of hurt, matching her exact rhythm and inflection.
I bolted upright.
On the surveillance feed, the sedated SCP-939 sat motionless, its gem-like eye-spots fixed on the camera. It stared straight into the lens—as if it knew I was watching.
Thomas's experimental treatment showed early promise. The filaments in his arm had halted their spread, confined to a stable patch; his fever broke. Yet analysis of his blood revealed a novel, unusually complex antibody.
"That could be key to fighting the infection," the attending physician admitted—but in the next breath warned, "Or it might represent… a deeper, hidden phase of the infection."
After hours of delicate work, the variant finally succumbed to cold, drifting into stasis within its cryo-chamber. Blue mist curled around it as its vitals plummeted. Containment was momentarily achieved.
I lay back against my isolation cot and finished my mission report, detailing these 939-B anomalies' atypical predatory behaviors, their alarming discipline, and the unmistakable signs of collective awareness. At the end, I wrote:
Recommendation: Classify this variant as SCP-939-B.
The higher-ups approved my proposal almost immediately.
In the dead of night, silence reigned—until I snapped awake with a start. My injured shoulder tingled unnaturally. In the gloom, the wound's edges glowed faintly, like specks of starlight.
Worse, an alien chorus of thoughts surged uncontrollably into my mind. Not mimicry—genuine memories and emotions. It was the imprisoned SCP-939-B's collective psyche: every fragment of fear, despair, and final anguish it had absorbed from its victims.
"Daddy… why… didn't you bring me home…"
My pupils constricted.
Hundreds of kilometers away, deep beneath Pinewood Town, that massive red crystal structure silently expanded in the dark. Satellite monitoring platforms issued an urgent alert: across a radius of hundreds of square kilometers around Pinewood, wildlife was exhibiting mass, inexplicable anomalous gatherings and aggressive behavior.
The storm was only beginning.