I know I'm not allowed to tell you this, but my name is Daniel Tombs. I'm designated D-Class Number D-276 by the SCP Foundation. What is the foundation, you ask? I've got absolutely no idea, all I know is that if I run through their tests, I'll be given the freedom I desire. I once was a Death Row inmate (no, I won't tell you why, but I will tell you that it wasn't my fault), but the foundation offered me and several hundred of my other fellow inmates the chance at freedom if we wanted it. They said all we had to do was run through several possibly life-endangering tests for exactly one month. Of course most of us agreed, we were all going to be put to death anyway, might as well try for a shot at life.
I awoke to my second day as D-276 in my completely white room. To my immediate right was a surprisingly well-kept sink and toilet, and in front of me was a steel door without a window, preventing me from leaving my cell. I lifted myself out of my cot and rinsed my face in the sink to wake myself up. Yesterday was just a day of orientation for me and the rest of the inmates, teaching us the rules and procedures, how we'll be treated, and the like. Every morning they would blare an alarm at eight A.M. and allow us one hour to wake up and get ready for the next twelve hours of testing. Once the clock hit nine P.M. We were sent back to our cells and allowed one hour to wind down before they would shut the lights out and force us to bed at ten. I wasted my time just sitting in my cot, rubbing my eyes and thinking about just exactly what kind of tests I'd be subjected to do.
Nine came by and, like clockwork, two armed guards stepped into my cell pointing their rifles at me. Both were wearing bullet-proof vests and masks so we couldn't identify them. On their vests were the letters "N.T.F." but the agents of the foundation failed to explain to us what those letters meant.
"Alright 276," One of them spat at me underneath his mask, "Your first test requires traveling off Site-F and into the city. Hands behind your back."
I knew this procedure, it's one of the ones that the foundation researchers and agents drilled into us for hours yesterday. I turned around and held out my hands as best as I could for them, allowing them to cuff me and slip a thick black bag over my head so I couldn't see where I was going. Surprisingly enough, the guards were no where near as bad as the ones on Death Row, they held no contempt for us inmates and at times even spoke as if they pitied us. Just how horrible were these tests?
I'm not going to bother you with the boring details, but they loaded me and what seemed like five other D-Class inmates into a large van without windows in the back before taking off our hoods. I recognized no one around me, so I decided to keep quiet. The others probably felt the same way and just seemed to keep to themselves. The D-Class across from me looked like his entire body was covered in tattoos (as much as I could see from the skin his orange jumpsuit allowed to show, anyway) and he was very, very large in stature. The nameplate on his jumpsuit read "D-766" and he did not look happy to be here. He kept his eyes to the floor of the van and permanently wore a scowl over his face. I think at some point one of the others actually did try to talk with him, but he simply shrugged off their words and let out an angry grunt. A generic prison type, I suppose. Or maybe he knew what was next?
Sure enough, the van had stopped and guards piled into the back to help us up and out of it. What surprised me was the fact that they didn't actually put the black hoods back on us, perhaps they figured it didn't matter now that we were here, I don't really know. Once my eyes got adjusted to the blinding outside light after being adjusted to the darkness of the van, I took a long look at my surroundings as they lined us up and checked our persons for foreign objects. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they drove us all the way to Hollywood, because around me were six gigantic studios adorned with posters advertising up-and-coming new movies and T.V. Shows. Something about this place definitely told me that it had hidden secrets. Constantly crawling around this place were agents in suits and armed N.T.F. guards, and if that wasn't weird enough, there was also crates and drawers full of even more guns waiting to be picked up and prepped.
After they were done frisking the six of us they led us to the studio marked "Studio 3" above the large, garage door-like entrance. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, I told myself that I didn't even know what I was going to be doing and that I should relax. Once I got my heart rate back to normal, someone in a lab coat approached us and stood between us and the entrance to what would might become my worst nightmare.
"Alright, listen up D-Class." The woman cleared her throat and adjusted her thick glasses, "You are about to enter SCP-024-"
SCP? I thought to myself. Isn't that the moniker they give to the objects we'll be testing with? I didn't realize that it would be an entire building...
"And here are your instructions. Upon entry, SCP-024, you will be asked to participate in a 'game' of sorts. You are required to say yes, after which you must do whatever you are asked of without any form of deviation. Failure to do so will result in immediate termination, understand?" She cleared her throat again as all of us solemnly nodded our heads in recognition of what she told us.
"Alright, let the test begin."
The scientist woman opened the entrance to the studio and the N.T.F. guards ushered us into the facility. Once all six of us were in, the guards shut the door behind us, not following us inside to our surprise. I took a look around, but everything was pitch-black around us except for a small circle at the entrance, as if there were a spotlight pointed our direction.
"Welcome, new contestants!" I nearly jumped off the ground in fright from the sudden voice that came through an intercom somewhere nearby. It was a male voice, and it seemed fairly scratchy, as if the man took a try at gargling rocks at some point in his life, "Welcome to the amazing game show, 'Volcano of Doom'!" The voice announced cheerily, all of us still shaking our surprise off. "Where everyone will compete for fabulous prizes, but only one will walk away the victor!" Suddenly, the voice took on a much more serious tone, "However, I must warn you six that this game will have you overtaking some extreme and real hazards, and the losers will never see the outside world again."
"What!?" Someone next to me shouted out, his nameplate read D-120. "Are you serious? There's no way I'd join in this shit!" And to this the voice let out a sigh of sadness,
"You may choose not to participate, but you are not allowed to ever return to this place! If you wish to leave, please say so now."
Of course D-120 raised his hand and shouted out his disinterest in participating again. After his sentence finished he just... vanished. Like he was never there to begin with. I just witnessed a man disappear! What the hell is this place!? I shouted in my head, but I knew the cost of disobeying our orders, and I didn't think that doing this would be as bad as being gunned down on the spot by all those guards outside. The rest of us must have had the same thought, because we all just stood there silently.
"Perfect!" The announcer cheered, happy once again. "Then without further adieu, let the Volcano of Doom begin! Here's your first of three obstacles, gentlemen!" As he finished his words more spotlights lit up the area in front of us. What stood before me really made me rethink my choice earlier about being gunned down. The lights shone down on a very thin, about one foot wide, forty feet long wooden bridge with no handrails. Below it of course seemed to be a large drop, but it wasn't the drop down that scared me, it was what was after the drop.
"How the hell did you get real lava in this place!" I shouted upwards, hoping the voice would hear me over the incessant bubbling of the lava that I'm really surprised we didn't hear before. The faces of my four other compatriots matched mine pretty closely.
The voice responded to me, but not with the answer I was looking for. "That's a little secret of mine, buddy! Now, to the task at hand, please!" He cried out in some sick kind of delight, "All you five have to do is cross this bridge! If you fall down, face the lava! However..." I knew there would be some kind of extra gimmick the this, it's a "Game Show" of course. "If you cross the bridge in the slowest time, you'll lose your chance at the prizes and your chance at life!"
What a sickening way to put it, I thought to myself, scowling. It seemed like the other swallowed their fear before me and lines up at the bridge, ready to go. After a few moments I joined them in that line, biting hard on my lip from how nervous I was. The bubbling and slurping of the lava below me didn't make me feel any better about doing this.
First up was a relatively small man whose moniker was D-452. He took tentative steps onto the bridge, gently tapping his toes in front of him with each movement to test the stability of that particular plank. Even under his measly weight the bridge creaked and swayed a little, each time it moved D-452 stuck his arms out like an airplane to keep the insane amount of balance this obstacle required from us. He made it about twenty feet out, the most unstable part of the bridge, before he made a serious error in judgment. He forgot to tap on the plank in front of him with his toes and it immediately splintered and broke under his weight, causing his thigh to be trapped between the other two planks. Instinctively, the man started to panic, and flail his arms, causing the bridge to suspend him upside down, and of course, gravity did the rest of the work for this maniacal announcer. Time slowed down as I watched D-452 plunge into the lava below, his screams burned into my brain as I watched his skin melt off due to the heat of the liquid he submerged into. For some reason I couldn't pull my eyes away, even as he begged and pleaded for help as the lava finally ate away his jaw so far he could no longer scream. The life faded from his eyes and his entire body was swallowed up by the hungry stream, never to be seen again by us.
D-766, who happened to be in front of me, turned to the side and clutched his mouth and stomach, which I guess meant he was trying not to vomit. As for me, I just stood there in shock, not sure how to comprehend what I had just been forced to witness by my own eyes. And for a time, I think I even forced myself to forget about what happened in order to keep myself going forward.
"What an amazing try! Better luck never D-452!" The announcer shouted out with a twisted amount of cheer in his voice. In the background of the stage I actually heard laughter and clapping at his sick joke.
Was there people who were actually watching this!? I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes for a moment, waiting for my turn to come. I turned around and for a moment I contemplated running away from this hell, but what greeted my eyes stopped that thought in it's tracks. Behind me stood a man even larger than D-766 who was dressed in some kind of Hawaiian getup with a cheap looking mask that was supposed to look like it was fire. His very being there intimidated me enough, but he pointed his finger forward and spoke "Eyes ahead" to me in almost a growling tone. I nodded and quickly turned myself about out of pure fear of what the man would do to me if I didn't obey. Something about him didn't seem entirely human, but I'm not sure what it was.
Apparently I spent longer than I thought looking away from what was going on. Everyone ahead of me had already gone and were waiting for me to go on the other side. Oh god, how fast did they do that? Will I make it in time? Will I even make it at all? These thoughts flooded my mind with doubt, but I managed to get myself to shove it all down and press forward. The rest of what happened on that bridge was honestly a blur, but I made it across with my life somehow, and now we were all eyeing each other, wondering who got the slowest time and what would even happen to that person who was too slow.
"Congratulations on making it across the lava bridge, gentlemen! Shame the same couldn't be said for your unfortunate friend." The voice tried to make itself sound sad for the second sentence, but we could hear the happy tone in it's voice. It wanted us to lose. It wanted to make a spectacle of us losing. "Now it's time for the moment you've all been waiting for, just who did that the slowest! Who's the loser among the winners? Let's find out, ladies and gentlemen!" A roar of cheering and clapping began to sound through the studio.
My breathing began to quicken, I felt like I was doing that too slowly, but there was no way I could tell if I compared to the others' times because I wasn't paying attention to what was happening. I cursed myself for turning away when the voice spoke up again.
"Alright, after double-checking the times, we have our loser!" I could almost feel that voice smiling what I'm sure was a twisted smile with broken teeth. "D-012!" It cried out, and without hesitation, guards who looked extremely similar to the one I encountered closed in on the man the announcer called. The guards and the man vanished in a puff of sulfur-smelling smoke. I wasn't really surprised to see that at this point, something about this place was just plain wrong. The creepiest thing about that, however, was that D-012 just kind of lowered his head and accepted his fate. He didn't cry out or beg for mercy. He just took his loss like a man, and that's what scared me about that encounter.
D-766 cheered out in relief that it wasn't him and our other comrade, D-424, did the same. I didn't cheer or even feel relieved, I knew it would only get worse from here. The voice told us that it was deeply saddened that there were only three of us left, and that it would have to skip to the final event for the sake of seeing a winner among us. It lit up a path in front of us and as we walked down it, I started to let my mind wander.
Just what's going on here? What is the Foundation doing with a place like this? Why are they forcing us to run through it like rats in a deadly maze? Why am I constantly getting the feeling like if I lose I'll be sucked into another world? All these questions and yet I couldn't come up with a single answer no matter how hard I tried. I knew that I wouldn't be able to ask anyone about this, being a D-Class really restricts your privileges inside the foundation itself, and asking questions is not one you get to have.
Us three were instructed to get inside a large glass cylinder with what looked like fans beneath it. We did so reluctantly, afraid of what might happen once we got inside.
"Now it's time to test your endurance in this final trial!" The familiar voice piped up again, "How long can you survive the heat of an approaching volcano's eruption I wonder?"
Just then it clicked for me what was going to happen next, that damned voice was going to cook us until there were just one standing. The fans were there to distribute the heat, and the glass was so that it would insulate it to make it even worse. Would there even be a winner from this?
"We're going to start at 105 degrees Fahrenheit and every minute we're going to crank it five more degrees until there's only one standing! Ready? Go!" Before we even have a moment to brace ourselves the fans begin to spin, bringing up an insane increase in heat, the sudden change in temperature making me lightheaded, not to mention that much heat already began to ebb at my already stressed body. The others seem to be taking this kind of heat a lot better than I am, however, as they seem to be perfectly fine to me. They might just be putting on a tough act, though, I'm not sure. A couple of minutes pass by and I watch D-424 drop to his stomach, his body spamming. He's more than likely suffering from heatstroke. He locked eyes with me as this was happening, seemingly begging me personally to end his torment and let him out from here, but heat exhaustion was beginning to take it's toll and I could barely move my own body, let alone help anyone. I basically watched another man burn to death as another minute passed, cranking up the heat further.
I looked over to D-766, seeing that the heat was finally getting to him as my vision started to blur. My body was drenched in sweat and it looked like the only other one standing was in the same condition. The heat was getting so bad I couldn't think straight, sweat dropped into my eyes and dripped down from hands and even made a small puddle around me. I knelt down in it, no longer to hold myself up in this heat and I swear to God that I could hear my blood starting to boil. D-424 was long dead at this point, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and it looked like his skin was starting to flake, as if it were baking. I don't know how long it had been at this point, I was no longer able to count the minutes or even the seconds. All I know was that I have never been so close to death, and it was such an excruciating amount of pain I prayed to God and begged him to let death come swiftly to me, I wished I had chosen to get gunned down, I wished I never let the Foundation take me from Death Row, I would've preferred anything to this pain. I was barely able to lift my head to witness the man in front of me finally fall down to his face on the floor, bloody scratches all over his face as if he had clawed himself from just how much pain he was experiencing. The life was clearly gone from his eyes and it suddenly struck me that I was the final person standing in the hellhole.
I think I heard the announcer cry out something, but I couldn't tell what he said from the delusion I was in. The rest really seemed to blur together from there. But I think some guards came in and helped me out of the container before I too, succumbed to the extreme heat I was subject to. My senses finally came back to me when I was drenched in cool water.
"Congratulations, Daniel! You're our sole winner! You have completed the Volcano of Doom!" Even as he said these words, I didn't feel like I won, I felt like I was the true loser in all of this and I think a small part of me still wished that I had gotten shot down by guards instead of being put through that awful experience.
But wait, how did it know my name? It strictly referred to use by our D-Class numbers up until now. I honestly didn't think to hard on how or why it learned my real name, I simply reasoned that it was part of this place's odd properties.
Before I could contemplate any further, I was handed a large golden trophy that was shaped like a volcano and a small briefcase which was explained to contain fifty thousand dollars in U.S. currency. I knew I wouldn't be allowed to keep either of these things, so even receiving them didn't make me feel like any more of a winner, and instead more like I was just being used for somebody's sick form of entertainment. The guards escorted me out back the way I came and waiting for me there were several N.T.F. guys and Foundation Agents.
They questioned me about my experience, about what I saw and what happened. It traumatized me so much that it got really hard to really relay everything that occurred. Once they realized that they wouldn't really get anything out of me anymore, they ushered me back into the van. Just before I climbed back into the van, one of the agents patted me on the back.
"Congratulations on surviving your first day, it only gets worse from here."
With my head in my hands it was long, lonely ride back to the Foundation.