Ian and the two guards arrived outside the door to the testing area which opened up out of the smaller corridor they had been walking through. The metal padding on the walls dissipated, giving the room a different feel. Less evil lair, more evil warehouse. At least it didn't lose the evil. There was a metal door on the far wall, with a few warnings and signs posted next to it.
"Go in there and do everything you're told to and you'll probably be fine." The first guard ordered. Ian nodded sternly and walked towards the sturdy looking door... but he stopped in his tracks a meter from it.
Next to the door there was what appeared to be an information poster titled "SCP-173", and on it there was a picture of a... thing. It looked like a rather creepy statue. It had BIG, bright green, circular eyes. There were two mouths on its face, one which ran in a similar fashion to a normal mouth and the other which ran vertically where its nose should have been. Each was lined with sharp, jagged teeth. It had an oversized, round body and comparatively small arms and legs, which were rounded at the ends, leaving the statue with no hands or feet.
Its face seemed to be covered in something red... not blood but... spray paint? "That can't be right?" Ian thought to himself as he scanned the description of the statue. Even though it was a picture it certainly looked like spray paint to Ian, and his eyesight was impeccable, even if he did say so himself. As it turned out it was spray paint, and the statue seemed to have been constructed in the same way any other creepy bug eyed statue would be. If that was the case, why was it here, under armed guard? The thought that it might be a Banksy very briefly flickered across his mind.
Despite its obviously disturbing looks, this thing didn't scare him, it very much interested him. There was just something about it. Something that he connected with. Perhaps it was because they were both being kept in a strange place. The Scotsman was about to read on when-
"Get moving D-class!" Shouted the first guard cocking his gun. The second, less experienced guard followed suit, but took a few more seconds to ready his own fire arm. Ian lifted his hands slightly in submission and stepped forward towards the door, which opened by itself, before moving swiftly inside away from the gun wielding guards. The sheet of steel slid shut behind him as he walked on to stand next to two other D-class in the room, who had arrived before him and now stood on a clearly marked yellow line on the floor.
This new room was large, and made of slabs of solid concrete. There was a raised, keycard door, which lead out onto an equally raised catwalk. The guard stationed on it surveyed the three bellow. Ian didn't let himself forget that his raised position gave him a good vantage point from which to eliminate any disobedient prisoners. Opposite this catwalk there was a large metal panel of sturdy construction which took up almost a whole wall and that, by the looks of it, was some kind of door with a smaller, more recognizable, door set into it. Like the other doors to this room it looked incredibly durable if, a little worryingly, dented.
Ian looked over to the other two D-class. They both looked like they had served considerable time in prison. He could tell from the almost nonchalant way they stood around, even though they could be shot if they stepped too far out of line. As he looked at his fellow test subjects a voice, cold yet intelligent, rang over the intercom.
"D-537522, please retrieve the appropriate utensils provided for your assigned task from the storage area." The D-class in the middle, an older balding man to Ian's left, shifted and looked up to the guard on the catwalk, as if to confirm that it was him being referred to. He received a swift nod in return.
The D-class then moved over to the catwalk and stood just under it, in front of a silver door, which was inset into the dull grey wall and was lacking a handle. After waiting a few seconds the metal panel slid out of the way, revealing a small and darkened room. Moving into the container, the D-Class slowly backed out of the container with... a mop and a cleaner's trolley? The inmate wheeled the trolley back into the bright light provided by the caged bulbs suspended high above, to his original position on the line. It took the poor guy some effort, he had clearly not done this before. Ian had expected this to be some kind of experiment, not a summer job, spring cleaning an eccentrics sculpture.
The D-class then fumbled with a drawer, pulling it open with an oddly reduced speed. It turned out to be filled with steamy, soapy water which bubbled as the mop was moved from a rack on the trolley and dropped into it. D-15786 propped the handle of the mop on the cart and left it to stew.
As the inmates lined up again, the guard on the catwalk interacted with a panel on the wall and the large metal door began to rise, pulled upwards by, what Ian could assume, where some pretty badass pulleys.
His eyes followed the hefty metal wall. There was a gasp to his far left. He looked to the younger man, whose face was contorted in fear and confusion. Clearly he hadn't read the poster on the way in.
The door found its place embedded in the ceiling where it settled into silence once again. Despite his intrigue, Ian found himself fighting not to look. His curiosity got the better of him, and he looked.
It really did have big eyes. He suddenly felt like comparing himself to a cat, given the popular saying.
"D-class, please enter SCP-173's containment for cleaning." The heartless voice rang over the radio again. Ian stared mindlessly at the statue, his mind preoccupied with its odd appearance. He wondered what their instructor meant by 'containment' or 'cleaning'. Ian pondered this thoroughly, only bringing up more questions about the circumstances. His thoughts quickly boiled down to "Why contain a statue?". He continued puzzling as he stepped through the giant doorway.
"…and what would we possibly need to-". A shallow splat caught Ian's attention "… Clean up…?" he looked down to see what he had stepped in. In his mental absence, he had neglected to notice the pool of thick red blood. He leapt backwards, like a startled cat, out of the gore, and obsessively wiped his shoe on the concrete. His disgust and shock was interrupted, however.
"D-536424 and D-713239, please maintain direct eye contact with SCP-173 at all times and alert each other before blinking." The orders where odd, but Ian followed them. D-537522 began cleaning up a few other puddles of blood that seemed to have been… scraped through. Despite the entirely disturbing nature of what was going on, Ian had one new question that was truly pressing him.
The question was... whose blood was it? There were no bodies. If they had removed the bodies, then why didn't they clean up the blood? Ian thought about this as he carefully controlled his urge to blink, (he had been practicing in his room to see how long he could do it for) and he came to the only logical conclusion he could fathom from the odd circumstances.
The blood must be from this 'SCP-173'. It was an odd theory, certainly, but it was the best he had, and to him it made sense. It also lead to another new question, which was why was it bleeding?
As the D-class went about their jobs, the only door began to close. But as soon as the door touched the ground, there was a loud scrapping which seemed utterly out of place in this temple of silence and efficiently. The door shook and creaked before it began to open again. Apparently this wasn't supposed to happen.
The other two D-class looked up from their work to look at the malfunctioning door, but Ian didn't move and kept his eyes locked on the statue. When he realized that he was the only one looking, he could have yelped in gratitude for his newfound obsession with this statue. He would rather not be berated by the guards for failing at such a simple task.
"..Err... we seem to be having problems with the door... just... maintain eye contact with SCP-173 until we regain door control.". One of the D's turned swiftly back to the statue, while the other took a few moments more to ogle the wobbling door. Three pairs of eyes where fixed on the statue as the door juddered up and down. After a few moments of regularly interrupted silence, Ian noticed that the others had stopped saying when they needed to blink. In retrospect, he should have piped up about this, but the two other men where imposing, and being a man of few words and fewer assertions he didn't want to 'distract' the two scary men by criticizing them. So he held his eyes open and hoped for the best.
The door continued to shudder, occasionally taking a break to squeal at the occupants of its room. It took a few moments, but it closed and stayed still.
Then the lights flickered.
