He thought the statue would move faster than it did. It gave him a chance to feel the concrete creature turn to flesh, which was as grotesque as it sounded. It moved under his fingers, and it wasn't the most pleasant thing Ian had ever experienced. Then the odd dampness became more apparent. Ian instinctually wanted to open his eyes. It took forceful though to keep them shut, because of the hindrance looking would cause to his investigation. Even without sight, however, he could take an educated guess at what the liquid was from the eerie metallic smell that had suddenly intensified.

Blood. Definitely blood.

The liquid was surprisingly warm as it dripped through his fingers, and more pieces of the puzzle in Ian's mind slid into place.

"So I was right then..." the Scotsman thought to himself. It was indeed the statue which was bleeding.

The creature squirmed and shifted in his grip. And as Ian was starting to relax, or at least starting to calm down, the SCP wrenched its appendages out of Ian's grip before retreating out of the range of his reach. Ian's hands hovered out where the creature had just been. He took a moment to recover from the minor heart attack he had just had, coughing slightly, in a suppressed sort of way, as his body had once aging frozen up.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked around the room, his heart thumping away, in anticipation of another jump scare. The statue had moved to the opposite side of the room and was now in the corner left of the door. Its back was to the wall and it was facing Ian. He looked at his out-stretched hands and was immediately hit with the urge to wipe the blood off of them. The liquid had coated his hands and had pooled into the creases on them.

He barely hesitated in dropping to the ground, rubbing the palm of his hands as thoroughly as he could against the concrete ground. The thought of the ichor on his hands caused his arms to start shaking, and the nauseated feeling returned. The feeling of the cold, dry concrete against his skin, removing the blood from his person, was more than a little relieving.

When he was satisfied that his hands were clean, his mind refocused. The brunet almost jumped when he realized the SCP had been unobserved for at least twenty seconds, before finally looking up to the statue.

Strangely, it had remained in the corner, with both its mouths now firmly closed. It still didn't move, even when he blinked, rather inadvisably. There were fresh bloody scrape marks on the floor leading towards the statue. Slowly Ian stood up again, stopping momentarily to think about the next stage of his plan.

He had nothing. Mostly because he didn't expect to still be alive at this point.

Looking over at the statue, he picked up the cleaning trolley in his peripheral vision, which was sitting, abandoned, in the middle off the room. He walked over to it, carefully trying not to look at the corpse sitting nearby, and searched it idly. He was still trying to remind himself that he hadn't been brutally murdered and that he needed to get out of this room somehow (although being outside didn't sound to be a very happy idea either, given the distant alarms and suspiciously gun-like explosions he could hear). His thought was that maybe there was something on the cart that would help, though Ian doubted it.

A dull scraping echoed from behind him, around the large room. Ian turned around to see the statue has drifted from its previous spot, slightly towards him. Rather strangely, instead of facing him straight on, it was at a slight angle to him. It brought to mind someone who was sneaking over to look at something that wasn't their business. Alternatively, maybe it was just really bad at sneaking.

Either way, the Last D-class didn't really want it getting close again, since he had actually managed to ward it off in the first place. With his chest vibrating a little harder for a short moment, Ian lifted his hand up and pointed his finger at the creature. He narrowed his eyes with pseudo-aggression, his brow knotting together, making the hairs in his eyebrows furrow.

The look was an attempt to silently say "back off." He really hoped it would work. He blinked, to find that it hadn't. The statue was still there, staring at the door, its lips almost looked pursed. At least it hadn't gotten closer.

Still feeling a little threatened, Ian closed his eyes and took three intent-full steps towards it. His back was straight, and his chest was puffed out. He almost could have looked aggressive, if his arms hadn't be reaching forward, waving slightly as he tried not to overbalance as he stumbled blindly forth.

Perhaps Ian managed to display his feelings telepathically, because there was another grinding sound. The statue has moved back to its corner by the time Ian had opened his eyes.

"I can't believe that actually worked." He stopped and thought to himself. Turning back to walk bemusedly back to the trolley, his searching continued. After about a minute, he found something promising.

It was a small drawer in the side of the trolley with the words 'Emergency supplies' stamped into it. Unfortunately, it was locked. It crosses Ian's mind that this was not the best idea for something that might need to be opened in a hurry. It almost negated its own purpose.

Now, Ian was not expert in lock picking, but he understood how it worked, to some degree. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of metal wire, which he had found on the floor of his room, rather conveniently. He put a small bend in the very end of it before slotting it into the lock on the drawer.

Again, deep scratching betrayed the movement of the statue. Glancing back, it stopped, needless to say, but this time a blink sent 173 back to the corner.

The amateur thief tested each of the tumblers and raked along the inside of the lock until he had herd several satisfying clicks. He then took the exposed end of the wire and bent it around to form a makeshift handle to turn the lock and open the door. By some miracle the wire didn't break and Ian slid the drawer open. Its movement was smooth, well-oiled and quiet, and it made a soft clink upon opening fully. The quality of the apparatus may have been high, but its contents weren't particularly startling.

The drawer held a torch, extra batteries, a spare keycard (with very little clearance), a bottle of pills labeled 'Class-A sedatives' and pen knife. Nothing which could obviously be used to either exit the room or make it more hospitable. He sighed and allowed himself to lean over the trolley, rather heavily. He pressed his palms against the smooth surface of the top of the cart.

There was more scraping behind him, but at this point Ian's adrenalin levels had long since peaked and were starting to drop. He was almost exhausted. So he just let the statue bumble around behind him, knocking at the door, probably trying to move to another corner from the sounds of things.

Feeling deflated at the horrendous nature of his entire situation, the scot flopped lazily across the top surface of the trolley, clambering onto it slightly, lifting his left leg over to rest on the top of it, so he could lie down. It was rather warm at one end because of the hot water still held in it.

With this, he thought to himself "How on earth did I get here?" with the question being answered by rather too much self-loathing. The statue had started making more noise in the background. It sounded like it was having a fight with the metal door, which was squeaking and squawking. He rooted for it a little.

After a few minutes, he got quite uncomfortable lying on the hard, small surface. He felt like an overweight cat trying to sleep on a window ledge. He pushed himself up to sit on it, his legs straddling the sides, as if it were an oddly shaped horse.

Pushing the broom out of the way, which was still sitting in the drawer of water, Ian took another look at 173. It was now at the other corner of the door, facing it. There were more bloody marks on the floor. But this time there was something different. The blood was also trickling down the door, running along the folds in the corrugated door, before dribbling down the doorframe on to the floor, where a small puddle was forming.

There was a strange tingling in Ian's palms as he thought about where it came from. It was then the brunet had a thought. Again, it was rather dumb, but he was on a bit of a roll and with nothing but the alarms in the room beyond this one to focus on he was starting to get a headache. He leap off the trolley, swinging one leg over and pushing himself of to land, upright, on his feet. He skidded back round to the other side of the cart, and riffled through the open emergency drawer again.

Ian found the pen knife again and held its small black case between his thumb and finders. Lifting it to his face, he started opening up the miniature tools one after another. A small knife. Surprisingly enough, a bottle opener and a cork screw. A can opener. A slightly larger knife. A very sharp knife. A nail file. And a pair of scissors. It was only small, more a pair of nail clippers than actual scissors, but they were sharp, and scissors where scissors and it was the best thing he had.

He turned around to face that startled statue, gripping the open pen knife in his right hand. The D-class slowly, and with a somewhat reckless level of relaxation, made his way over to the statue, unzipping his orange jumpsuit as he went. He had covered just over half the distance between the two of them when he blinked, like the fool he was, having forgotten the implications. The SCP took the opportunity to shuffle away along the wall, away from Ian.

First he jumped a little, then scoffed at his own stupidity, trying not to let on that he had just had another minor heart attack. He spun on the spot throwing his arms behind his head and signing. When he looked back, the statue was further away. It was now sitting in the back corner, its hands pressed pointedly against the wall. Although from the looks of things the blood had stopped. Or at least it had stopped being visible.

Ian readjusted his trajectory, making expressly sure that he didn't blink OR look away from the statue.

He stopped a few meters in front of the SCP and took his arms out of his jump suit, picking up the left arm once it was empty. He used the tiny scissors to cut the sleeve off at the shoulder. The pen knife struggles with this but eventually he made it through the two layers of fabric. Occasionally 173 would shift or try to move, but it could find a way of doing so without getting close to Ian. Now it was the one stuck in the corner.

Now that he had a reasonable amount of fabric, Ian began the arduous task of cutting it into strips. The scissors spiraled around the fabric from one end to the other. It was painfully slow, and half way through Ian got sick of trying to hold the fabric and cutting it as the same time, so he sat down, cross legged, where he had been standing.

Finally, he had one long strip of cloth. He straightened it out, and folded it across itself. Finding the middle, he cut in half to make two strips. With his sleeve sufficiently cannibalized, he put the pen knife back in his pocket before stretching his arms and spine. It was fascinating how much stress could build up in ones' muscles from only ten minutes of sitting stock still, on a concrete floor. He carefully, and very slowly, lifted himself off the floor, which cause his head to spin regardless of the speed he took the action at.

Now was probably the time to remind himself about his surroundings. The alarms where still going outside the room, but at least he had been distracted. Some of them had even stopped, thankfully. The statue had stopped moving entirely, and no longer appeared to be attempting to escape. Whether that was out of fear or acceptance that he could do nothing if the strange man wanted to touch him again, Ian couldn't say. The trolley was still there, but the Scott imagined the water in it would be lukewarm at most by now. This meant the D-classes perch would be a disappointing body temperature.

Ian twisted around on the spot, turning his back to loosen it, and reaching his arms around his body. First to the left, he felt several satisfying cracks. Then to the right, less this time. He yawned, and dropped the fabric strips which crumpled into a pile, then followed them to the ground again. He stretched out his legs, wiggling his feet and flexing his knees, before pulled his right leg closer to him and carefully, he slipped off the cheap standard plimsoll shoe that adorned it. This allowed him to access a rather long grey sock, ugly but practical. He quickly pulled it off, then repeated this method for the other foot, throwing his shoes aside as he did so. Ian examined his baggy socks before picking up the orange strips.

Surprisingly they weren't sweaty and gross, despite the highly stressful circumstances. It must have been something in the evil corporation brand detergent which made them 100% sweat resistant

Standing again, he delicately hopped from foot to foot as his feet adjusted to the cold floor, in the absence of his shoes and socks. Slowly, he stepped forward, towards the SCP, keeping his footsteps light so as small an amount of his foot touched the cold ground as possible. Once again, he reached the touching distance of the statue, so he began shuffling the items in his hands so that one of the fabric strips was held between both his hands and everything else was in his pockets.

The Scotsman took a deep breath and extended his arms into the statues own frozen reach, holding the strip of fabric over its wrist-area. Lowering it, the fabric caught on the concrete stump. The strip lost tension as Ian let go of one end. He started winding the other end around the statues arm, focusing first on covering the loose end tightly so the binding wouldn't come off. This was his plan, finally moving forward, albeit very slowly.

It was simple, really. The blood on the floor had been there from the beginning, and Ian knew that it could only belong to the only living thing in the room, SCP-173. He had then discovered the cause of the bloody stains when the statue started to move. It wasn't consistent or constant, but it was regular enough. The only logical reason for this was that the SCP was injured and bleeding. So Ian, being the kind and generous (and otherwise unoccupied) soul he was, decided to help it, as the rest of this foundation place did not seem intent on doing so, either out of ignorance on the creatures health or out of lack of caring.

Ian tried to work as quickly as possible, blinking each of his eyes alternately so his patient wouldn't scuttle away. When the makeshift bandage had been wound around twenty or so times, the Scot tied if on firmly and examined his work. He took an extra moment to massage the creatures now covered limb, smoothing the fabric comfortably before moving onto its next arm.

10 slightly nervous minutes later, after he was done with that he lowered himself to his knees, heaving a sigh. Holding one of his socks in both hands, he was feeling rather weary but he was half way done so he wasn't stopping now. With his left hand behind the statue's left leg, Ian blew out a deep breath forcefully and once again closed his eyes.

Its skin felt almost like it was turning to silk beneath his touch and Ian couldn't help but appreciate how soft it was. There was clearly a supporting structure buried somewhere beneath the skin, but there were no obvious muscles. Its body was padded out by what appeared to be fat, but which was held, without folding or sagging, by the soft epidermis. The creature's joints had loosened up now, and so he eased its leg up and felt how it shifted its weight onto its other leg. The way it started tipping over, leaning sideways, it must have started leaning on the wall. It almost felt like it would fall over, perhaps because one doesn't expect a statue to be pliant enough to balance itself. Ian lifted one of his knees so his foot could rest flat on the ground, just in case he needed a little stability when he dived out of the way when the thing finally toppled.

Ian moved the cotton sock around in his hand and carefully slid it onto the stump of the statue's leg. The Scotsman pulled the repurposed sock up 173's leg and was surprised at how well it fit. Not too tight, not too loose. It wouldn't leave little teeth masks on the statues supple flesh. He lowered its foot to the floor again, partly aided by gravity, partly by the owner of the baseless leg.

Feeling much calmer, and even a little safer in the situation, Ian let out another few breaths, releasing the reigns of his breathing, which he had been carefully monitoring just in case he breathed to hard. He didn't fancy startling the stone behemoth. While his hands where free, Ian ran them roughly back and forth through his hair, before scooping up the other sock of the ground and stretching them out and continuing on.

More touching and shifting ensued, until finally he was able to stand up and straighten his spine again. The resulting backward stretch rewarded him with another, pressure relieving pop from his spine. Satisfied that it was substantial enough, he opened his lips a little revealing a small portion of his smile, pushing off of his raised knee to stand slowly.

Both of its mouths were open again, which at this distance allowed Ian to see the damp tongues in each of its mouths. While its lips where parted, they weren't open wide enough to tighten its face into an angry grimace. Its lower mouth almost mirrored the D-classes, the corners of which were turned up as if it was smiling too. Although much like Ian it was a rather forced smile, and whether this was because it was copying Ian or because it was also suffering from a slightly pained back was indistinguishable.

"Ok... a bit odd but... maybe that's not a bad sign... for a moving statue" Ian thought as he viewed the SCP. He pivoted his aching neck, turning his head to glance at the metal door which was apparently non-functioning. He huffed and shrugged. "I might as well make the most of this" The Scot reached back into his pocket and retrieved the small multi-tool again. He flipped out the scissor tool and flexed it a few times to remove the stray fibers from between the small blades.

Flopping to the ground again he lazily crossed his legs and began cutting away at his other sleeve. He let his eyes lose focus ad he worked lazily. Because he wasn't particularly worried about his fellow room occupant anymore, he blinked without worry. This allowed some movement on the part of the statue, which would have been more bothersome but for the lack of scrapping and grinding. If the addition of the socks had no other affect than muffling the noise then it was worth it. This time, Ian got bored of cutting halfway through the sleeve, so he cut his losses, and the long strip, leaving him with strip of fabric 30 centimeter long, more or less.

Ian grabbed his folded legs by the knees and stretched himself back, closing his eyes and enjoying the change in posture. He stretched his neck to look up at the ceiling, and was startled to find that when he opened his eyes he was disturbingly close to the statue who was behind him, leaning towards him ever so slightly. As he looked up at it, it looked back down, its head tipped forward. He showed the SCP a slightly nervous smile. Sitting up straight again he tightened the cross in his legs and placed his hands on the ground. He lifted his body, spinning it around to face the statue before pushing himself a little farther from it. When he was settled he leaned forward to snatch up the length of cloth he had left behind. Hesitating very little, it didn't take long for his eyes to be covered tightly by the cloth which was tied in a knot behind his head.