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Why does it end here?

Special Containment Procedures

Description

Addendum: Incident 7701-R9

Interviewed: Sabina Lisnic

Interviewer: Agent Sturza

[Translated from Romanian.]

[BEGIN LOG]

[Sturza enters Lisnic's hospital room, where she is being kept under observation.]

Sturza: How are you feeling today?

Lisnic: Like I've been stabbed. Who are you?

Sturza: My name is Dr. Tchmil. I'm here to ask you some questions, if you're feeling up to it.

Lisnic: What sort of questions?

Sturza: Nothing you have to answer if you don't want to.

Lisnic:[Pause.] Okay.

[Sturza sits beside Lisnic's hospital bed.]

Sturza: How do you feel right now? Emotionally, I mean.

Lisnic: I don't know… I feel hollow, I think. Like everything inside me has been scooped out with a ladle.[Lisnic laughs humorlessly.] Could be the pain medication talking, though.

Sturza: Do you feel the urge to harm yourself?

Lisnic: No.

Sturza: Do you know why you harmed yourself three days ago?

Lisnic: You want to know why I attempted suicide.

Sturza: Yes.

Lisnic: I did it because it's what I do.

Sturza: What do you mean by that?

Lisnic: It means what it means. Trying and failing to kill myself is what I do. Coming here to ask me questions is what you do. There is nothing else.

Sturza:[Pause.] Are you trying to say that this all was inevitable? Did you expect you'd be stopped by your roommate?

Lisnic: Expectations have nothing to do with it. There is only what I do.

Sturza: Okay. Can you tell me how you were feeling in the days before you attempted suicide?

Lisnic: Normal, I suppose. I'd been seeing things, though.

Sturza: You were hallucinating?

Lisnic: No. Hallucinations are a sort of fiction— what I was seeing wasn't fake. It was real. More real than anything else.

Sturza: What were you seeing?

Lisnic: Only little glimpses of things. The borders. I saw curtains in my room, one morning— but they weren't my curtains. They were red and velvet and deeper than the sea. I knew if I touched them I'd be swallowed whole. Another morning, I was the only one who noticed when they turned on the sun a few minutes late. Technical difficulties, you understand. Backstage.

Sturza: I see.

Lisnic: Once, I saw my roommate sitting in our living room, weeping. She was really sobbing, with big fat tears rolling down her face, snot dribbling from her nose, her shoulders shaking like an earthquake. But she was completely silent. It seemed almost… mechanical. I didn't understand why until a week later, when her fiancé broke up with her— I saw her cry in the exact same way. The exact same tears. It was then when I realized she'd beenpracticing, before. Like a dress rehearsal.

Sturza: Have you seen anything else that felt "extra-real?"

Lisnic: Yes.

Sturza:[Pause.] Will you tell me?

Lisnic: No. It isn't what I do.

Sturza: It is if you choose to.

Lisnic: You don't understand. That's okay— helping you understand is what I do.

Sturza: I'm listening.

Lisnic: My doctor left his clipboard on the counter over there. Read it.

[Sturza stands and retrieves the clipboard, which holds a copy of Lisnic's medical files. The last page appears to have been torn out. Flipping through it, it becomes apparent that a detailed transcript of Agent Sturza’s day, starting from when he woke up that morning, has been printed on the backs of the documents.]

[The final line of the last available page is: “Why does it end here?”]

Sturza:[Softly.] What thefuck?[Speaking normally.] Did you do this?

Lisnic: I'm not part of the props department.

[Sturza scans the transcript, flipping through it several times.]

Sturza: Why does it end here?

[The ground begins shaking.]

Sturza: Sabina. Why does the script end here? What do you need me to understand?

[Lights flicker.]

Sturza: Sabina!

[Lisnic draws an ornate dagger from beneath the hospital bed's blanket.]

Lisnic: With this, our tribute, we pay in full.

Sturza: Wait—!

[Sturza moves to stop Lisnic but isn't fast enough; she drives the blade into her stomach. Lisnic grits her teeth as red stains her bedsheets and drips down her chin.]

Lisnic: With this, our blood—

[Lisnic wrenches the blade to the side, grunting with exertion. Tearing flesh is audible.]

Lisnic: —it is the Hanged King’s.

[Sturza retches.]

Sturza: Oh,god.

[SCP-7701-C erupts from the floor in an explosion of shattered ceramic and splintered wood. It writhes in the light, glistening and tumescent. Its skinless faces are a rictus of euphoric agony. It sings.]

Sturza: Fuck!

[Sturza draws his concealed service pistol and aims at SCP-7701-C— but does not fire. He winces, clutching his head with his other hand.]

Sturza: W-what is this… sound?

[As SCP-7701-C continues to sing, Sturza falls to his knees, his gun clattering to the ground as he cradles his head.]

Sturza: It’s…beautiful. I never knew. God, I neverknew.

[Sturza curls into himself, hands fisting in his hair as SCP-7701-C looms over him, its maw dripping with viscous fluid. His head abruptly jerks to the side, as though waking from a dream.]

Sturza: No! I don’t… these aren’t my words! These aren’t my—

[SCP-7701-C devours Agent Sturza. Lisnic breathes in short, shallow gasps. Her forehead sheens with sweat and her teeth are scarlet.]

Lisnic:[Hoarsely.] With… with this…

[Weakly clutching the dagger’s pommel with both hands, Lisnic holds it before her, its tip pointed at her chest. SCP-7701-C stills.]

Lisnic: With this blade, I give all that I am.

[Lisnic’s trembling fingers tighten on the pommel.]

Lisnic: It is yours.

[SCP-7701-C tears into Lisnic in the exact moment that the dagger plunges into her heart. Wet sounds and crunches are audible as it consumes her. Several moments later, it rises from her overturned bed, turning to face its leering audience. It bows, then exits stage right.]

[The curtain falls.]

[END OF SCENE]