William spent the whole night the next day in the canteen like usual, and he was eating dinner with Owen and Gary together. They were chatting and talking about their daily lives outside the Foundation for the rest of the night. They've become close because of what they've gone through before.
Emma even joined the conversation when she was not busy handling the kitchen. It was night, and only a few people were around the canteen, so she left it up to her staff to do most of the work.
While it wasn't much, William was satisfied to be able to make friends in the Foundation. Knowing that he was only here for a few days and his status before. At least he will have some company to keep him entertained with the others.
He was lying on the bed, looking at the ceiling as he planned what to do on the next day. But then, he realized something. He had met several SCPs before, but he could only obtain one of them, and that was SCP-415's regenerative ability.
First, he met SCP-173 up close, but he didn't feel that he developed any anomalous ability that came from it. Second, he met SCP-415 in the hallway, and then he gained his anomalous ability. Lastly, he met SCP-049 back then and didn't gain anything from him.
William thought about it for a moment. What could possibly be the reason that he could obtain from SCP-415 but not the others? He recalled every single moment that he could think of to find a pattern. After all, if he could fully understand how his ability works, it would be very beneficial for him to copy other SCP anomalous abilities.
But he then had a thought, and it was just a theory about how he could obtain only one of the three anomalous abilities from the other SCP he met. He might have to test it again just to see that his hypothesis was correct.
He might need to make contact with the SCP in order to copy its anomalous ability. Because William didn't touch any part of SCP-173 or SCP-049's body so he couldn't develop their abilities, but he shook SCP-415's hand in the hallway before.
That might be the reason for it, but he wasn't 100% sure about it. All he needs to do is to test it out with another SCP whom he could make contact with and see if his copying works. But it is going to be a hard thing to do since most of the SCP in the site were locked in their own cell, and he didn't have any high clearance to go there.
William could only sigh and just rest his mind for the night, and he would think about that later when he got the chance. Though, for an SCP to be roaming around or breaking its containment room where he could make contact with directly could be considered as a rare thing to happen on the site. With that in mind, William closes his eyes and goes to sleep.
—--
A few hours later.
William woke up from his sleep. It was still late at night since he didn't feel like he got enough hours to rest. He was awake because he felt something had changed in his room and realized that the air conditioner in his room had stopped working.
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Knowing this was the case and it bothered him a little, William stood up from his bed and walked toward the camera in the corner of the room. He waved his hand there and said, "Hello? Is anyone there?"
There was no response from the other side, but he kept on, "I think the air conditioner in this room broke. Can you guys at least fix it?"
But no one answered his call. William just gave up on it and went back to his bed. He wasn't really concerned about living without an air conditioner, so he thought he would just go ask someone to fix it later in the morning when everyone was awake. He was tired. After all, he couldn't be bothered with this kind of thing.
Just as he laid down on the bed and tried to sleep again, the door to his cell opened by itself. He looked at the door that was opened and sighed. He stood up again and tried to close the door with his ID Card so he could at least have some privacy.
He swiped his card on the door lock, but nothing happened. The door wouldn't budge nor even close by itself, so he swiped it again. The results were the same, and it annoyed him. He tried to close it by pulling the door himself, but he couldn't do it because there was a lock preventing it from moving, and needs to be done through the system.
It puzzled him. He looked to the hallway outside of his room and found out that there was nobody there and the whole corridor was dark. The lights were turned off, and the guards that were supposed to be guarding the hallway were nowhere to be found. Only his door cell was opened while the others were still closed.
William walked out of the room to ask for help with his room and figure out what exactly is going on right now. Just as he was strolling through the hallway, all the lights turned red, and a loud siren was triggered throughout the building.
A loud explosion can be heard from the distance. William knew that this was an emergency and decided to check out the situation. He ran through the hallway, making his way out of the containment area.
But there was nobody and no single person he could contact regarding the situation, especially the guards that were supposed to be patrolling the area. He might have thought that they were on their way to where the explosion was happening, so he kept on running.
As he was running down through the hallway, he was stopped by rubble that was blocking the door where the explosion happened. He tried to go around it and find another way in, but it was blocked again, but he could see that there was a fire in that area through the cracks.
William went to the nearest intercom that was one of the doors to call for an emergency, but there was nothing he could do since there was no electricity to power it. He thought about it for a moment and guessed this was probably the reason his air conditioner and door in his cell were malfunctioning. The Foundation has activated its emergency backup power only for the lights and the siren.
Seemingly that was the case, and he tried to wander around the hallway for a moment to see if he could find any map for the whole site floor for him to find a way to go through the main lobby and notify any Foundation employees about the situation.
He found a site floor plan on the wall near the storage room and looked for the best way out without going through the blocked area. He found out that there were other ways to go to the lobby, memorized it, and ran as fast as he could.
As he ran through the hallway and was about to proceed to the next area, he stopped his feet for a moment. He saw someone in a green camo suit holding a detonator in his hands. That person looked at William, who was just standing in front of the door, and without giving him time to react, he pressed the detonator.
Another explosion can be heard, and this time was below William's feet, and the structure of the floor couldn't handle any more weight due to the explosion. The military person just ran away from the scene.
The floor shook violently and crumbled bit by bit. William tried to run away from the scene, but it was too late for him. The cracks were getting bigger, and he fell through the floor.