I climbed down the ladder quickly before pulling out my gun. I had an advantage when it came to range, and I planned to exploit it. I turned the corner of the flight command tower, aiming my firearm toward where the man was, catching him in my sights.

“Easy there. Care to explain why you’re here?”

The mysterious man put his hands up slowly. “I’m here to fix this mess.”

I didn’t waver and held my hands firmly on the pistol. “Is that so? Who sent you?”

The man stepped a bit closer before answering. “The foundation.” He lowered one of his hands slowly, tapping a foundation badge on his chest. “May I ask who you are?”

I scoffed a little. “Just your average immortal researcher trying to figure out what happened to his colleagues.” I lowered the gun finally but kept my guard up just in case. “Tell me your name.”

The man shook his head softly. “I don’t really have one. You can call me Hatchet. You?”

I snickered a little. “Hatchet, all right. Name’s Bacon. Pleasure.” I stretched out a hand for him to take, and he did. “Pleasure.”

I took Hatchet inside and showed him the place. He didn’t seem to be familiar with the layout, so it took some time explaining. I took us back to the foyer and we sat down at one of the waiting tables.

“So, before you arrived, I was chasing down this looter whom I shot. They locked me into SCP-079's containment cell with no way for me to get out.”

Hatchet looked concerned at my words. “How did you get out then?”

I sighed. “I had to plug 079 into the main power network. It’s already embedded in all the TV’s so there’s really no stopping it now.”

Hatchet looked away from me again. “Well, as long as we can exploit off of SCP-079, it’s no real harm having it in the facility. He might even help us unlock doors we can’t access.”

Yeah, he certainly could do that. “We should try to find the survivor you shot. They might be of help, if they cooperate.”

I nodded. “After shooting them I wouldn’t really have my hopes up, but you know. Let bygones be bygones, I guess.”

We got up from the seats and began following the blood trail snaking along the floor.

“Shoot it! Shoot it, God damn it!”

An SCP-610 instance had gotten its hands around Hatchet’s neck, trying to pry off his helmet and armor. It was using him as a human shield so I couldn’t get a clear shot.

“Turn around, move or something! I can’t shoot, I'll hit you!”

Hatchet gasped for air as one of the fleshy tendrils tightened around his neck. He flexed his spine, trying to pull the 610 off his back. He didn’t succeed in shaking the anomaly, but he gave me a clear shot.

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I pulled the trigger on my pistol and watched as the flesh lit aflame, starting at the spot I shot the bullet, and quickly spread across the anomalies’ entire body. Hatchet squirmed his way out of the grasp of the burning anomaly as its tendrils were weakened from the fire.

The lump of flesh sunk to the floor, burning like some sort of living bonfire. Hatchet made his way over to me, leaning on a railing to catch his breath. “Thank- *Cough* Thank you. I would’ve been a goner if it wasn’t for you.”

I pet him on the back. “You would have done the same for me. Now come, we need to find the survivor.” Hatchet held up a hand, signaling me to remain where I stood. He was still desperately gasping for air and said nothing.

“Okay, I get it. We can take a little break.”

I decided to go through the remaining ammo I had for my pistol. I had 2 incendiary rounds and 2 FMJ rounds left. It wasn’t much, but it would do.

I decided to spend the downtime going over some of the adjacent rooms, looking for anything we could use. The rooms were just janitorial and some electrical maintenance though, and I found nothing of particular interest. There was a very strange container filled with some weird purple goo in the janitor’s closet though, and I decided to keep a hold of it. Who knows when you might need a container of weird purple goo.

When I stepped out of the janitor’s closet again, it seemed that Hatchet was looking a little less exhausted and ready to go again. “Did you find anything?”

I shrugged. “Just this weird flask of purple goo. Do you know anything about it?”

Hatchet glanced at the material and, despite him wearing a helmet, I could tell he was wide-eyed looking at it. “That’s... Hume. I didn’t think it still existed.”

“Hume? What’s it used for?” I asked with some curiosity.

Hatchet went over to me, grabbing the flask. “This stuff warps gravity in a very destructive way. Coat your melee weaponry in it, and it will warp whatever you hit in a most deadly manner.”

I hummed in intrigue. “Neat!”

We didn’t encounter any more SCP-610 anomalies during our search for the survivor. Eventually we came to a peculiar sight, however. The blood splats we had been following eventually lead to an airlock going out to the outside of site 113. Safe to say it was a mighty strange sight. If the survivor wanted to go outside, they could have used any other airlock further back down the facility.

“I don’t trust this. It’s probably a trap where they’re trying to lead us astray and hit us when we’re most vulnerable... outside.”

I shrugged. “If you say so. I don’t need to worry about life-or-death stakes, you can stay here if you feel like it, I guess.”

Hatchet nodded. “Yeah, you go ahead and go first. If you return with your head blown off, I'll know it was a trap.”

I shrugged again. “Alright. See you in a few.”

I pressed some buttons on the airlock and got into a spacesuit yet again.

“Depressurization in 5 seconds.”

The airlock cycled the air back inside the facility, creating a vacuum inside itself. The outside doors opened with a hiss, and I stepped outside.

The blood splatters continued off toward the hangar. Most peculiar. I followed the droplets until I came to a corner of the facility where it suddenly stopped. I looked back at Hatchet which was still standing on the other side of the airlock, peeking through the glass.

I waved to him, when I suddenly heard a click coming from beneath me. I looked down and I immediately began sweating cold. That was a landmine.

As soon as the realization hit me, it went off.

I didn’t have time to shield myself or anything, and the explosion propelled me into the air. The lower gravity made me practically go flying.

There was shrapnel embedded everywhere in my suit. A huge chunk of metal had sliced clean through my visor, and the wound was leaking air profusely. The shard didn’t simply stop upon contact with my visor however, and I felt that the sharp shard of metal had embedded itself right into the bridge of my nose, barely avoiding both my eyes.

I couldn’t see it through the cracked glass of my space suit, but my leg had been blown clean off.

Maybe 4, 5 seconds later, I hit the orange sand of mars with a soft thud. I took one last gasp of air as my vision began fading and I fell unconscious.

Looks like it was a trap after all.