Loosely adapted from Horacio Quiroga's 'A la deriva'
The guard only felt a dull stinging pain in the tip of his right middle finger as his only warning. He looked towards the origin of the pain, drawing his hand closer to only reveal a little white spot, no bigger than a milimeter in diameter, on the tip of his finger.
It was obvious what it was for him, and slowly moved towards the exit, away from his post, trying very hard to not freak the fuck out. He looked back at the other stone-faced guard, and at the metallic plate reading "SCP-409". The man assumed that it was very likely that a grain of the crystal was caught in a sudden draft of air and hit his finger. When he opened the door and walked outside of the room, he looked again. The white spot grew five times it's size, clearly visible as a white shell in the tip of his middle finger; the pain increased, and he suddendly felt a shock of fulgurant pain running all the way up his wrist.
He already knew the procedure by heart: "Go to the Shakedown room, get decontaminated, get treated, profit". But in a flash of wisdom he realized that by 'decontamination' it actually meant 'termination' in this kind of cases. He ran as fast as he could towards the nearest first aid kit, nailed to a wall in one of the many hallways in the Site. He opened it, and with everything on hand, he pulled out his pistol and put its barrel against his middle finger, now half of it crystallized. With little resistance the man opened fire, his finger blown off by the impact.
As he felt the shot cutting his finger clean, and as he put alcohol in the stump in a desperate attempt to cure himself, he noticed between the bloated mass of red that was his hand that the white infection was spreading further and faster, and that no amputation would help him. His only hope of salvation was getting hold of a pill of SCP-500. The pain was now very noticeable, and every heartbeat felt like a stab wound in the lower arm.
With shady energy, he ran towards SCP-500's room, where another stone-faced guard blocked his path.
"You do not have clearance to enter this room."
"JOSEPH! IT'S ME!" Yelled the doomed man in pain, the crystallized gangrene already reaching his elbow.
"You cannot pass, Sean. I'm sorry. You need to go to the Shakedown room."
"NO! You know what happens to the people infected with 409. I MUST get the Panacea!"
"…I am so sorry."
"Fuck you, Joseph!" And with that, he ran away. He didn't have a specific direction to go to. Another flash of wisdom told him that he needed to be treated at the Infirmary, but the end was going to be the same. When the infection reached three-quarters of his arm, the pain was so unbearable that the man dropped to his knees, yelling in an unsustanciable amount of agony. There wasn't much to do, so he got up with extreme difficulty and walked towards the nearest door, limping in pain. As he opened it, he found himself in an office, where a single, bespectacled man in a labcoat was sitting in a chair, listening to Moonlight's Sonata while drinking a mug of coffee.
He instantly recognized the man. It was the administrator of the Site, Dr. Kondraki. Kondraki managed to remember his name once, and for that he was the closest thing to a helper at this desperate moment.
"Kon…Kondraki…"
The man only looked at him for a second, contemplating how his arm was now a deformed white block of quartz simile.
"Who the fuck are you? What are you doing in my office?"
"Kondraki… I need… the panacea…"
"You have three seconds to leave the goddamn office before I shoot you."
"Please…"
"Three."
And with that, the poor man was greeted by the Site's biggest asshole, and also greeted with the Site's biggest asshole's shot, which got him in the leg. The man didn't feel it, as the pain in his right arm was too excruciating for him to notice. He fell back, looking at the bare ceiling of Kondraki's office; and that's where he noticed that he was calmed. The pain was going away, and the man felt how he was recovering, slowly but steadily. He could not move his affected arm but he could say that everything was going back to normal.And with that sensation of well-being there was somnolency.
The man noticed half-conscious how footsteps could be heard from the distance, getting closer. Either Kondraki or the security cameras noticed his condition and people were sent in to retrieve him. He considered the latter to be more plausible. He barely noticed when he was picked up by a lot of hands, and he barely noticed Kondraki's voice telling the men to "Get this fuck out of his fucking office". His hanging head noticed the workers in Hazmat suits taking the man to the nearest Shakedown room. He really didn't even feel that he was dragged, more like being in the draft of a very soothing river. Screw this Lovecraftian foundation. Screw the crazy workers. He finally didn't care as he was finally in peace, recovering.
The man entertained himself counting the days since he last saw his former boss, Dr. Nizbit. 3 years? Nah, he didn't even worked for that long. 1 and a half years? Maybe. He wasn't sure. 6 months and a half? That was more like it.
Out of a sudden, he felt a sensation of cold. What would that be? And the breathing…
The pain was nothing more than a dull feeling. Pleasant, even.
He thought about Nizbit's boss, Dr. Jack Bright. He met him on Easter Friday the very year he got in the Foundation, in the Break Room. Friday? Yes, or Thursday…
The man slowly stretched the fingers of his left hand.
"Thursday…"
And he ceased breathing.