Running out of time

Part 11 - A secondary character, or the main one?

Location: Site-██, Egypt; Cain's story

Date:5th-6th April 2022

Your POV:
It took us five hours and thirty minutes to read everything but it didn’t mean we would have the same amount of time inside the story. From Cain’s calculations we found out, that if one of us entered the story at the beginning, they would be forced to find a way out of it within one hour and ten minutes. Neither of us wanted to risk being trapped in there, but somebody had to go, and we have decided to roll a dice to find out, who would become the volunteer for this mission.

Each one of us had a number assigned to us, and the one which would be rolled would be forced to go there. Iris had a number 1, Olivia number 2, Cain was third in the line, I had number 4, Myung-Ok number 5 and Abel took the last option which was 6. Because neither of us wanted to roll it, we asked an unsuspecting scientist to do this for us, and without hesitation he threw the dice on the floor.

Everyone held their breath while the dice was rolling, but most of us felt relieved when it finally revealed the volunteer. I said most of us, because the unlucky person was Abel, as the number 6 was drawn, and his facial expression was enough for us to understand, that he wasn’t satisfied with the result, but since everything was fair, he had no other choice but to accept this fate. However, he asked us to give him a bit more time before he would do it, because he wanted to take a rest, and even though we wanted to get this item as soon as possible, we agreed to that.

He went to his room and closed the door, while the rest of us wanted to find a way of bringing him back if something went wrong, but after thinking about it for fifteen minutes, we have decided to do the same thing and we went back to our rooms in order to fall asleep. I was a bit worried about Abel, but I knew that out of all of us, he had the vastest chance of coming back.

Abel’s POV:
I woke up in my bed and immidiately went to a bathroom to take a cold shower. When I was contained I barely ever had an opportunity to take it, and the only exception was time when I was serving in Pandora’s Box. Even now, a long time after the Incident Zero, I remember that time when for a brief moment, Foundation didn’t see me as a monster, but as a hero. My entire squad was willing to help me with securing the SCP-2000, but when I finally got to that flower and separated our reality from others, everyone forgot about it.

I decided to stop thinking about it and after leaving the shower, I went to the containment chamber of SCP-826, where I found my brother Cain waiting for me with his story lying on a table.

- Good morning Abel. – He said before grabbing the book and looking into my eyes. – Are you ready to step into the book and bring this hammer to us?

- I don’t have any other choice, do I? – I responded before grabbing the book and approaching the bookends with it. 

- Somebody has to do it after all, we need to try everything we can in order to save this world.

- Explain to me one more time Cain, what exactly am I supposed to do when I step into that world?

- You will find yourself next to a temple and you will see a group of people going inside to take the hammer for themselves. The building will be filled with traps, however I made a secret entrence just for you, and made sure nobody from the story will know about it. Instead of going straight through the main entrance, find the only oak tree in the area and stand next to it with your back turned to the temple.

- And that's it?

- Let me finish first! After that go fifteen steps forward, turn to your left side and make another twenty steps, where you will have to find a lever hidden in the dirt, which will open a secret door for you. There will be no traps in there, but you have to make sure to get the hammer before the group does it.