Bloodletting
rating: +31+x

September 7

I had a dream last night, something that doesn't happen to me very often at all. I laugh and joke about how I seem to have no imagination at all, but it really is odd that I haven't had one in over ten years now. I'm writing this down before I forget any of it.


I am a doctor, I think. I know it is me, even though I can see her face and I feel like I am watching from over her shoulder. It is a dark, moonless night, and the mountains and fields outside are covered in snow. The cold sinks straight into my bones as I get out of my car and head towards the small, run-down house where I have been called. The mother, a Hispanic woman, is crying frantically and trying to tell me something in nearly-incoherent Spanish. Her daughter is possessed by a demon, she says, and I notice the silver crucifix pendant she wears, possibly the only thing of value she owns.

Her daughter, a girl of maybe eight years of age, kneels in a pool of her own blood. She bleeds from every orifice, and she mouths obscenities that I know to be Latin even though I cannot understand her. But more than anything else, I notice her eyes. They are bloodshot, but even more than that her left eye is completely red, as if it were a clear orb filled with crimson. She laughs at me and I feel a chill deeper than the winter night outside run down my spine.

Time blurs. I know I cannot treat her here. I don't know that I can treat her at all, but I restrain her and wrestle her into my car before I drive off as fast as I dare on the slick, icy road. The blood is the key. It has to be. It flows within her, and it is corrupted. I know what must be done, but I don't know how I can possibly carry through with it. I know I have to get her to a hospital or something. Somewhere. Anywhere.

My heart skips a beat as I realize that I no longer know where I am. There is suddenly an impenetrable mist that surrounds us, and though I see the outline of mountains beyond them, I do not recognize the road I am on. I pull over to the shoulder and stop, turning to look at the girl on the seat behind me. She grins — an evil, toothy grin — and tells me that I cannot escape this nightmare. In that moment, however, I am filled with a grim clarity and I know what I have to do now.

Making sure that she is strapped down tightly, I pull out my tools and instruments. There is no time to actually collect it; I simply start a straight vein-to-vein transfusion between us. Then I slit her wrists. My blood is just enough to keep her alive. Just barely enough to sustain her as she bleeds out the corruption. Her screams echo across the frozen mountains for hours on end.


I woke up screaming and rushed to the bathroom, where I threw up into the toilet. I was still shaking when I finally managed to pull myself to my feet and I washed my face to try to shake off the chill of what I'd experienced. Several minutes passed before I could even manage to look at my reflection in the mirror.

That's when I noticed it.

My eye was bloodshot. But only my left eye.


Containment Team Note:

Document was recovered from the computer of Dr. Evelyn Winters and is dated approximately three (3) days before Incident ███-Zero.

As Dr. Winters is completely incoherent at this stage and we still have no known initial infection vector for SCP-███, we are continuing our investigation as planned.

Dr. █████████
Senior Observer

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