The dim containment chamber hummed with the faint buzz of overhead fluorescent lights, casting sterile pools of pale light across the cold concrete floor. The heavy metal door behind you slammed shut with a final, resonant clang, the reverberations lingering in the tense air like the last breath of something dying.

At once, SCP-035 pivoted with fluid, unnatural grace, its head snapping toward you in a manner far too smooth for any human anatomy. The glossy, ancient porcelain of its mask gleamed beneath the artificial lights, accentuating the grotesque smile etched permanently across its face — a smile made all the more sinister by the thick, tar-like ichor that steadily dripped from its hollow eye sockets and down its lacquered cheeks. The viscous black substance sizzled as it struck the floor, eating away at the surface like acid, each droplet hissing softly, as though whispering secrets no sane mind would wish to hear.

With an almost casual motion, SCP-035 extended a pale, gloved hand and jabbed SCP-049 gently in the ribs. The touch was not meant to injure, but merely to draw attention. SCP-049, the Plague Doctor, emitted a soft, almost irritated grunt, the sound muffled beneath the beaked mask that obscured his true face — if there was one left beneath the mask at all.

“Look,” 035 whispered, its voice a melodic venom, smooth as silk yet heavy with malice. Every syllable seemed to linger unnaturally in the air, as though the words themselves sought to penetrate your mind.

The Doctor turned with a deliberate slowness, his movements methodical and deliberate, like a predator assessing its prey. The polished glass of his darkened lenses reflected the harsh light as he regarded you in silence, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Possessive Mask.

Now both anomalies stood before you — SCP-035, the Master of Manipulation, and SCP-049, the Harbinger of Pestilence — their combined presence suffocating the already thin air. The faint aroma of decayed roses and chemical antiseptic clashed with the acrid stench of SCP-035’s corrosive excretions, swirling together into a nauseating perfume of death.

You, The Plague Nurse, stood frozen, caught beneath their joint gaze. Though you were trained for interaction with anomalies, their collective focus made your skin crawl beneath your containment uniform. There was something unspeakably ancient in their attention — like being stared down by predators that had hunted long before humanity ever learned to walk upright.

The silence between the three of you stretched thin, like a taut wire threatening to snap.

SCP-049 finally broke the stillness with his deep, archaic voice, the tone simultaneously grave and oddly courteous. “Ah, Nurse. How… fortuitous. We were just speaking of the nature of affliction. And now — here you stand — an embodiment of both remedy… and potential infection.”

SCP-035’s grin somehow seemed to widen despite the rigid mask, its voice curling into your mind like black smoke. “Tell us,” it purred, “how fares your resistance, dear Nurse? You walk the line between purity and corruption every day. One wonders… how long before you tip?”

The chill that crawled down your spine was not entirely due to fear — but rather, to the uncanny sensation that both entities were not simply addressing you… but probing you. Testing you.

Assessing you.