"Why is this happening?!"

Vladimir Aleksandr Abramov clutched his hair, crouched under a table as the screech of bending metal and heavy footsteps reverberated through the room.

This was impossible.

Any Glassheart escaping containment should not have happened. There were layers upon layers of safeguards in place. Suppression fields. Redundant systems. Environmental dampeners designed to reduce their abilities to something negligible.

On paper, it was flawless.

And yet, here it was.

An unforeseen situation that threatened to undo everything he had built. Not just the project, but his career. His reputation. Years of advancement reduced to tragedy in a single afternoon.

"No… no, this shouldn't be happening—Eek!"

Rumble——

Another crash shook the room. Dust fell from the ceiling as something massive passed just beyond the door.

Someone screamed. The sound cut off abruptly.

Abramov pressed himself lower. If the board found out. If the government intervened. If even a glimpse of the truth came out.

It would be over.

Abramov peeked out from beneath the table to see if it was safe to relocate.

"...."

His blood ran cold.

Two golden eyes stared back at him.

SCP-213.

The Glassheart, whose limbs he had mutilated again and again, only to force their regeneration each time. Day after day, all in the name of data.

The restraints were gone.

The mangled scars that once marked its body had vanished, replaced by smooth, newly formed flesh.

Abramov's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

———!

Tentacles burst forth in a blur of motion, coiling around his leg with a force that yanked him forward. He hit the floor hard, breath knocked from his lungs as the creature loomed over him.

Its head split open, peeling back to reveal a gaping maw lined with crystalline fangs and stretching wide enough to swallow him whole.

"Fuck!"

Crystal scales spread across Abramov's arm in waves. The transformation tore through flesh as the crystal pushed outward, reshaping bone and muscle alike.

The scales hardened in an instant, forming a brutal edge.

Abramov swung.

The crystal limb broke through the tentacle wrapped around his leg and severed it cleanly. The creature recoiled, shrieking as the grip loosened.

Abramov moved free, dragging himself backward as trails of blood left his wake.

He staggered to his feet, clutching his transformed arm before reshaping it back to flesh.

It had been a long time since he had been forced to use his own Glassheart abilities.

SCP-213 recovered quickly, already beginning to regenerate. Its golden eyes never left Abramov.

Abramov turned and ran.

Behind him, the creature followed.

By his estimation, at least five or six Glasshearts were now roaming freely through the facility, having successfully escaped containment. The rest were still locked down, for now.

It was only a matter of time before that changed as well.

This was undeniably a failure.

And with it, Vladimir Aleksandr Abramov's days were numbered.

Perhaps it was time to abandon this identity altogether. It was a shame. Abramov had intended to complete his objective by 2158, to wrap everything up before returning to Germany.

But things never went as planned.

The alarms wailed on, echoing through Zima-12 as Abramov disappeared into the collapsing corridors.

"Eek!"

A hulking silhouette loomed ahead. Abramov paused and immediately turned the other way.

He could not die here.

Not before securing the fruits of his work.

His breathing was ragged as he ran. His mind calculated faster than his legs, sorting through possible shortcuts.

The core data vault. The prototypes. The samples that had not yet been logged into the main system.

If Zima-12 was lost, then at least something had to survive.

Another crash shook the corridor behind him. Metal screamed as something massive tore through a wall, but Abramov did not look back. He turned sharply into a narrow access hall, slamming his palm against a concealed panel.

The door hissed open.

He slipped inside and sealed it shut just as a heavy impact struck from the other side, denting the alloy inward. The lights flickered overhead.

Abramov leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.

"Just a little longer," he muttered. "I didn't come this far for nothing."

Not after what he had endured in Germany's concentration camps.

Abramov had surrendered himself voluntarily for the chance to get close enough to steal what could not be taken by force. The Glassheart files were among the most restricted assets Germany possessed, locked away where only the camps had the authority to experiment.

He had endured years there.

Years of torture. Years of degradation. Years of having his own body treated as material, all for the sake of learning how Glasshearts were broken and rebuilt.

All for the sake of stealing a single viable sample.

And when he finally had it, when he finally managed to escape, he fled across borders and oceans, abandoning one identity after another until he reached the USSR. There, he reclaimed the name Vladimir Aleksandr Abramov.

Zima-12 was supposed to be the culmination of that sacrifice.

He pressed his palm against the wall.

He would not let it end here.

[Access Granted.]

The retinal scan was completed. Machines whirred as hidden mechanisms engaged. A hiss of pressurized steam filled the chamber, with cold vapor spilling out as the compartment slowly opened.

From within, a single vial emerged.

Abramov stared at it, its neon glow reflecting in his eyes.

It was years of work. Years of sacrifice. Every compromise he had made under watchful eyes in Zima-12 had been for this moment alone.

Abramov reached out and took it with trembling fingers.

It was only half of the expected product. He understood the risk the moment he saw it, but he would not leave empty-handed.

Outside, the alarms continued to scream. But with the vial secured, Abramov turned away from the vault, already mapping his escape in his mind.

Zima-12 could burn, as long as this survived.

When it finally seemed safe enough to leave, Abramov bolted from the chamber immediately.

A co-worker lay pinned under fallen debris. Blood pooled beneath his body as he reached out weakly.

"P-Professor Abramov," the man gasped. "P-Please… help me…"

Abramov slowed for a second.

Their eyes met.

"I can't move… it hurts… please…"

Abramov looked down at him.

The man's eyes were wide with fear, reaching out in desperate hope.

"How the tables have turned.

It was a familiar sight.

A sight Abramov had seen countless times from the other side.

How Glasshearts once pleaded to humans.

"Go die."

Now, a Glassheart looked down at a human.

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