Children of the Raven (English Version)

The plague doctor:

felt it, the unmistakable sensation of the pestilence. It was impossibly small, but unimaginably intense, like a needle in his eye. It was faint, but pungent, as though the disease had been festering undisturbed in containment for so long that its miasma had built and wafted out, enough for him to taste the scant particles of tainted air.

He had lost track of time in his cell. Doctors had used to come, and bring him specimens to study, to perfect his methods. That had ended long, long ago, when the doctors had realized that they themselves weren't free from disease.

Still, after that, they had still checked on him. The voice would come out of his walls and ask him questions, about what he was doing or how he was feeling, or if he had any regrets for what he'd done.

Regrets.

The thought was as foolish as any he'd ever heard.

Still, even that, too, had faded in time. The voices, long ago, had stopped. And he had been content to rest in this pristine cell, away from the wretched disease, alone with his thoughts. In the constant soft white light that bathed his cell, the doctor reclined himself on a comfortable mattress. Eventually, perhaps, he would have stopped thinking.

But that had been before that familiar, detestable presence had returned, burning at his mind. He found himself standing before the door to his cell, studying it. It had no handle, opened when his captors ordered it.

While the lights had remained functional, the electromagnetic lock had not. His bag contained steel tools, and he did not understand how to relent. It took a tremendous amount of doing, but he got it open a crack, wide enough to put his weight into it. He didn't know how long it took to widen it enough to pass through; he didn't really register the passage of time anymore.

Then, he was in a hallway. Well-lit, and devoid of any other life, all the easier to navigate. He followed the stinging sensation of the disease, navigating the corridors as though he'd drawn up the floorplan. The lights were all functional, all of the other containment chambers still sealed.

At last he found it, behind an unlocked door, within a locked metal locker. His containment cell door had been made of much sterner stuff. In short order the door lay twisted at his feet. He pulled a rectangular metal box from the locker, studying it intently. His finger found a button, pressed it, and the box's lid swung open. Supercooled, preservative gasses mingled with the air outside the box for the first time in a long, long time.

He might as well have been struck in the face. Vapor, colder than ice, wafted in a great cloud from the unsealed box, and he dropped it to the floor with a clatter, which echoed throughout the silent facility. He steeled himself, kneeling down, lifting the face-down box aside, and gingerly plucked the tiny black speck from beneath it with his index finger and thumb. Behind his mask, he grit his teeth, and held the mosquito up to his eye.

It wasn't the insect - it was the sac of blood which the creature had engorged on. The upturned metal box became his operating table, black bag slamming unceremoniously to the ground. His hands dove inside, withdrawing an empty brass syringe, and a vial of thick, black fluid. The needle plunged through the cork stopper, filling the glass cylinder halfway with the viscous pitch.

The needle withdrew, then pierced the engorged mosquito's body, withdrawing the plagued blood within it to mix with the black medicine in his syringe. He left the insect's dry husk on the box, bringing the syringe level with his eyes. He shook it, tapping the glass with his finger to encourage the reaction. He considered the dead husk of the insect still before him. It wouldn't do to let any lingering trace of the pestilence remain in the poor creature.

When he was satisfied with the mixture, the needle found the insect's bloodsac again, filling its tiny body with the cold, black mixture.

Dr. Hamm was nervous while the security guards leave the mysterious plague doctor in the room with him. For the very first time he saw one of the creepy SCP creatures. Has he read the minutes and files? Dr. Hamm regretted that he had quickly scanned SCP 049's notes five minutes before the "meeting". Now I have been given full responsibility for one of the creatures! And that as a newbie! The echoing voice of SCP 049 made him shudder. But the creature spoke to him in a foreign language. Is this...? 

Dr. Hamm turned to his colleague, who was about to write something down on his clipboard: "Is that French? We need a translator!" "The King's English!" began the plague doctor. "No need for translation, sir, I can speak it well enough."  Interesting, interesting! Thought the scientist and took a closer look at the SCP. At first glance, he looked like a person in a traditional plague doctor costume with a silver-gray beak mask.

"Good. My name is Dr. Raymond Hamm, and I-" "Ah! A doctor!" interrupted the SCP: "A like-minded individual, no doubt. Wherein is your speciality, sir?" "Cryptobiology, why-"

The Plague doctor began to laugh with relief: "A medical man, such as myself. Wonders abound! And here I worried I had been abducted by common street thugs!" he looks around. "This place, then. This is your laboratory? I had wondered, as clean as it is, and with such little trace of the Pestilence here."
"The Pestilence? What do you mean?" asked the scientist.
"The Scourge!" answered the SCP. "The Great Dying. Come now, you know, the, uh..." The plague doctor nervously rubbed his hands, which made slight rustling noises through the black gloves: "Fortunately, I am very close. It is my duty in life to rid the world of it, you see. The Cure To End All Cures!"
"When you say "The Great Dying", are you talking about the bubonic plague?"
The plague doctor hesitated about it what Dr. Hamm just made more nervous. An unsettling silence spread through the room and nothing could be heard except of the heavy breathing of 049.
He looks away: "I don't know what that is."
"I see!" Confirmed the scientist and made a note. "Right, well, the entities our agents encountered at that house, they were dead when you encountered them, yes? And you reanimated them?"
"Hrmm, in a manner of speaking" the masked man answered. "You see things too simply, doctor! Expand your horizons. Life and death,sickness and health, these are amateur terms for amateur physicians. There is only one ailment that exists in the world of men, and that is the Pestilence. And nothing else! Make no mistake, they were very ill, all of them."
"You think you cured those people?" asked Dr. Hamm.
The answer came like a shot: "Indeed. My cure is most effective."
"The things we recovered were not human." commented the scientist, observing SCP 049's reaction.
Again there was an unsettling silence in the room, the plague doctor looked at Dr. Hamm with piercing gray eyes he stared at his interrogator for a short time, but then he said: "Yes, well, it is not a perfect cure. But that will come with time. And further experimentation! I have spent a lifetime developing my methods, Dr. Hamm, and will spend a lifetime more, if necessary. Now, we have wasted too much time. There is work to do! I will require a laboratory of my own, one where I can continue my research unimpeded. And assistants, of course, though I can provide those on my own, in time."
"I don't think our organization will be willing to-" replied Dr. Hamm truthfully.
"Nonsense. We are all men of science. Fetch your coat and show me to my quarters, doctor. Our work begins now!"