The Unknown Child

Prologue

MTF Officer 9's POV

We walked through the thick woods, me and my team had separated looking for SCP [REDACTED]. Though it was dark out, I could still see due to the night vision goggles. I held my gun ready to shoot anything abnormal, but then I heard something, it sounded like a cry, I couldn't tell what kind, like if it was a cry for help, a happy cry or what.

So I went to go check it out, aiming my gun in front of me, ready to encase whatever it was could have been hostile. I heard the cry getting louder the closer I got, then I could tell the cry was not just a single cry but crying, sobbing even.

I readied my gun as I got closer, I moved a bush that had hidden the sobbing creature. When I moved it to the side to see the creature, I just got hit with a crazy amount of straight-up confusion cause what I saw was a small child.

The child was curled up, their side against a tree, their hands covered their face as they sobbed in their tiny hands, their hair was short, messy and I couldn't tell the color but I'm pretty sure it was black, their skin was multi colored, I had forgot what they call that caused patches in the coloration of the skin.

The child looked up from their hands, fear in their eyes as they looked me up and down analyzing my uniform most likely, I saw their eyes, they were bright purple, "strange" I thought to myself as I inched closer to the child, putting my gun on my back to somewhat hide it from the child as to not scared the already scared kid.

I crouched down to the child, I noticed how the child was only in a large T-shirt, their legs to their chest as they tried moving away from, I put my hands up, showing I mean no harm to them, they looked up with confusion, I closer and them having their back to the tree, they moved over a little, cornering themselves with the tree and a bush next to it.

"It's ok, I'm going to get you out of here, it's not safe" I told the child, they turned their head like a dog or a cat when they are confused, I thought about how to explain to a child without having to use amnestics.

"There's a monster out here, I want to keep you safe from it" I somewhat explained to the child, holding out my hand waiting for the child to grab it, they hesitated for a bit, but they soon grabbed my hand, I could feel the dirt from the ground on their hand.

I helped the kid up. They wobbled a little, telling me that they were here for a bit before I found them. But when they walked away from the tree and bush, I noticed that there was something I hadn't seen before. The child had what looked like a tail attached to them.

The tail was lizard-liked with black shiny scales. Obviously, I knew they weren't human, fully at lease, so i decided then and there I needed to take them in. That is my job. So, as the child was looking straight forward, almost completely ignoring me, since they were ignoring me, I quietly grabbed a tranq dart, I had in case we had a change of plans.

Once I had the tranq dart in my hand, the one opposite to the one the kid was holding, I quickly became with a plan to inject them and execute it, I grabbed the kid by their shoulder and pulled them in front of me, I then put them in a choke hold, they straggled and tried to get away from me, understandably.

Once I got a good shot of the neck vain, I went for it and shot the dart right into their neck and held it there, their straggle slowed down, I could feel them starting to get weaker in their straggle, soon enough they passed out, falling against me.

I picked up the child bridal style, holding their tail in my left hand, aka the hand under their knees, I started walking back to the meet-up spot, next to where the helicopter. "I'm on my way back to the helicopter, and I have an anomaly with me, and no, it's not the one we were hunting." I radioed in to my team.