Chapter Text
An occult amulet with thirteen diamonds in a starburst pattern and a blood red ruby in the center sat within the box he carried, resting atop a dark, soft velvet fabric. It glowed in a way that seemed otherworldly, a way that felt as if it was drawing him in. He’d seen this amulet only once before during the height of an argument with Mikell but never thought he’d be put in charge of carrying it to its containment. He sighed, still remembering the anger in the moment, how his throat had ached from yelling.
Jack placed the lid back on the shallow black box. He didn’t want to think about that right now, he just wanted to focus on what was important right now. He’d probably get drunk and cry later, maybe off his old moonshine recipe, who knows, who cares.
The amulet had been designated as SCP-963 after being found in the house of a woman who’d killed herself in an attempt to become immortal. Why anyone would want to be immortal, Jack had no idea. It was discovered to be indestructible so he figured it had that one thing going for it besides looking pretty. Maybe he could steal it and wear it around later, he thought with a small huff of a laugh.
His footsteps and his thoughts were his only company throughout the long walk to the containment area and he was loathing every second of it. He almost hoped to hear the annoying ringing of the breach alarm bell or even someone screaming in the distance by now, not caring if that meant someone was dying at this point.
He idly took note of the doors he passed on his walk, some anomalies he could remember, some he couldn’t. Maybe he’d revisit their files later, maybe he wouldn’t, he just needed something or anything to happen.
The familiar and alarming bell suddenly began to ring much like his ears whenever it went off, resulting in him dropping the amulet to cover his ears. He swore loudly but it was drowned out by the little hammer rapidly banging against the metal bell.
Once his ears didn’t feel like they’d explode, he reached down to pick the amulet up again. It had fallen out of its stupid little box when he’d dropped it, the velvet fabric crooked now. He knelt on the floor, fixing the fabric since he knew it’d piss him or someone else later.
Footsteps rushed up behind him and he turned around, thinking it was an MTF coming to tell him to evacuate or something. Amulet clutched in his hand, his eyes were instead met with a man with black hair, gray eyes, various tattoos, and a sword, which met with his stomach in an instant.
Jack cried out in pain, the sword slicing up his abdomen and into his chest, his body feeling as if it’d been set aflame, the amulet glowing brighter all the while.
In one moment, he saw the man smirk. In the next, he watched the man run off further down the hallway, the heavy feeling of the amulet gone from his hand and the burn fading. All he could think was about how dizzy he was, head aching like he’d collided with the ground at some point. Which didn’t make sense considering he knew damn well he was still standing.
MTF officers ran his way in pursuit of the escaped anomaly and he sighed.
“Hello! I think I have been stabbed and need medical attention!” Jack called out to them but there was no reaction.
Shrugging it off as them not hearing him over the bell, he called out again, louder this time, “I have been stabbed by that anomaly! I require medical attention!”
Again, no reactions, no responses and they were mere inches from him. He hadn’t thought they were actually this bloody useless.
“ Help me, you bloody blubbering idiots !”
He crossed his arms over his chest, realizing the amulet wasn’t in his hands anymore and furrowing his brows. He’d just had the thing, what the hell? Did that anomaly steal it?
Jack looked around before noticing a few of the MTF officers had stopped and were looking down and behind him. He saw dark blood pooling around his feet and a pair of shoes that looked exactly like his own on the floor. Slowly turning and looking down, he saw himself collapsed on the floor, his chest and stomach ripped open, the stupid little amulet clutched in his hand. There were tears in his eyes that blurred his vision slightly, wiping them away not affecting his body’s eyes.
“Well, that is a mystery no more..”
One officer removed the amulet from his hand and he felt his world shift, the other officers looking directly at him now instead of his body.
“Jack Bright?” One asked.
“Can they see me now?”
The MTF officers glanced between each other then back at him. “Seems like it works then.”
“We need to report this.” Another added.
“Wait..” he paused, looking at his body again then down at his hands, “no. No no no no no, this is not happening!
And like that, Jack Bright realized he’d become stuck to the cursed amulet. Or better yet, he was the curse stuck with it.
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Immortality, especially in a ghostly form, was not what Jack had expected the rest of his life, or well, death, to be.
He’d been through near-endless trials and experiments, poked and prodded, observed like an animal, and talked at with loops of questions until finally they decided he was safe enough to continue work but with new restrictions.
Like an unwanted child, he was passed between assistants, each of them wearing the amulet to let him walk around and just be seen. He wasn’t allowed with a “host” for more than thirty days after a couple had died from wearing the amulet for too long. It was hell and he wanted out of the damn thing. He almost missed the occasional back pain or long colds. The times when he’d befriended strangers that were the kinds of people normal parents (definitely not his) would warn their kids about.
There was, however, one plus side to the amulet issue. When 963 wasn’t in use, he could explore in his ghostly state. It was only within a range of 50ft but it was something besides being stuck with someone annoying that would eventually piss him off. It wasn’t even worth it to try to murder the hosts because once they went unconscious or died, he couldn’t move. He guessed that his physical state of being was only dependent on the life of someone else. If the host was lifeless, so was he.
He fucking hated this.