Per 
The house was silent aside from a soft, rhythmic tapping that drifted from the stone chimney, a noise that grew louder with the passage of time. Moments later, that noise too ceased, and for a moment, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…and then the man in the fireplace emerged.
He hung upside-down, clinging to the masonry of the chimney as he dragged his soot-streaked body out of the chimney and over the mantlepiece. It took several seconds for his elongated form to emerge, but before long, the nude man had brushed aside the stockings dangling from the mantle and perched on the wall above the chimney, blackened fingernails anchoring him to the stone.
Gazing out over the still room, the entity took stock of his surroundings. Dim light pervaded, shining primarily from the incandescent lights adorning the Christmas tree in the room's far corner. Opposite the tree was the narrow staircase leading to the cabin's second floor - and to the seven-year-old girl that had motivated his arrival. He could sense her exact position even through the cabin's wooden ceiling; she was immobile and probably asleep, exactly as he'd planned.
In the center of the room, facing the fireplace - and the man - sat a couch, upon which rested a large bundle covered by multiple blankets. He could not discern the identity of the person slumbering beneath, but the man could feel that it was one of the seven-year-old's older siblings; though his ability did not grant him knowledge of those above the age of nine, he could sense familial ties, and in this case they were quite strong.
That made sense to the man - he'd initially come to this place because of what he'd felt as he ambled around the region in his annual pursuit of a child to serve him. No family had ever fit the bill more perfectly than the residents of this house: a young girl under the age of ten, her three close-in-age siblings, and a dead father. The mother, his ability told him, was alive, but he'd never directly felt her presence, and he'd been watching the small cabin for nearly a month. Adult had come and gone, but none remained - the four humans within, including the seven-year-old upstairs, were definitely the children…and soon they'd be his.
The man crawled slowly along the ceiling until he hung directly above the child slumbering on the couch, then dropped soundlessly to the floor before rising to his full seven and a half feet of height. He leaned forward, face a rictus of glee as his shadow fell over the lump of blankets - it'd been a long time since he'd last eaten, and consuming one child before moving onto the main event was tantalizing. After all, there were two other defenseless children he could entertain himself with before escaping with the seven-year-old.
A thin string of drool trickled down his jagged chin and pooled on the blanket beneath him as he hunched over and prepared to go to work - this one would be killed efficiently so as to avoid warning the others and risking their escape. The man raised a single six-foot arm, cocking it back and pressing his fingers together so that his blackened nails formed an edged weapon sharper than any blade, then struck, jamming his hand into the child's chest with the force of a sledgehammer.
Pain rocketed up the man's arm as all five of his nails splintered and cracked, and he shrieked as he withdrew his arm, a keening scream that howled throughout the room and up the chimney into the empty night. The blankets had split easily enough, but the form beneath had somehow resisted his assault, despite the fact that he could clearly sense a mere child beneath. Growling and spraying spittle over the prone form, he set aside his plan to kill quickly and painlessly - the harm he'd just suffered would be returned a hundredfold! He'd tear out that insipid child's entrails and force it to watch as he consumed them! He'd break their limbs into pieces and chew off their fingers one by one! He'd devour their heart as they lay thrashing beneath him! He'd consume-
The sound of the gunshot was like a hammer blow in the silence of the cabin, and the bullet that tore through the blankets from below struck him in the shoulder, punching through his right bicep tendon and spinning him halfway around. He screamed again as the agony surged through his body, jerking his head to the side in a frantic attempt to figure out how a child could be hurting him so badly. Nothing of this sort had ever happened to him before, even in the presence of an adult. His bulbous eyes blinked as he scrutinized the shape that was now moving beneath the blankets. It was DEFINITELY one of the seven-year-old's siblings, so how-
The second bullet struck him directly in the right pupil, snapping his squat head backwards and hurling him to the floor. His outraged howl was cut off as he tumbled and struck the floor with his face, flopping limply as his partially regenerated arm failed to grip the wood properly. He recovered quickly, contorting his tall form and rolling to his feet, but the threat beneath the blankets, the child that was somehow able to cause him - HIM - pain, was still present, and the ache of hunger in his gut was nothing compared to what had just been inflicted upon him.
It was time to retrieve the seven-year-old and go. He could just consume one of the older children he kept in his workshop later.
The man scuttled along the floor, locomoting in a quadrupedal posture as his tendon finally restored itself to the point that it could bear weight. His trajectory was meant to take him directly towards the staircase, but his monocular vision caused him to stumble and wheel around as he ran, and he crashed firmly into the wall before righting himself and using his hands to pull himself into the stairway's aperture. But what luck! The noise of his confrontation with the monstrous child on the couch had roused the seven-year-old from her bed and carried her to the hallway just above the staircase and around the corner. It would take him mere seconds to be upon her, and then he'd be up and away before anything else could go wrong.
He leapt into the yawning entrance of the staircase and scurried up the wall. The girl was even closer now, and he could practically feel her in his grasp as he reached the threshold at the top of the stairs. She was clearly unaware of his nature, as she was continuing forward, rounding the corner of her own accord. Finally, finally he would have his prize, and in that moment of triumph, nothing else mattered. And then a leg swung around the corner and slammed into his face, propelling him backwards and into the air with such force that he sailed into the wall opposite the stairs and impacted with a crunch nearly as loud as either of the gunshots.
The naked man dropped to the floor like a ragdoll as consciousness faded from his gnarled body.
—-
"Hah," the woman atop the stairs thought as she watched SCP-4666 smash into the wall and slide down into a boneless heap below. "I told them his head wouldn't fall off." She leaped down the stairs in a single bound and hit the floor, augmented legs absorbing the shock and allowing her to crouch down beside him in a single fluid motion. A knife gleamed in her hand as she drew her arm back, a mirror image of the posture 4666 had adopted only a minute before, but as she prepared to shove the blade into the anomaly's neck, a deep male voice ran out from beneath the blankets.
"No! We need it alive!"
Sighing, Nanku - operational age 7 years, 11 months, and 321 days - sighed dramatically and sheathed the knife, tilting her head towards Irantu's concealed form. "I was not going to kill it, just poke it a few times. Maybe cut off that disgusting cock and slap him with it. It would be really funny, trust me."
"Castration is outside of the mission parameters," Onru said from behind her, descending the stairs one-by-one. "And outside normal human behavioral patterns, too. I would advise not proceeding."
"It was a joke," Nanku said, glaring at 4666's limp body. Her ocular implants allowed her to readily perceive his EVE signature - that this still existed proved that he was merely unconscious, not dead. It had dimmed almost to the point of guttering when he struck the wall, but even as she watched, it slowly increased in intensity. "Also, this fucker is going to wake up in a few minutes. I know how we can buy some more time, though."
"You're not stabbing Santa Claus," Irantu said, throwing off the blankets, unfolding his body, and sitting up; looking down, he assessed the condition of the cermet armor he wore, noting that it was not even dented. "Words I thought I would never need to say, frankly."
Shaking his head, Irantu stood up and tilted his head to the side, activating the transceiver implant embedded in his spine. "The target is down, but he's showing a Type Red signature, so he'll be back up in no more than four minutes, so you should get that containment team in here ASAP."
"We can see it on COLLICULUS on our end," Sarah confirmed. "I already dispatched the boys in black. ETA two minutes, so just sit tight and be sure he doesn't pop up early. Well done."
"So how did Horvath know that 4666 would fall for the world's worst trap, anyway?" Onru interjected via his own implant.
"You'd have to ask him," Irantu said. "Later. After Billy Bob Thornton here is securely contained and not just lying on the floor, waiting to regenerate."
"I hope he does. Then I can stab him, right?" Nanku said.
"Do not injure the anomaly any more than is necessary," Sarah said firmly. "The morning of January 2nd is almost over and the brass wants to get in as much testing as they can before White Night ends."
"The fuck?" Munro mouthed at Irantu, and Onru spoke aloud: "Testing? They're planning on using this thing for testing? What sort of testing?"
"That's not our concern," Sarah replied. "Once it's contained, we're done with it. The researchers will do whatever they're going to do."
Onru withdrew a cylindrical device from his belt and squeezed it in his hand - for a moment, a loud whine resounded throughout the room, then the members od Samsara Squad felt a sharp pain as they were disconnected from the bridge line by electromagnetic interference.
"Uh, did you do that on purpose?" Nanku glared at Onru. "Also, OW." Onru did not reply, and instead turned to Irantu.
"We have about 15 seconds," he said. "They're going to test this thing on kids, I just know it. We have to stall them so White Night ends before they can get it into containment."
"I agree with your assessment, but there's not much we can do to delay containment. We can buy a few minutes, I'm sure, but White Night lasts until 7 AM. There's no way to delay for 5 more hours."
"What if we can delay for infinity hours?" Nanku asked, reaching down and unclipping her holstered pistol.
"You can't just shoo-" Irantu began, then fell silent as an audible cracking made it known that the bridge line had reconnected.
"Oh no!" Nanku shouted, drawing her pistol and throwing it down beside the still-limp 4666. "This is an emergency! SCP-4666 has taken my sidearm! I am in fear for my life!"
"What?!" Sarah responded. "COLLICULUS shows that SCP-4666 is still unconscious on the floor. Is our unit malfunctioning?"
"I am in fear for my life! I have no choice! I must defend myself!" Nanku yelled, raising her eyebrows and staring meaningfully at Irantu, her face otherwise expressionless. Irantu shot back a ferocious glare, but unclipped his own pistol, with Onru and Nanku following suit.
"Stop." Sarah ordered. "Do not fire. That is a direct order. Do not fire. Clarify the situation." It was too late, however. Even as she spoke, the three armed members of Samsara Squad leveled their pistols at the unconscious SCP-4666 and opened fire. Bullets perforated his torso, head, and limbs, and a shower of gore sprayed across the room and spattered against the Christmas tree as they each emptied their full magazine into the predacious anomaly.
As the last bullet left the last gun, the room fell silent once again. Blood, a sticky ichor that wasn't quite the right color, oozed from the holes that dotted SCP-4666. The creature had not been able to defend itself or even evade the assault, so each and every shot had struck true; though in total it was only a fraction of the harm the loathsome entity had inflicted over the years, it gave Irantu some comfort, and he was gratified to see that he and his two squadmates had just barely managed to refrain from killing it. The EVE signature was barely visible, but to Irantu's augmented eyes, it could still be seen when he increased the gain on his thaumic perception.
It was unfortunate that he'd elected to do so at that exact moment, however, as his senses were immediately battered by a radiant blue glow shining from Nanku's left arm. He staggered backwards, correcting his vision just in time to see the skin of her limb peeling back in four distinct flaps. As it did, she ripped her left hand off with her right, revealing the barrel of a weapon in the place where an ordinary human would have a radius and ulna. Thanks to his EVE perception, the gun shone with the deep blue of thaumatologically derived paratechnology as it prepared to fire, and he had only a second to brace himself as a massive energy wave tore out of Nanku's arm and enveloped SCP-4666.
For just a moment, it seemed as though the resilient anomaly was unaffected by the energy, but then its skin began to blister and swell, expanding and tearing as his tissue was torn apart by the concentrated aspect radiation. The entity's eyes snapped open as its body was engulfed, and it screamed one final time as the overwhelming pain roused it from the depths of unconsciousness before consuming its very being. Its body simply exploded, bits and pieces of 4666 spattering the members of Samsara Squad as Irantu looked on in horror.
"I was in fear for my life," Nanku stated matter-of-factly as the skin on her arm began to stitch itself back together. "And it had my weapon, so I had no choice." She wiped the gore off of her face and smirked down at the steaming indentation where the vaporized 4666 had previously rested. Yes, that was much better than a knife.
