SCP-458: The Never-Ending Pizza Box

SCP-458:
The Never-Ending Pizza Box

 

AFTER BLINKING several times, it dawned on me that I was on unfamiliar ground. The air—the smell and taste of it—was completely different from before. Up until now, my surroundings had been filled with the dusty, musty odor unique to decrepit buildings. After all, I was in the dilapidated ruins of a library.

Without any form of air conditioning on hand, simply being inside the humid library in the heat of summer made me work up a sweat. But now I felt strangely cold. To the point I was getting goosebumps, even. The smell drifting in the air reminded me of the poignant stench of medicine in hospitals.

In fact, the room was cramped, like a hospital room. It had gray concrete walls just like the ones I occasionally saw in the background of the photos of that girl. Although they were clean, the floor, walls, and ceiling were all that same boring gray.

A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling. Next to me was a small stand, like the ones people kept landline phones on. For some odd reason, an antique brooch that looked like it might have archeological value had been thoughtlessly dumped on its surface.

Strangely, I didn’t notice any doors or windows. It felt more like I was in a box than a room. Stuck in this cubical room, the wild idea that I’d somehow managed to travel inside the photo hit me.

Vision reeling, I crumbled to the ground. As if on cue, the book with the photo slipped out of my hands and clattered across the floor. I saw now that the title of the worn book was Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. I’d never read it before, so I wasn’t totally sure what it was about.

Stranger still: the photo I was holding along with the book vanished, as if it was nothing more than an illusion, a figment of a dream. In its stead, the girl stood before me.

“██████?” she asked, in something that sounded like English, although I couldn’t say for certain.

Dang, it really was the Girl in the Photos… The pictures were always either headshots or three-quarter shots, so this was my first time getting a full view of her. As suspected, she was a perfectly normal human without so much as an inch of mystique. She was a young foreigner, around the same age as me. Loosely hanging hair spread around and over her shoulders. Her eyes were big and round. She was wearing plain clothes, socks with cute cartoonish bears printed on them, and fluffy slippers. She continued to cradle the clunky camera as if it were a stuffed animal, looking down at me with a troubled expression on her face.

“███, ██████? ██████?” It seemed like the girl was asking me something out of concern. But I still couldn’t make out what she was saying. I couldn’t understand her. Although she was probably speaking in English, the real deal was nothing like what was taught at school. Even if I knew the grammar, I couldn’t hold my own in a conversation.

Honestly, it didn’t help that my head was a jumbled mess, either. I doubted I could give her a decent answer even if she started talking to me in good ol’ Japanese. My mind reeling, I looked like a goldfish, flapping my mouth open and shut. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on!

As if prompted by the sight of me in such a sorry state, she kindly offered me her hand. My back had given out on me, after all. Gingerly grabbing her fingertips, I could feel her body heat. I knew exactly how normal people felt, and she felt no different.

“Who are you?” the girl asked in a slow, clear voice, carefully punctuating each word.

Hooray for junior high-level English! Even I could understand that! She was asking who I was. But seriously, that was what I wanted to ask her.

In any case, I was somewhat relieved by her rather friendly disposition, so I decided to go ahead and introduce myself. I was planning a pathetic attempt at communicating by mustering all of the English vocabulary I knew, but before I could—

Someone whacked me with all their might on the back of the head. I swiftly fell unconscious.

 

***

 

So, when I regained consciousness, I briefly thought I was still dreaming. But I really was in a place that was completely foreign to me. The grimy ceiling didn’t match the one in my bedroom, which I knew like the back of my hand. The place stank of ammonia. I anxiously shot up, trembling.

Where the heck was this? It wasn’t the same cramped room I was in right before I got knocked out. The place screamed prison cell, with an area roughly 9'×9'. I was lying in a simple bed bolted to the ground. It was furnished with a scratchy blanket and sheets, along with a hard pillow. Facing the end of my outstretched legs was a narrow entrance fitted with iron bars. The air on the other side was bustling with the presence of people and their voices. The room only had one light bulb, small enough that I could probably wrap one hand around it. If that weren’t bad enough, the darn thing kept flickering on and off.

Perhaps the lights were turned off outside the room. It seemed that way, anyhow, because it was so dark that I could hardly make anything out. I strove to comprehend the situation I found myself in, timidly hugging the blanket that had been placed over me. Where was I? What happened? It didn’t make any sense!

My mind swirling, I quietly got off the bed to make my way to the barred door. It didn’t occur to me until then, but apparently someone had changed my clothes while I was out cold. Prior to now, I’d been wearing my high school uniform, like always. After dutifully attending class, I’d headed straight to the library with that weird girl.

Although I had no recollection of changing, I was currently wearing an unfamiliar khaki outfit that reminded me of workwear. Not only did it feel brand new, so did the underwear. The cold ground bit my bare feet to the bone.

Not only did someone change my clothes while I was unconscious, it felt like my body had been washed squeaky clean as well. All of my skin stung, like I’d been given a body scrub, and I smelled of soap. It beat waking up to find myself sullied, but it still put a bad taste in my mouth.

Upon approaching the door, I wrapped my hands around the iron bars and tried to shake them. They wouldn’t so much as budge. Directly across from me was another small cell just like mine, hosting a middle-aged man who was also wearing khaki workwear. He was sitting on his bed with his head resting against the wall, muttering who-knows-what.

Based on the man’s red hair and facial features, it was safe to assume he was a foreigner. He was extremely muscular and appeared to have some sort of strange tattoos ringing his neck. It was painfully obvious he wasn’t the sort to trifle with, and I sincerely doubted he understood Japanese, anyway. Lacking the courage to call out to him, I simply stood there dumbly.

What was this place? I decided to try unraveling that mystery. Did I get mixed up in some crime? Had I been abducted by some random criminal who was keeping me imprisoned? But to what end? And why me?

It all felt so surreal. I wanted to believe it was all just a dream. But the cold floor, the pervasive discomfort, and the throbbing where my head was struck when I got knocked out—all of it was very much real. But if this wasn’t a dream, what was it? At my wit’s end, my mind shut down; I wanted to break down into tears.

“███…?” came a voice from nowhere. Even as I jumped, the sound of footsteps grew closer. I didn’t have to wait long before someone suddenly showed their face on the other side of the iron bars.

It was the Girl in the Photos. After all this time, I still didn’t know her name. She was still wearing the same outfit I saw her in before I was knocked out, but her camera wasn’t with her this time. That struck me as horribly strange—I had this weird mental image that her and the camera came as a package deal.

Although I didn’t even know this mysterious girl well enough to call her an acquaintance, I also felt an inexplicable closeness after seeing her countless times in the photos. Perhaps she felt the same, for she began to speak to me rather casually.

“███. ███, ███?” She spoke in what truly did sound like English, but I couldn’t understand any of it.

Seeing that I was having trouble, the Girl in the Photos nodded her head several times before walking out of view. I could hear her talking in English to somebody a short distance away.

A few minutes later, the Girl in the Photos returned in much the same manner as she originally came and offered me a big grin. When she did, the barred door slowly began to open. Evidently an electrically controlled automatic door, it opened on its own. Seeing as I was holding the bars at the time, this made me literally jump back in surprise.

“███.”

The Girl in the Photos anxiously waited for the door to fully open before looking up at me and waving me over. I was afraid that I might have misinterpreted what she meant, but gingerly stepped out into the corridor anyway.

I looked around me. The darkness impaired my vision, but apparently there was an endless series of small rooms—like the one I was in—akin to solitary confinement cells. There was neither rhyme nor reason to the age or ethnicity of the people sleeping or chatting inside the cells, but they had one thing in common: They all donned the same khaki workwear.

Distracted by that, I fell behind the girl, who was already making her way down the corridor. She only stopped to look over her shoulder once and jerked her chin as if to say, “Aren’t you coming?” I silently followed her like a good little puppy.

When they noticed us, the people in the cells began to shout and reach out for us through the gaps in the bars.

“███!” the Girl in the Photos scolded them, looking like a peeved cat. Intent on hurrying me along, she marched up to me and snatched my hand. She practically dragged me away from there!

I still didn’t have a good grasp on the situation I was in, but simply holding the Girl in the Photos’ hand strangely calmed me. I doubted she meant me any harm. In fact, I could tell she was on my side.

 

***

 

The girl led me around for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure if this was a prison, a hospital, or even a research facility, but whatever it was, the building seemed massive. It was impossible to count all of the doors dispersed across the plain, nearly identical corridors. They broke off into a seemingly infinite number of branches. Many of the doors had the letters “SCP” written on them. I had absolutely no idea what that meant.

After walking to the point my feet were starting to grow a bit sore, the Girl in the Photos came to a stop. There was a randomly placed door in the corridor with a device that resembled an interphone built into the wall next to it. Standing on tiptoe, the Girl in the Photos held something like a cardkey up to the device. It must have served as some form of verification, for the door slid open with an electric buzz.

“Come in,” she said, again in English simple enough for me to understand. She curled her fingers toward the palm of her extended hand in a beckoning gesture.

With her urging me along, I entered the room a few steps behind her. I could only assume she did something, because the lights popped right on. As a result, I was able to get a full view of the room.

From the looks of it, this was a cafeteria of sorts. The place was saturated with the smell of food. Multiple sets of tables and chairs claimed a space roughly the size of a high school classroom. A wall-mounted exhaust fan spun round and round. Someone apparently forgot to clean up after himself, leaving a plate, fork, and coffee cup abandoned on one of the tables.

Seeing as the room was desolate aside from the two of us, it was safe to assume this wasn’t mealtime. The girl trudged over to the nearest chair, pulled it out, and plunked right down. She motioned me over with her eyes, so I took a seat directly across from her.

The girl seemed antsy, swinging her legs back and forth as she studied me. “███,” she said, but I couldn’t understand her for the life of me. Man, if I knew this was going to happen, I would have taken my English classes more seriously.

She must have found our inability to communicate just as aggravating, because she scrunched the bridge of her nose in annoyance as she repeated the beckoning motion, flicking her fingers toward herself. I got the feeling she was saying, “Lean toward me,” so I did just that.

The way I leaned in could easily be confused with the gesture for requesting a kiss, so I was a bit nervous. But rather than indulge in any amorous pursuits, the girl pulled out a collar of sorts from somewhere and attached it to my neck! Taken by surprise, I was like a deer caught in headlights.

The ring hung loosely around my neck. It seemed like a cheap, rubber collar. I was flabbergasted, unable to discern what would compel her to do such a thing. But I was in for an even greater shock mere moments later.

“Are you able to understand me now? Do you comprehend what I am saying? A response would be most appreciated!” Although somewhat stilted, she was speaking in Japanese. Actually, it sounded like she was still talking in English, which was converted to Japanese for me to understand without any time lag, I think… Bluntly put, it was really weird, and hard to describe. Had putting on this strange collar made me suddenly proficient in English? It was a bizarre—almost magical—experience.

“Huh? Was it no good after all? I didn’t want to use The Clockworks if I could avoid it, since the results are so unpredictable, but none of our Japanese-speaking personnel are present and we don’t have any translation devices on hand.” The Girl in the Photos kept going on about stuff that went over my head.

So I cut in, responding to her in Japanese. Although it came out faltering, I tried to tell her not to worry; that for some odd reason, I could understand the meaning of the words coming from her mouth.

She broke into a broad smile and gave an overexaggerated sigh of relief. “Thank goodness! It would be inconvenient if we couldn’t ascertain mutual understanding. It makes anyone—even a humanoid SCP object—substantially easier to deal with if you can hold a conversation,” she explained, throwing in a few terms I didn’t recognize.

Once finished, the girl pulled out of her chair. She went to the other side of the counter along the wall and began making a ruckus, shuffling things around.

“Do you like coffee? I have to load mine with gobs of sugar and milk. Oh, are you hungry? At the very least, I could warm up a frozen dinner for you,” she offered, holding a siphon in one hand.

Not thinking, I instinctively told her that I was good.

“It is hard to pick up little nuances with this. There is no need to hold back, inhabitant of Japan,” she said. Not exactly what you’d call a perfect translation. She took her time preparing the coffee.

As if an afterthought, a way to kill time, she finally got around to sharing her name. “I guess we should start with introductions. I am Iris Thompson, although I am also called SCP-105. If possible, please just call me Iris.”

The Girl in the Photos offered a moment’s silence to indicate it was my turn now. I hastily told her who I was.

“███? You’re called ███ , right? In Japan, is that a common name? It sounds so mysterious…! Sorry, but you are Japanese, aren’t you? It certainly sounds like that’s what you’re speaking, anyway.”

I acknowledged that she was right. And then I proceeded to tell her briefly about myself.

“Uh-huh, I see. So you attend ███ Senior High School in ██████ Prefecture, Japan. One moment, please. I want to jot this down… Hmmm, due to hearing ‘translations’ of what you said, I’m not sure I heard the names correctly. If I could locate them, I might be able to discern where you came from.”

Apparently, the pot of coffee came out a success, because Iris came back with a cup in each hand. She walked over carefully, trying not spill any. “Here you go.” She handed me a cup, holding onto her own as she hunkered back down in her chair.

“By the way, this place is located in ███ , ███ in the United States of America—not that you’d know where that is. It isn’t marked on the map, after all. This is a covert facility working under the cover story that it belongs to the government. In fact,” Iris said, “This is a stock-standard research facility for the SCP Foundation.”

It seemed like she was observing my reactions as she spoke. She probably thought she was stealthily analyzing me, but her inexperience was showing through. It was so obvious what she was doing, it was actually somewhat cute. Our eyes happened to lock, and she quickly turned away.

“Speaking of which,” Iris wondered, “Have you ever heard of the SCP Foundation?”

I’d been wondering about that sequence of three alphabet letters ever since I first saw them earlier. They seemed like initials for something, but I was unfortunately ignorant as to what.

“Oh… So you don’t know? Really? Well, if push comes to shove,” she whispered to herself, “We can always administer amnestics and implant false memories.” What a blood-curdling notion. “I suppose there’s no harm in going over it.”

She shifted to face me head on. “Okay, so to keep this brief, I’ll just give you a quick outline…about the SCP Foundation.”

 

***

 

“Mr. ██████—uh, may I just call you ██████ instead?” Iris started out with a rather trivial question.

When I nodded my head to indicate that I didn’t mind, she broke out into a giant grin.

“I appreciate it. I realize it’s coming on a bit strong when we just met, but I hate acting all stiff and formal. Whenever I put my best manners on, I get a cramp in my cheeks from all that fake smiling.” As if to prove it, she pulled her cheeks out in imitation of a forced smile.

Each and every one of Iris’s expressions were rich with emotion; her movements were large and exaggerated. I guess foreigners were generally a bit over the top compared to Japanese in that regard.

As such irrelevant thoughts were passing through my head, Iris suddenly looked very serious. “At any rate, ███ , tell me. Do you believe in God?”

That rang pretty oddly to my Japanese, atheist ears. Why would she ask such a question…? Was she a church missionary? Thoughts like that ran through my head as I shrunk back a bit.

Seeing my reaction, Iris nodded knowingly and threw out more questions. “Then do you think aliens exist? Do you believe in the existence of monsters, demons, ghosts, fairies, angels? What about other non-human life forms, or superior beings? Have you personally witnessed magic, miracles, psychic powers, or other supernatural phenomena that ignore the laws of the natural world? Or do you believe it’s possible for such phenomena to occur?”

Although Iris slung questions at me one after another, I was unable to throw any answers back. In all honesty, I was a little scared. Despite the friendly, down-to-earth impression she gave, Iris was starting to spout out incomprehensible nonsense along the same lines as that occult-fanatic upperclassman. And she just kept going on and on! It had me pretty freaked out.

Aliens? Psychic powers? What the heck is this chick going on about? That crap only existed in movies and comics. Here in the real world, all of that was impossible. Back when I was little, there was a time I believed there might be something out there beyond the scope of rational thought. I even believed in Santa.

But as I underwent my compulsory education, I obtained a certain degree of knowledge and experience. With that, I came to learn the “supernatural” was all just fabrications concocted in someone’s head, or a bunch of baloney.

I was a modern-day high school boy with a good head on his shoulders. I wasn’t about to fall for any of this nonsense. Neither gods nor demons dwelt in our world, and a person couldn’t move a pebble with his mind. Scientists already finished explaining all of the things once revered as divine ages ago, leaving the world bereft of any mystery or mystique.

…But not so fast. I was experiencing something strange that neither logic nor science could explain. I was right in the midst of a surreal situation, like something out of a fairy tale.

No matter what book I picked up, there was always a photo tucked inside. And now I was holding a conversation face-to-face with the mysterious girl—Iris Thompson—who always appeared in those photos. If I took her words as truth, I was in a research facility clear on the other side of the world, off somewhere in America. This whole situation was so surreal, it felt like a dream. Was it possible for something so mysterious to happen in this world of ours?

“Please remain calm and hear me out,” Iris said. She waited for the cascade of thoughts to finish racing through my mind before continuing.

“I’ve noticed you are an extremely normal, sensible person, based on your reactions. I believe I had a similar reaction when I was first told about the SCP Foundation, myself. I laughed it off as stupid, only to turn around and think of my brush with the strange. I was dumbstruck when I realized what they meant,” she explained earnestly, twirling her finger the whole time like a conductor’s baton, finger moving with the ease of habit.

“Skipping straight to the point, monsters and all of that paranormal stuff that surpass all rational thought really do exist. Just counting the ones I know, there are one, two, three… Honestly, I know too many to count on two hands,” she said. She opened both hands and ticked something off on her fingers before giving up and turning to look me square in the eye. “That goes to show just how many of these things are out there.”

These things? As in aliens, ghosts, and people with psychic powers? They really existed?

“Yes. For example, The Old Man is capable of causing any solid matter to corrode at a touch. It’s particularly fond of killing people with its corrosive power… There are superior beings akin to the gods or demons portrayed in mythology that surpass mankind in any number of ways… And a researcher who could make countless duplicates of his mind. He travels the world by possessing various people and things…” Iris listed these spine-chilling examples in her adorable voice.

It was too much to swallow. An onslaught of unnerving stories all at once. If not for my personal experience with the strange and inexplicable, I would have thought she was spinning wild tales and laughed it off. But I was far from laughing, now. I gulped in fear.

Betraying not a single sign she’d been joking, Iris continued, deathly serious. “All manner of mysterious beings and things are referred to as ‘SCP objects.’”

SCP. There was that strange acronym that I’d observed multiple times throughout the site. Although I figured they stood for something, they rang new and unfamiliar to my ears. I was still struggling to grasp the gist of them.

Seeing me struggle, Iris offered a simple explanation. “Basically, the ‘S’ in ‘SCP’ stands for ‘Secure,’ the ‘C’ stands for ‘Contain,’ and the ‘P’ is for ‘Protect.’”

Thanks to the translation collar (was that what it was?), I heard the words in English but understood them in Japanese, making her explanation extremely easy to follow. “Right. The goal of the organization is to swiftly and safely secure SCP objects—anomalous occurrences and objects extending beyond human comprehension—to isolate them from the general public and contain them, then properly observe them, and protect them.”

Uh-huh. So, it was like a crossover between a spy organization for the supernatural and guards for a vault. Hm, that might not actually be a good analogy… I couldn’t think of a similar organization on the spot with my limited knowledge.

Whatever! Precisely because the SCP Foundation was isolating the eerie from conventional society, normal folk like us didn’t even realize they existed. Yes, anomalies existed in the world. But the SCP Foundation was hiding them from the masses as they thoroughly secured, contained, and protected them.

“We—it feels weird for me to say, ‘we,’ but anyway—we are a secret organization carrying out the mission to secure, contain, and protect anomalies, or SCP objects. Hence, in accordance, we are generally referred to as the SCP Foundation,” she said. The strand of difficult words made it hard for me to follow.

“The SCP Foundation, as implied by the name ‘Foundation,’ is built upon a foundation of massive financial resources, which serve as the substrate for its international operations. There are research sites like this one scattered across the globe, each heavily staffed with researchers and other personnel.”

While I strived to digest that information, Iris plowed right on. “There are countless agents who travel the world and blend into society to conduct investigations rather than remaining permanently stationed at any one site. I’m certain the Foundation has extended its reach to Japan and spread its roots there as well.”

It had? But seeing as it was a secret organization, there was naturally no way a normal high school boy such as myself would know. This was the sort of far-fetched conspiracy story that would make my occult-crazed upperclassman flip out. It was hard to believe…and yet, here I was, in one of the research facilities run by that strange organization operating behind the scenes in the world of the supernatural. It made me feel awkwardly out of place, like I’d stumbled into a movie.

Simply hearing about all of it filled me with such fear that I began to tremble. I wasn’t sure what she mistook the trembling for, but Iris poured more coffee into my cup.

“Really,” she said in a cute little voice, “You shouldn’t have too much caffeine, or you might have trouble sleeping tonight.” She stuck her tongue out. I found the sight comforting and relaxed a bit. I heaved a long, heavy sigh of relief.

It didn’t seem like she had anything to gain by deceiving me with absurd stories, so at least for the time being, I was going to take her words at face value. Besides, we wouldn’t get anywhere if I questioned every little thing.

The main thing I didn’t understand was how I wound up inside the research facility for such a creepy organization. Did I teleport here from the library? Everything pertaining to my arrival, from the how to the why, was unknown to me, filling me with unease.

Evidently not a fan of bitter coffee, I observed Iris drop several sugar cubes in her drink right before my eyes. She proceeded to stir it. As the Girl in the Photos, I sincerely doubted she was unrelated to the strange things occurring to me. I decided to be open about my concerns.

“We don’t have the answers to any of that ourselves,” Iris replied, her brows pinched in consternation. “In fact, my goal is to discover who you are, as well as how and why you appeared in our research facility. But you aren’t sure yourself, are you?”

No, I was totally clueless.

“I see. This could prove problematic… I subjectively—not objectively—perceive you aren’t a bad person. That is my biased, personal opinion. There is no saying how the other personnel will appraise you.” Iris folded her arms and grumbled to herself as she wracked her brain.

“Humans fear the unknown. Seeing as your identity is unknown, excruciatingly thorough and elaborate safety procedures will be enacted unless you are impartially deemed Safe,” she said.

Hmm… I bet this was an issue with the translation collar, which was probably altering her words to convey minor nuances in her speech. Whatever the case, the slew of difficult words made it challenging for me to wrap my mind around what Iris was saying. Honestly, it made the way she talked sound unnatural. I had no doubt she was talking perfectly normally in English, but that didn’t help me much…

“I suspect the standard SCP containment procedures will be put in place. Bluntly put, you will be locked in a completely enclosed room. If you try to leave, explosives will detonate, and chemicals will dissolve and sterilize everything in the room, or something along those lines.” Iris mumbled the details of the horrifying processes before closing her eyes and contemplating in silence for a moment.

“I’d hate for that to happen to you,” she said as she opened her eyes, offering an awkward smile. “As such, you’re staying in my room as of today.”

From my perspective, she’d just randomly blurted out the most insane idea.

 

***

 

A cute girl just told me to stay with her. Normally I would be overjoyed, expecting fun times ahead, but not under these circumstances. I wasn’t exactly a hormone-crazed beast. Thrown off-kilter, I wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Yep, I’ve decided that will be for the best. I’m going to go let the Doc know, okay?”

Apparently, Iris’s earlier statement wasn’t a question like “Would you like to stay with me?” but the order “You’re going to stay with me!” Without so much as waiting for my response, she darted off to the back of the room.

I bet this cafeteria-like room probably had something like a kitchen or staff office in the back. From the sound of it, an intercom was installed in there. I could hear Iris’s cheerful voice carry on for a time after she dialed the “Doc” up. Due to the distance, I could only catch snippets of what was said.

With nothing better to do, I sipped at my coffee. The awkward downtime allowed my mind to suddenly resume rational thought. Fear and unease came crashing down upon me. What time was it now? Without any clocks or windows in the cafeteria, I couldn’t tell. My internal clock said the sun had already set and it was well into the night…

I wondered if my family was worried about me. I bet they thought I went missing. That senpai I was with probably let them know what happened, and then they asked the police to search for me… or something like that, maybe?

If I truly was in the United States, it was a first-world country, so there should be plenty of telephones. Maybe I could make an international call to my home and let my family know I was all right. I was of a mind to ask Iris when she returned.

But if everything Iris just told me was true, this was a research facility run by the secret organization, SCP Foundation. It was a covert facility hidden from the eyes of the public. Seeing as the Foundation viewed me as a suspicious man of unknown origin, it seemed unlikely they would allow me to simply call home.

I wondered what was going to happen to me going forward. Was the Foundation going to do terrible, painful things to me? Although it had nearly slipped my mind, someone had already whacked me on the back of the head and locked me in a room akin to a prison cell. I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up for a warm welcome as an honored guest.

My fears were growing worse by the second. Iris’s presence and the way she treated me with her own brand of warm, quirky kindness were my only saving grace.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Iris apologized, casually waltzing back after a fairly lengthy call. “I received permission, so you can stay with me starting today. I put in a request for a change of clothing and other basic necessities. I’ll show you to my room in a bit, okay? But first!” She revealed her pearly whites in a happy grin for some odd reason. “Aren’t you hungry? It’s awfully late, but if you don’t mind, why don’t we grab a bite to eat? I’ve had an unusually hectic day, so I could use the calorie intake.”

Iris’s sentences came out sounding as weird as ever, but I understood the gist of what she was saying. And come to think of it, I actually was hungry. I went to the library with that upperclassman after school, which would put it around 5:00 P.M. Although I didn’t know the exact time now, if it was around midnight…that meant roughly seven hours had passed. That was plenty of time for a young, healthy high school boy such as myself to completely digest the contents of his stomach.

“Great! It makes for an odd sight when one person isn’t eating and the other is stuffing her face,” Iris said, grinning happily. She brought something over to our table. “Are you okay with pizza? I feel like I’ll get fat eating it at this hour, but it seems good enough, since it’s quick and free!” As she said that, sure enough, she placed a pizza box down on the table in front of me.

It was a perfectly normal, thin, square box that appeared to be made of cardboard. The logo to a pizza chain I recognized yet couldn’t place was printed on the box, along with the word “PIZZA” in large font. After such a bold declaration, I’d actually be surprised if there wasn’t pizza in that box.

“I’m going first,” Iris declared. She must have been famished—she licked her lips hungrily before popping the box open. A normal, steaming-hot pizza was inside. It looked awfully good. The pit of my stomach began to growl.

“Man, I figured this is what I’d get.” Iris made that strange remark as she brought out the large plastic plates tucked under her arms. She placed one in front of each of us.

Effortlessly picking the pizza up with both hands, she plopped it on the plate in front of her. The whole darn thing! I was hoping she’d share with me, but apparently, she intended to devour the entire pizza on her own, and took a massive bite out of it. The melting cheese stretched, and stretched…

“This is the best!” Iris cried blissfully, chomping her food before gulping it down. “I always get a small with thin, wheat crust. Olives are a must! The rest varies on the day, but it’s always a healthy pizza that isn’t too heavy or spicy,” she explained, before giving me a puzzled look.

I wasn’t sure what she wanted from me. Seeing me grow flustered, she burst out with an “Ah!” of realization. She put down the partially eaten pizza and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin that was already at the table when we first arrived.

“Feel free to help yourself,” Iris offered. She closed the lid of the empty pizza box and pushed it up to me. Jeez, like offering an empty pizza box would do me any good. I was hungry! I needed more than a gesture.

“Oh, right. You don’t know about this, do you? Okay, fair enough. That little detail totally slipped my mind.” Iris batted her eyes exaggeratedly. “Although you probably can’t tell at a glance, this is also an SCP object. Yep, this here pizza box. We always keep it here in the canteen, so I grabbed it,” she said, indicating the box with her hands, but I was still a bit confused.

That was an SCP object? A mysterious object that defied human logic?

“Doesn’t look like it, does it? I know how you feel, but the thing is, it really is one.” Iris continued on eloquently, her meal forgotten. “This box is SCP-458. In other words, it is the 458th SCP object identified by the Foundation. It is known as ‘The Never-Ending Pizza Box.’”

It had a rather fun name. And here I’d thought that all these so-called SCP objects were terrifying, after Iris’s earlier explanation. Infinite pizza! My tension oddly melted at hearing the idea. I burst out laughing!

 

***

 

“What’s so funny? This is a very impressive, mysterious SCP object in its own right! It’s extremely convenient. Not just me, but all of the on-site personnel love it!” For whatever reason, Iris seemed pretty keen to defend the virtues of the box. She jutted out her lips in a pout.

“Well, I guess it isn’t surprising, after all of the intimidating things I said. There are also harmless or amusing SCP objects that are more like parlor tricks than anything dangerous. But just because the Foundation deems them harmless doesn’t mean they aren’t incomprehensible anomalies, so never take them lightly.”

As if an afterthought, she began rattling off another slew of technical terms. “For the record, SCP objects are divided into the three classes. ‘Safe,’ ‘Euclid,’ and ‘Keter,’ based on how difficult they are to contain. In many cases, the containment difficulty is directly proportional to the SCP object’s level of danger.”

Iris swung her finger around as she offered a detailed explanation. Almost too detailed, really. “Let’s say we were going to contain an SCP object in a box. If we could put it in the box and everything was okay, it’s Safe. If we could put it in the box, but who knows what would happen if we did, it’s Euclid. If it wouldn’t go, we couldn’t get it in, or it popped out after we put in the box, it’s Keter. I believe that sums it up.”

I wasn’t quite sure whether or not I understood the analogy.

“The Never-Ending Pizza Box is Object Class: Safe. It is considered particularly harmless. On top of that, it is terribly handy to have around,” Iris said. Smiling like a mischievous child, she pointed at the perfectly ordinary-looking pizza box and urged, “Go ahead and open it. I’m sure you’ll be in for a surprise.”

Although a bit flabbergasted, I did as I was told. I opened The Never-Ending Pizza Box. True to her prediction, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. Nestled in the box was what appeared to be a hot pizza, fresh out of the oven.

But that was impossible! Iris had just grabbed one herself! But then she closed the lid, only for me to open it and find another pizza in the box, a box that should by all rights have been empty. To top it off, this was even a different type of pizza from the one she got. Bigger than hers, thick crusted, it was heavily loaded with seafood and broccoli.

What the heck? This didn’t make any sense!

“Didn’t I tell you? It defies all logic; hence, it’s an SCP object.” Iris tilted her head back. It felt like she was gloating, for some reason.

She cheerfully pulled a folded sheet of paper out of her pocket. Unfolding it, she looked down, and hummed contemplatively as she read over the note. Curious what it said, I tried to sneak a peek only for Iris to snap, “No!” in a surprisingly stern voice.

“You aren’t allowed to look. In a sense, I am allowed some personnel privileges, so I’ve got authorization. This is a report documenting details pertaining to this SCP object. Or to be more precise, a copy of the report. Technically, it’s explicitly prohibited to make copies, but I had to cheat a bit since I can’t remember every little detail.” Iris left me mystified, once again setting her eyes on the piece of paper, or report, I guess.

She began to read aloud. “SCP-458 is a large-sized pizza box from the pizza chain [Little Caesars], of their [HOT-N-READY] variety. It is made of simple cardboard, measuring 25.4cm by 25.4cm by 2.54cm.”

Although the string of numbers meant nothing to me, I figured this meant it was a normal pizza box.

“What makes SCP-458 an oddity is that, while appearing to be an ordinary pizza box, when it comes into contact with human hands, it instantaneously replicates the holder’s subconsciously preferred choice of pizza, down to the favorite sauce, cheese, crust, and topping.”

If that was true, this really was a bizarre phenomenon. Or rather, it was like something out of a fairy tale. It seemed like tales of boxes or bags that produced an infinite supply of stuff appeared frequently around the world. I could swear I’d heard stories like that somewhere before. But the pizza aspect had a strangely modern edge that detracted from the fairy tale vibe.

“Although merely conjecture, it is believed The Never-Ending Pizza Box could create a near infinite supply of pizza. It is a miraculous item that could save countries suffering from food shortages. But even though test results deemed it Safe, its classification as an SCP object prevents us from being able to take it to the outside world,” Iris said with a dry smile, her eyes looking off into the distance.

“After all, the Foundation’s goal is strictly to Secure, Contain, and Protect. They don’t care if it’s something wondrous that could help better mankind. As a rule of thumb, it will stay locked up forever under their close observation, never getting to see the light of day. The Foundation owns you until the day you—” she suddenly cut herself off and blatantly changed the topic. “So that’s the type of pizza it makes for you, huh? I can see you’re a seafood lover! May I have a bite?”

Having already gobbled up her own pizza, Iris was going after mine. Jeez, she didn’t need to steal my food. Wasn’t this thing supposed to spit out an infinite quantity of pizza? Why not just pop the lid again?

“Hee hee! Well, actually, it seems this thing isn’t horribly flexible. When it does its thing, it always makes a whole new pizza! I don’t have enough room to eat that much,” she said sadly.

Feeling a bit bad for her, I gave her just one slice of my pizza. Beaming with happiness, she gobbled it down.

“Huh, so this is your favorite type of pizza… One of the interesting features about this box is that it appears to possess a form of telepathy. It uses that ability to ensure it creates the perfect pizza for its holder.” Iris spoke cheerfully, but then her face suddenly twisted into a frown. “That darn Dr. Bright—uh, there’s a person by that name, someone you might even call a mad scientist—he experimented on SCP-458 by having a bunch of people and sentient SCP objects pop it open just for the fun of it. Supposedly, he was curious to see what he could learn from tracking what kinds of pizza would appear.”

Dr. Bright… When she mentioned his name, her expression changed entirely. It was a meaningful scowl, seething with hatred—but at the same time, etched with understated terror.

“As a result of those tests, we’ve found that the box cannot produce toppings indigestible to humans. So these are, overall, perfect pizzas—safe to eat, delicious, and healthy! But since pizza is high in calories, be careful not to pig out on them.”

Apparently, she was inclined to bring things to an end, now that we were done eating. Iris stood up. She wiped her mouth with the paper napkin and shot me a smile.

“At any rate, the world is full of strange things—SCP objects—like this. We have quite a few here in this facility,” she said.

I got the feeling that the pizza box was no accident. Iris had brought me in contact with an SCP object that would serve as a concrete example to support her explanation of the basics. Ever since we first met, she’d been nothing but nice to me. It was surprising, honestly, for her to be so nice. We weren’t family or anything. I was a complete stranger. Someone she’d just met.

…Why was she going out of her way for me?

I received my answer sooner than I expected.

“By the way, I mentioned that I am referred to as SCP-105 earlier, didn’t I? I am also contained in this facility as an SCP object, since I have a somewhat special ability.” So said that perfectly ordinary-looking foreign girl, self-deprecatingly, standing there with her hands on her chest.

Then she pointed at me. “The Foundation has decided to call you SCP-105-C. As you can probably tell from the name, they believe you are either an accessory or somehow related to me as SCP-105,” the Girl in the Photos said cryptically. “We aren’t just strangers.”