SCP-294:
The Coffee Machine
SEVERAL DAYS HAD PASSED since I first began my life at the strange SCP Foundation research site. I was fairly well adjusted—I no longer woke up every morning disoriented, wondering where I was. However, I simply could not grow accustomed to sleeping in the same room as a cute girl—Iris—roughly the same age as me. Every single night, I had to tell myself to go to sleep over and over as I listened to her breathe deeply in slumber until I finally passed out from exhaustion.
If that weren’t bad enough, I was stuck sleeping on the sofa. It wasn’t exactly the best place for getting a good night’s rest. All of that combined with the drastic change in environment made me horribly sleep-deprived, and my head felt heavy.
One look at me that morning, and Iris proposed, “Let’s go get some coffee to wake up.”
I rubbed my bleary eyes as she practically dragged me behind her. When we reached our destination at the end of some corridor in the facility, I beheld it for the first time.
✦ ✦ ✦
“This is The Coffee Machine,” Iris explained in a crisp voice like a tour guide, still wearing her pajamas.
It was early morning in the research facility. Perhaps the on-site personnel still weren’t up yet, for there was a quietness hanging in the air. The zone where we primarily worked was mostly underground, so the sound of birds chirping never made its way to us from the outside. We could hear only the faint, deep, hollow rumble of the air conditioning system.
Uh…? The gears in my head were struggling to turn so soon after waking. A bit delayed, it clicked that Iris had invited me to coffee and brought me here. We were going to buy coffee from this vending machine.
“You don’t have to buy it. Personnel can use the machine for free,” Iris chirped.
Guess it wasn’t much of a vending machine anymore. Although the smart-aleck remark popped in my head, I didn’t have the energy to actually say it. At the moment, I was dead on my feet.
“Hee hee! I hope they deliver your bed soon,” Iris said with a giggle, patting my head comfortingly.
I couldn’t have said it better. After appearing in this research facility—practically summoned to another world—things happened to shake out with me staying in Iris’s room, but I still didn’t have all my basic necessities. It took forever to receive new clothes (I awoke one morning to find a box stuffed with clothes my size sitting outside our door), so I could finally kiss that khaki workwear goodbye. But I was still missing most of the furniture that I needed.
“The security level here makes prisons look relaxed. You have to go through endless red tape to bring something in from the outside world,” Iris said with a shrug.
“Everyone pulled together and donated things like clothes for you, but I’m afraid no one happens to have much in the way of spare furniture like beds. We had to send away for one,” she explained, and added with a smile, “It should arrive in a few days, so hang in there.”
Personally, I felt that once my furniture was fully set up in her room, it meant I was stuck sharing a room with Iris for good. If possible, I would have preferred the Foundation give me a room of my own. It wasn’t as though I disliked living with Iris, but being in that environment was kind of an ordeal for a hormonal high schooler like me—I couldn’t relax in there.
“Hmmm, I don’t see that happening. It’s not like we have any spare rooms. For the record, my room is a containment cell specifically made for SCP objects. There isn’t exactly a surplus of similar ones.”
I didn’t know that. Even though she looked like a normal girl, Iris was an incomprehensible SCP object in her own right. She had the ability to manipulate objects inside the pictures she took… Though aside from that, she was a perfectly normal, harmless, kinder-than-average girl.
“Furthermore, I’m under the impression the Foundation wants to keep us contained together since it believes you and I are connected. It would simplify neutralizing us if the necessity arose.”
Now there was a terrifying notion. Iris nonchalantly moved on to the next topic.
“Anyway, I would like to propose we take turns using my bed until yours arrives. You don’t appear to be sleeping well on the sofa,” she said, looking up at me in concern.
That wasn’t it! The reason I wasn’t sleeping well was mostly her fault, not the sofa’s.
Besides, it was Iris’s room, and I was essentially freeloading off her. I truly believed with all my heart she had the right to the bed.
When I explained this to her, Iris folded her arms and grumbled in dissatisfaction. “Okay, I understand your stance. So how about this? We’ll hold a simple duel in which the right to sleep on the bed goes to the winner! Seize the right to a good night’s sleep!”
I felt like she was taking this down a weird path…
“If I lose, I will have no qualms with sleeping on the sofa. How does that sound? This is the most I’m willing to compromise!”
Well, I guess I was game if it would make Iris feel better. I imagine she felt awkward and guilty over constantly sleeping like a baby on the bed. With that in mind, I decided to accept her challenge.
Honestly, I was starting to miss the luxury of a bed… If mine was supposed to arrive in a few days, I would only wind up stealing her soft bed for a couple of nights in the event I won each round. Plus, it was said people showed their true colors in games and contests. I thought competing in this silly little game would be a good way to learn more about this girl I still knew nothing about.