Mere seconds after Iris’s voice echoed throughout the greenhouse, a sound came from beside the bench we were sitting on. A bush with a bunch of red berries rustled as a cat popped its tiny head out.
This was probably the aforementioned Josie the Half-Cat. With a clever countenance, this was quite a handsome little fella (I didn’t learn until later that Josie was female, so “handsome little fella” probably wasn’t the most accurate description). Its gray coat was regal and dignified, boasting pattern-like swirls. There was an intelligent gleam in its eyes. From the look of it, this was just a typical cat. It was hard to believe this was a mysterious SCP object.
“Oops. I should eat this now that we’ve managed to lure the little dear out,” Iris said.
Practicing less than great table manners, Iris tossed the piece of cheese pinched between her fingers into the air and caught it with her mouth like a frog. That took skill… But I was under the impression she was going to give the cheese to Josie, so I was a bit surprised she ate it at all.
“There are hardly any rules or regulations concerning Josie the Half-Cat… But there is one restriction: Staff are not permitted to feed cheese to her,” Iris said.
Why not? Seeing as we used cheese to lure her out, I bet she loved the stuff. Don’t tell me she’d turn violent if she ate it and go on a killing rampage!
“No, nothing of the sort,” Iris said, her face a bit taut as if disturbed by the idea.
She explained, “It’s just, if she’s unsatisfied with the scanty amount of cheese you give her, it makes her terribly distressed. She gets so sad, it’s really very…pathetic. So it was made against the rules. Not that it stops me from sneaking her some every now and then.” Upon making her confession, Iris stuck out her tongue naughtily. Jeez, everything about her was so cute!
While I was busy relaxing with Iris, Josie the Half-Cat stealthily walked up to us without me even noticing. I guess it was true that cats walk silently. As I was musing over that, I looked back down at Josie now that she stepped all of the way out of the bush…and was shocked speechless! Wow, she really was only half a cat… That was the only thought I could come up with.
It looked like Josie the Half-Cat was sliced in two. Everything from the tip of her tail to her mid-abdomen—the end of her ribcage to be precise—was missing. Nevertheless, she was walking just like usual. Weird, to say the least. So weird, I blinked several times, unable to believe my own eyes.
“As you can see,” Iris said with a giggle, finding my surprise humorous, “Josie the Half-Cat lives up to her name; she’s a cat missing half her body. It’s not as though it’s outside the visible spectrum for humans. The hindquarters simply do not exist.”
That made no sense. Oh, but that must have been precisely what made her an SCP object. If I thought about it logically, simply surviving without half a body would be hard in its own right. From the looks of it, Josie was missing nearly all of her major internal organs! But, completely unperturbed by this, she seemed perfectly healthy.
“Oh, whoa!”
I had no idea what was going through Josie’s mind as she crouched down only to suddenly lunge up at Iris. Then she climbed up Iris’s chest and began licking the young lady on the lips!
“Ah! Hey! Wh-What’s gotten into you, Josie? You’re such an attention hog!” Iris cried happily, cuddling the cat.
I bet Josie was just licking off some remnants of the cheese that disappeared into Iris’s mouth a second ago… But the way it looked like they were kissing made me feel uncomfortable, like I was watching something inappropriate. I averted my eyes.
“Tee-hee! Isn’t she something else? This is our mysterious Josie the Half-Cat!” Iris boasted, beaming happily, evidently under the impression the bizarre cat was fond of her personally. Well, I suppose there wasn’t any need to point out the truth if she was happy.
But even looking at the thing up close, this was one weird cat. It really didn’t have any hindquarters. Yet it was able to walk and jump normally without falling off balance.
Curious what it looked like at the cross section—the part where its torso was severed—I took a peek…only to discover that part of the body was blacked out. I was afraid I’d see the cat’s innards, so this was actually a bit of a relief.
“If you’re curious, why don’t you touch her?” Iris suggested. She held Josie securely in her arms, pointing the black cross section toward me.
Wait! Was it okay to stick my hand in there? From the looks of it, the blackened part seemed less like a flat surface and more like a hole. If I stuck my hand in, I was afraid it’d pull me in somewhere.
Iris looked at me with such anticipation that in spite of my fears, I hesitantly put my hand against the black part of Josie the Half-Cat.
At first, I couldn’t feel anything. My fingers were absorbed by the black hole in Josie, eventually meeting gentle resistance. It was a strange sensation unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It was like I was touching a hole, something which normally only existed as an abstract concept.
“Please be gentle,” Iris said.
She was still holding Josie, which made me feel like I was actually touching her instead. I suddenly started to feel horribly nervous. But Josie seemed to take pleasure in me petting her (it was less like petting and more like being absorbed) in there, and began to purr contentedly.
I started to ease up a bit, a sense of peace washing over me. Albeit a bit unusual, Josie was still a beautiful and charming cat. I felt extremely fortunate to be able to pet her to my heart’s content.
“Ah!”
But apparently I went a bit overboard petting her, for Josie hissed angrily. A second later, she snatched up one of the sandwiches from the lunchbox and took off like a flash of lightning.
“Poop… She got away. I wanted to touch her hole, too!” Iris pouted in disappointment. But then she burst into a dazzling smile, happy she at least got to hold Josie.
“Hee hee! There are plenty of dangerous things or creatures you can’t interact with for various reasons…but there are also cute, harmless anomalies like Josie. I hope you get a chance to reach out and interact with the different entities around here without holding any prejudice toward them as SCP objects.” It was like she was teaching a moral lesson or doing a PSA. While talking, she evenly split the remaining sandwiches with me. There was one extra, so we broke it in half and shared. After stuffing our respective halves into our mouths, we broke into broad grins.
“It’s nice to split things in half sometimes,” Iris said. Her smug expression just screamed pride over saying something cool. How adorable!