As I was half-heartedly considering the surprisingly trivial meaning behind the prior events in the canteen, Iris closed her eyes and groaned quietly, “The ███ next to me is a visitor from a parallel world? No, I probably pulled ███ out of a picture—out of his parallel world—just like I do during all of our experiments.”
Iris opened and closed her hand several times and sighed deeply. “I feel simply awful. I’ve torn you from the world where you belong, haven’t I? And then I had the nerve to keep you here because I’m lonely and say I think of you as family… Man, I’m terrible!”
Iris… I didn’t feel there was any need for her to blame herself. At first, I only stayed here because I had nowhere else to go, but I was here now of my own free will. I chose to be at Iris’s side, as her good roommate. And as family, if she didn’t mind me thinking of her that way.
I poured all of those feelings into squeezing Iris’s hand, which made her give a slightly relieved smile. I could feel the warmth of her small hand.
Perhaps I was a traveler visiting from another world who shouldn’t exist on this one. But I didn’t regret the rather lengthy time I spent on this world where strange SCP objects existed as a matter of course. I didn’t consider myself unfortunate. Not when I always had Iris kindly smiling at my side. I felt satisfied. I was happy. Nevertheless…
“Of course, a man’s life—his soul—can never be held down by another. No one has that right. Although it’s a bit ironic coming from the owner of Immortality…in a funny sort of way.” Dr. Bright sounded surprisingly serious, not nearly as jovial as their words might imply.
“You’re free to live the life you choose in either world, ███. I’m certain the SCP Foundation’s higher-ups would want to secure an entity as precious as you, but I personally want to leave the choice in your hands. What will it be? Are you returning to your old world? Or would you like to stay here forever?”
Uh, but I didn’t see why they would bother to ask if…I wanted to go home. Was there a way to get back? Did they know of a method to return to my old world…?
“Going back should be easy. I haven’t verified it yet, so this is still conjecture, but I believe you just need to go back into the photo you first popped out of. That photo-world is the parallel world you’re originally from. It’s your world, ███,” Dr. Bright said…and then pulled a photo out of the breast pocket of the lab coat they always wore.
A hint of nostalgia rose within me at the sight of the photo. It displayed countless rows of dingy library stacks. It showed the library where I consulted that occult-loving, weird upperclassman about the Girl in the Photos. That felt like years ago; it was almost like I was catching a glimpse of a previous life.
Unlike Iris with her supernatural powers to view the pictures she took as moving images, I saw it as a simple still image. In the center of the library stacks, ██████-senpai was out of focus due to flailing around. There was a book she dropped in her surprise.
Oh, that was right! The title of that book was Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. So this was how the picture over there looked from this world. The sight of somewhere from my memories began to fill my heart with a longing to go back. But my life here at the research facility was happy, too—and had its own kind of fun.
I wished I could pop back home, if only briefly. I wanted to see my parents and friends from school. I wanted to shoot the breeze, study, attend club activities, laze about watching TV while eating snacks from the convenience store, and enjoy that boring, invaluable normal life.
If I had to choose which world to live in, that would be tough. I couldn’t stand the idea of never seeing Iris again, and I’d miss interacting with all the fantastic SCP objects. Now that I took a second to look back, my life here was truly fun and exciting every single day.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Well, I haven’t verified this, so I can’t say for certain, but when you return to your world, coming back probably won’t be an issue! If you follow the same process—meaning Iris touches you in the photo and pulls you out—you should be able to return to this world,” Dr. Bright said with a wink after fondly watching me debate over what to do as if I were a cute kid. “You can freely travel between the two worlds. Iris is the only one capable of dragging you back, and I’m sure she wouldn’t use that ability if you never wanted to return… In other words, you can come back as much as you want, so long as that is what you and Iris desire.”
From their seat in the chair, Dr. Bright elegantly spread out their arms. “With that in mind, what would you like to do? I’ve said this several times now, but you get to decide for yourself. I will leave this to you, ███. As a reward for participating in so many valuable experiments all this time, I shall allow you to choose.” Dr. Bright spoke in a rather patronizing matter, but I could sense the kindness and warmth in their words. My heart was filled with the same warm fuzzies as when I ate the soup from SCP-348.
“Well, I’ll personally be a bit sad to see you go back,” Iris said, placing her hand over mine this time and leaning close to peer into my eyes. “But it isn’t as if we’ll never see each other again. From the sound of it, you can come back to play whenever you want. If you want to return to your old world, I won’t stop you.”Despite what she said, she threaded her fingers through mine as if hating to let me go.
Iris offered me an innocent smile and said, “I can no longer see my true family, the one that I’m related to through blood. So I think you should go see yours while you still can.”
But I considered Iris family now, too. I poured that sentiment into squeezing her hand back. I also poured my feelings for her into it.
I would return to my old world. Even if just once. Even if only for a short time. While I was there, I wanted to see my parents and friends and tell them about my experiences in this strange world. There were a bunch of wacky, insane incidents that happened while I was here. That occult-crazed senpai was bound to eat these stories up. I was going to share my story about how I fell into the world of SCP objects.
“Then you should do just that. Do whatever your heart decides, ███,” Dr. Bright said. With over-exaggerated reverence, they offered the photo to me. “Try to be quick about it. This photo was deemed an entrance to a parallel world, attracting the interest of a bunch of bored researchers. It’s a test subject in its own right! I’ve swapped it out with a fake to buy some time, but it was a pain in the neck sneaking this out.”
“If you keep breaking the rules, one of these days, you’re going to get yourself terminated, Doc,” Iris said, exasperated.
But Dr. Bright loudly laughed it off, “Wha ha ha! If that happens, maybe I’ll go seek refuge in ███’s world! But I’ll need to make you horrendously indebted to me, first.”
“It’s hard to tell whether that’s a joke or not in your case,” Iris retorted with a chuckle, finally loosening up a bit.
She reluctantly let go of my hand and stood up. Turning to face me anew, Iris offered me a slight bow before saying, “…Well, I guess this is goodbye for now, ███.”
As she waved her hand, she said, “Bye-bye. Thank you for becoming my family.”
The pleasure was all mine. I was so glad I met Iris.
We said, “See you later,” and I placed my hands on the photo.