“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.’”