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!