American Comics Universe: I, the Containment Object Revealed at the Start

Have you ever seen a scene in an animated film where someone goes in through one door in a hallway and then comes out through another door in the same hallway? That's exactly how I feel right now. For two whole days, all I've seen are identical bookshelves.

Row after row, and then another row. I mean, come on, I love books just as much as everyone else, but this is going too far. I'm definitely still moving forward; I can see signs passing overhead. But horribly, none of them say "Exit."

I'm not sure who I'm writing these questions for.

Let's consider this preparation for my autobiography after I leave here. I'll call it "My Extraordinary Journey in an Ordinary Old IKEA".

If I can get out

Finally, we found other people! I wasn't the only unlucky one stuck here after all.

I guess I'm lucky. This is my sixth night here.

Two employee monsters rushed at me in the darkness, not quite the first one I'd seen, but still a chaotic mess. I heard them coming, and they were saying something about the store closing and me having to leave, in a friendly, polite tone. I wasn't sure which was more eerie: they didn't have mouths at all, and they were trying to kill me as they spoke. They charged at me like mad dogs.

So I took off running. I sprinted through IKEA like a fucking madman in the dark. But just as I was leaving a bunch of big shelves, I saw it, lit up by torches and floodlights. They'd built a whole town here!

A giant wall was built using canopy bed boards, tables, and other materials.

I swear to God, this was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Anyway, I think they saw me (or heard me—[strikethrough] sissy[strikethrough]—yet I screamed in a terrifyingly masculine way) because they opened the door, and two people waved me in. Even after the door closed, I could still hear the staff banging on it and politely announcing that the store was closing. But eventually, they left.

They call this town "Exchange," because that's what the sign hanging from the ceiling says: Returns and Exchanges.

They used the lamps they found to connect to electrical wires and illuminate the night. There were beds, food, and people. More than 50 people with beautiful hands and feet, normal faces, and complete features. This was my seventh night here, and the first night I hadn't spent in the dark. I'd spent a whole week at IKEA. This might be some kind of TV show.

Now that I'm surrounded by people, I'm starting to feel a little more normal. Maybe "normal" isn't quite the right word. But after a whole week of only my own footsteps for company, I'm becoming increasingly certain I'm going crazy. I'm about to be locked in a padded room somewhere and bang my head against the wall. But no, I feel perfectly sane, thank you all!

There seem to be some towns around here. Some have a lot of people, some have little. I find it unbelievable – how could so many people disappear without anyone noticing? Surely someone must have noticed that everyone just vanished into thin air after going to IKEA. Or maybe not everyone. Perhaps we were just a lucky few.

The people here simply call these employee monsters "employees".

They seem to be fine during the day, just wandering around the corridor minding their own business.

Once the lights are off, they turn into a bunch of crazy lunatics. So during the day people can go looking for food, water, and anything else they need. It seems some restaurants and shops are restocked periodically.

Nobody knows what happened. Maybe it was the employees. They don't seem to be very good at their job either, because restocking is sometimes infrequent, which means they have to be careful with the food.

Perhaps they could do more work if they weren't so busy catching people in the dark.

In short, the employees go crazy as soon as night falls, and everyone has to stay inside the walls to keep watch.

Obviously, this is true everywhere in this place, no matter where it is. Uh—IKEA, wherever all the other IKEAs sprang up. Or maybe we're just in some ordinary IKEA, and it's all just a crazy dream arising from a numb boredom. Who knows?

I've been here for 10 days now. Most of the people I've asked said they've lost track of time, but one guy named Chris said he's been here for years.

several years.

There seem to be rumors that someone successfully escaped. Those who saw the exit simply said it vanished right before their eyes. I feel not everyone believes these things, but I do.

That explains why we were stuck here in the first place (in part). I mean, come on, the staff monsters, the endless supply of high-quality Swiss furniture. I just can't understand why they wouldn't believe there were doors that could disappear.

Chapter 116 Miniature Civilization in IKEA

In short, Sandra, Jerry, and I went to nearby stores to scavenge for food today. Once you get the hang of the landmarks, navigation isn't that difficult.

The overhead sign helped a lot, but there was more; not far away was a huge pile of giant shelves lying on top of each other, and all the way to the east (we all guessed that IKEA didn't seem to sell compasses) was some kind of wooden tower that went all the way to the ceiling, perhaps they had tried to penetrate the roof.

The lights were on at night, so someone was definitely there, but it seemed like it was several days' walk (which means several miles), so nobody here could really confirm. Looks like I'm incredibly lucky I've been sleeping outside for a whole week without getting torn to pieces by the staff. That's me. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

We found something to eat in the store.

Maybe the employees will restock at night; thanks to them. There's a phone on the wall; I'll try it. There's a voice on the other end, but it's all gibberish. Random words are squeezed out haphazardly, making no sense.

Have you ever seen someone with aphasia? It sounds like that kind of situation. Anyway, no one answered my question. Sandra said all the calls here are like that.

Oh, you're asking about diaries again!

I was thinking about some things last night. The rooftops here are so high, so far away, that no one can say for sure if it will last forever. So, should this place have weather or something?

I'm sure I've read before that some NASA buildings are so big they have their own weather patterns, clouds, and stuff like that. This place is definitely bigger than that, but thinking about it, I realize I've never felt any temperature changes here.

I'm going to add this to my list of bizarre and strange things.

The employees stormed the exchange town last night. There were probably 20 or 30 of them, all calmly and politely telling us to leave while smashing the walls with their bare hands. Apparently, this happens frequently, so everyone was prepared. Restaurant knives, lawnmower blade axes, fire axes.

Someone named Wasim even made a crossbow. Anyway, there were holes in the wall, which we'd discovered beforehand, so we could stab them during employee attacks. I took down several myself. They didn't seem to have any blood, which was strange, but if you made a hole in them, they'd fall down just as easily as a normal person.

In the morning we had to haul away the bodies; obviously, the dead would only attract more at night, and we had to get them out of the barter town. We had two trolleys for moving large crates, so we loaded them onto the trolleys and took them to the loading area. It seems people have named everything here according to the labels on their heads.

The loading area was horrific. Hundreds, even thousands, of dead workers were piled up there. Thankfully, there was no stench. It seemed these things wouldn't rot unless there was blood. My curiosity was piqued during unloading, so I looked at one of the workers who had been chopped up. They were just skin, or things that looked like skin, nothing more. No muscle, no bones, no organs.

Are they alive or not?

They must feel like they have bones when they're moving or smashing through walls. I'm also sure that when a knife is inserted at night, there's more than just skin resistance.

Perhaps they changed when they died. It's just another one of the increasingly bizarre and strange things that have happened, I think.

One night after the employee attack, something came to mind.

Every time I see this scene on TV or in a movie, like the end of the world or everyone being stranded on an island, it seems like people always start fighting each other when groups like ours begin to form.

It's an internal power struggle over food leadership or something else.

But that kind of thing doesn't happen here.

People from other towns come here from time to time to check on things or occasionally trade when there's a shortage. But everything is done in a friendly manner.

It was even friendly. Perhaps it was the threats from the employees, or perhaps the store's ability to continuously restock meant there was little to fight about.

Perhaps people are better off when they aren't trusted. That's a good idea. I think I'd accept it.

In the afternoon, several dozen people appeared at the door, from a town called Handcart.

It appears that the employees broke down a wall and demolished the town during the night. These 12 people were the only survivors out of a hundred or so people.

Of course we let them in. The Human Excellence Corps scores another point. Afterwards, I asked if anyone knew exactly how many towns there were here, and between us and the newlyweds, we came up with over 20 names. Twenty towns teeming with people—who knows how many more there are?

The slogan here should be "How is this possible?" There must be thousands of people somewhere searching for this place.

I've been here for over two months. And not much has changed. A few new people have appeared, experiencing the same thing as the rest of us. They come to IKEA happy, only to suddenly find themselves trapped in the faceless house of Billy's bookshelf.

The workers attack Exchange Town once or twice a week. We kill them and drag away the carcasses, but sometimes they hunt down a few of us first. A few weeks ago they killed a guy named Jared.

Honestly, it's terrifying. Even ordinary people bleed here, let alone these employees. We did our best, but none of us are doctors.

Jared was a good man. He didn't deserve this. We all did.

I couldn't forget it for days afterward. None of us really wanted to find a way out, and I didn't even know where we were supposed to begin.

Today, a four-wheel-drive helicopter carrying a camera flew over the town of Huanhuo. I think this means someone is finally coming to find us, and rescue is on its way. However, this doesn't seem to be the first time. The same thing happened a few months ago, but everyone is still here.

I don't know if it saw us, but it didn't stop. It just kept flying out of our sight.

[Note: Based on the timeline of the diary retrieval, this entry seems to correspond to our first successful test deployment of drones into SCP-3008-1. Video analysis revealed a walled settlement marked "Returns and Exchanges." Attempts to locate this settlement again failed. The origins of other previously sighted drones are unknown.]

Today at dinner, I started talking to people about what they missed about home. Maybe not the best ideas I've ever had, but everyone seemed quite receptive. Many people here have families. Wives, husbands, children, dogs. Franklin seems to also have a pet alpaca; I'm not sure I ever owned one.

But clearly, some people here have very strange gaps in their knowledge. Three people have never heard of the International Space Station, two seem to think ████████████ is the Prime Minister, and one seems to have never heard of the Declaration of Independence. I believe them too. They seem just as clueless as we are.

At first I thought maybe they joined in a different year than me, but they don't seem to be much older than me.

Chapter 117 The Mysterious IKEA

Of course, there are some that are from a much different year than mine. For example, Old Jack said that he entered the supermarket when the United States was independent. My God, how many years has this supermarket been around?

And there's something really strange about it: the places they entered IKEA were all different, and the place names they mentioned were all over the place, completely different from mine.

Are there many IKEA stores like this in the world?

Or perhaps this IKEA building will move around on its own?

But the more I think about it, the more it explains things. No one comes looking for us missing people because we're not from the same place. That sounds strange (maybe that's the local motto), but could these people come from different dimensions? Reality? Call it whatever you want. I've watched a lot of TV shows, so I know a bit about that.

Sarah came from a place without a declaration of independence.

Wasim came from a place where no space station has ever been launched. If everyone came from the same place, or even just appeared to be from the same place, it could cause a huge panic about missing persons.

But there was no large-scale search. We were probably just dealing with a minor case, one or two missing persons that happen every day around the world.

Okay. Interesting mental exercise.

I just realized that yesterday was my six-month anniversary of coming here.

I don't know if IKEA sells party hats. Daily life here is probably pretty much the same.

More new people are coming in, one every few weeks.

Food supplies have fluctuated, but we have never experienced a severe shortage.

Occasionally, there will be guests from other nearby towns, usually from the town of Checkout or the town of Walk 630.

We greet each other and occasionally trade when there's a particular shortage.

This was somewhat comfortable, in a sense. It reminded us that we weren't alone, of some small civilization. Sometimes they brought medical supplies. It seemed there was a pharmacy a few towns outside Checkout Town that restocked from time to time, so they shared as much as possible.

I've never heard of IKEA having a pharmacy, but at this point, it wouldn't be surprising if someone discovered an IKEA organ harvesting lab. This would explain the employees' backgrounds.

Speaking of our faceless jailers, their attacks have become increasingly frequent lately.

Now it's three or four times a week, twice as many as before.

I don't know where they come from, or why the attacks are getting more and more serious.

A few weeks ago, Sarah and I tried to track them during the day, hoping they could lead us to something like the staff quarters. But they didn't go anywhere; they just wandered randomly along the corridors. We had to return empty-handed.

We reinforced the walls, wanting to better arm ourselves. Materials were certainly not lacking. Wasim made more crossbows, but it was still too inefficient.

It's really bad that IKEA isn't doing well.

[Note: No new staff entered IKEA during the time period of this diary entry.]

The attacks are very serious now. They come almost every night, and with so many employees, the bodies are piled up to the point that people can climb over the walls. I think we're in big trouble.

The exchange town is already closed... sigh...

I think Exchange Town is finished. We got a good beating last night. Not many casualties, but the wall is damaged. We've finally figured out why the attack escalated. A crate of supplies had a chunk of employee debris in it. I don't know how that happened, but apparently this piece attracted them just like the whole corpse. But anyway, it's too late. There are too many corpses to move, and we need to repair the wall before nightfall. Candace has called a meeting. I suspect they'll discuss abandoning Exchange Town, maybe trying to find refuge in Checkout Town.

But it's too late. I don't think we have time to make it. Maybe some of us can. After all, I was fine in the dark during my first week here. But how long can I be lucky after that?

I'm just writing this as some kind of closure, I think. For myself, or for anyone who finds this. This is the last entry in my diary, and I hope whoever reads it can escape this place.

What am I most afraid of? I'm afraid of dying tonight and waking up here again in the morning.

[Note: This is the last diary entry. It is speculated that while attempting to reach the "checkout" accommodation, he was chased by individual "employees" and became separated from the others, ending up at the exit.]