Chapter 116: Micro Civilization in IKEA

Anyway, I went with Sandra and Jerry to scavenge some food from the nearby stores today, once you learn the landmarks of the area. Navigation isn't that hard.

The signs overhead helped a lot, but there was something else; not far away was a huge field of giant shelves that had fallen on top of each other, and all the way to the east (we all assumed it was east - Ikea didn't seem to sell compasses) was some kind of wooden looking tower that went all the way up to the ceiling, maybe they'd tried to punch through the roof.

The lights were on at night so someone must have been there, but it seemed like a few days away (that's a few miles away) so no one here could really confirm. Looks like I was pretty lucky to have slept outside for a whole week without getting torn to pieces by the employees. That's me. Lucky lucky lucky.

We found food in the store.

Maybe the employees restocked the store during the night, thanks to them. There's a phone on the wall, I thought I'd try it. There was a voice on the other end, but it was all gibberish. Random words shoved out of their mouths to make no sense.

Have you ever seen someone with aphasia? It sounded like that. Anyway, no answer to my question. Sandra said all the phones here are like this.

Oh, the diary question again!

I was thinking about something last night. The roofs here are so high, so far away that no one can tell if it's forever. So is there supposed to be weather in this place?

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

I'm going to add this to the list of weird shit that's amazing.

The staff attacked the exchange town last night. There were about 20 or 30 of them, all calmly and politely asking us to leave, while bashing the walls with their bare hands. Apparently this happens all the time, so everyone is prepared. Knives from the cafeteria, axes made from lawnmower blades, fire axes.

One guy named Wasim even got a crossbow. Anyway, there are holes in the wall that we found before, so we can stab them when the staff attack. I took down a few of them myself. They don't seem to have blood, which is weird, but if you cut a hole in them, they'll fall down just as easily as normal people.

We had to haul the bodies away in the morning, since the dead ones would obviously only attract more at night, and we had to get them out of Exchange Town. We had two carts for big boxes, so we loaded them up and took them to the loading area. It seemed like people named everything here after the labels on their heads.

The loading area was horrible. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead employees piled up in piles. No smell, thankfully. It didn't seem like the things would rot without bleeding. My curiosity was piqued as we were unloading, so I looked at one of the employees that had been cut open. They were just skin, or something that looked like skin, that's it. No muscles, bones, organs.

Were they alive?

They must have had bones when they moved, when they were hitting the wall. I'm sure the knife had more resistance than just skin when it went in at night.

Maybe they changed when they died. Just one more weird shit to add to the growing list, I thought.

After the staff attacked one night, I thought of something.

Every time I see this scene on TV or in a movie, like the world is ending or everyone is stranded on an island or something, groups like ours start to form, and people always seem to fight each other.

Fighting for food, leadership, or something.

But there's nothing like that here.

People from other towns come here from time to time, to check in or occasionally trade when there's a shortage. But everything is cordial.

Friendly, even. Maybe it's the threat of the staff, or maybe it's the constant restocking of the store that makes it less of a fight.

Maybe people are better when they're not trusted. It's a good idea. I think I'll go with it.

Dozens of people showed up at the door that afternoon, from a town called the Trolley.

It seemed that the staff had broken through the wall and torn the town apart in the night. These 12 people were the only survivors out of a hundred or so.

Of course we let them in. Another point for the human elegance column. Afterwards I asked if anyone knew how many towns there were, and between us and the newcomers, we came up with more than 20 names. 20 towns full of people, and god knows how many more besides.

The slogan for this place should be "How is this possible". Someone, somewhere must be looking for the thousands of people that must be here.

I've been here for over 2 months. Turns out not much has changed. A few new people have shown up, and had the same experience as the rest of us. Came to Ikea for fun, and suddenly found themselves trapped in Billy's bookcase's faceless house of weirdos.

The staff come and attack the exchange town once or twice a week. We kill them and haul off the bodies, and sometimes they prey on a few of us first. They killed a guy named Jared a few weeks ago.

It's honestly horrible. Turns out regular people bleed here, even if the staff don't. We tried our best, but none of us are doctors.

Jared was a good guy. He didn't deserve this. None of us did.

I couldn't get over it for a few days after that. None of us really tried to find a way out, and I didn't even know where we would start.

Today a quadcopter with a camera flew over Exchange Town. I think this means someone is finally looking for us, and help is on the way. It doesn't seem like the first time though. The same thing happened a few months ago, and everyone was still here.

Not sure if it saw us, but if it did it didn't stop. Just kept flying away from our sight.

[Note: Based on the time the diary was recovered, this entry seems to correspond to our first successful test of sending a drone into SCP-3008-1. Video analysis found a walled settlement under a sign labeled "Returns and Exchanges". Attempts to find this settlement again failed. The origin of other drone sightings previously is unknown.]

Today at dinner, I started talking to people about what they miss about home. Maybe not the best idea I've ever had, but everyone seemed welcoming. A lot of people here have families. Wives and husbands. Children. Dogs. Franklin also seems to have a pet alpaca, which I'm not sure I bought.

But it's clear that some people here have very strange gaps in knowledge. 3 had never heard of the International Space Station, 2 seemed to think ████████████ was the Prime Minister, and one seemed to have never heard of the Declaration of Independence. I believed them too. They seemed just as confused as we were.

At first I thought maybe they came in a different year than me, but they weren't much older than me, were they?