Chapter 116 Miniature Civilization in IKEA

Anyway, today I went to a nearby store with Sandra and Jerry to scavenge for food, once you know the landmarks of this place. Navigation isn't that difficult either.

The sign overhead helped a lot, but there was something else; not far away was a large stretch of giant shelves stacked on top of each other, all the way to the east (which we all assumed was east - IKEA didn't seem to sell compasses), something that looked like Towers made of wood, leading up to the ceiling, maybe they tried to penetrate the roof.

The lights were on at night so someone must have been there, but it seemed to be days away (which is to say miles away) so no one here could really confirm. Looks like I was pretty lucky to have slept outside all week without getting torn to pieces by the staff. This is me. Good luck good luck good luck.

We found something to eat in the store.

Maybe those employees will restock at night, thank them. There's a phone on the wall and I want to try it. There were voices on the other end, but they were all gibberish. Random words are thrown out at random and no meaning can be found.

Have you ever seen someone with aphasia? It sounds like that's the case. Anyway, he didn't answer my words. Sandra said all the phones here are like this.

Oh, diary question again!

I was thinking about something last night. The roofs here are so high, so far away that no one can tell whether it will last forever. So should there be weather or something 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 like that. This place is definitely bigger than that, but when I think about it, I find that I never feel any temperature changes here.

I'm going to add this to the amazing list of weird things.

Employees raided Swap Town last night. There were probably 20 or 30 of them, and they all calmly and politely asked us to get out of here, while banging on the wall with their bare hands. Apparently this happens all the time, so everyone is prepared. Restaurant knives, axes made from lawn mower blades, fire axes.

One guy named Wasim even made a crossbow. Anyway there are holes in the wall, we found them earlier so we could stab them when the staff attacked. I've knocked down several of them myself. They don't seem to have any blood, which is weird, but if you cut a hole in them, they'll fall over just as easily as a normal person.

We had to haul away the bodies in the morning, and obviously the dead would only attract more at night, and we had to get them away from Swaptown. We have two carts here that are used to move large boxes, so we load them up and take them to the loading area. It seems like people named everything here according to the labels above their heads.

The loading area is horrendous. There are hundreds or even thousands of dead employees piled up in piles. No stink, thankfully. It seems that these things will not rot even if there is no blood. When unloading, my curiosity suddenly aroused, so I looked at an employee who had been chopped open. They have skin, or something that looks like skin, and that's it. No muscles, bones, organs.

Are they alive?

They definitely look like they have bones when they move and smash against walls. I'm also sure there was more than just skin resistance when the knife was inserted at night.

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

Something occurred to me one night after the employee attack.

Every time I see this scene on TV or in the movies, like it's the end of the world or everyone is stranded on an island or something, when groups like ours start to form, people always seem to start fighting with each other.

Infighting over food leadership or something.

But there's nothing like that here.

People from other towns came here from time to time, to check in or occasionally trade when there was a shortage. But everything was done cordially.

Even friendly. Maybe it's the threat from the employees, or maybe the store's ability to keep restocking supplies means there's nothing to fight about here.

Maybe people are better when they're not trusted. This is a good idea. I think I'll accept it.

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

It seems employees broke through the walls and tore the town apart during the night. These 12 people were the only survivors among more than a hundred people.

Of course we let them in. Another point for the human elegance column. Then 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 there are.

The slogan of this place should be "How is this possible?" There must be someone, somewhere looking for the thousands of people who must be here.

I've been here for over 2 months. The results didn't change much. A few new people showed up and had the same experience as the rest of us. Happy came to IKEA, but suddenly he was trapped in the faceless stranger's house in Billy's bookcase.

Employees come to attack Swap Town once or twice a week. We killed them and dragged away the bodies, and sometimes they hunted a few of us first. They killed a guy named Jared a few weeks ago.

It's honestly too scary. As a result, ordinary people can still bleed here, even if these employees don't. We try our best, but none of us are doctors.

Jared is a good guy. He didn't deserve this. We are all.

I couldn't forget it for several days. None of us really wanted to find the exit, and I didn't even know where we were going to start.

Today a four-wheel drive helicopter flew over the exchange town with a camera. I took this to mean that someone was finally coming for us and that help was on the way. But this doesn't seem to be the first time. The same thing happened a few months ago and everyone is still here.

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

[Note: Judging from the time of diary recovery, this article seems to correspond to our first successful test of sending a drone into SCP-3008-1. Video analysis revealed a walled settlement under a sign labeled "Returns and Exchanges." Attempts to find the settlement again failed. Other previously sighted drones were of unknown origin. 】

Today at dinner I started chatting with people about what they missed about home. Maybe not the best idea I've ever had, but everyone seemed to welcome it. Many people here have families. Wife husband. child. dog. Franklin seems to have a pet alpaca, I’m not sure I bought one.

But clearly some people here have very strange gaps in their knowledge. Three people had never heard of the International Space Station, two people seemed to think ████████████ was the Prime Minister, and one person seemed to have never heard of the Declaration of Independence. I believe them too. They seemed as confused as we were.

At first I thought it was because they came in in a different year than me, but it seems they are not much different from me in age?