SCP 3008: IKEA Store

[WP] It’s been 3 days: we tried to retrace our steps to the cafe but found ourselves in a German home furnishing section instead. A few the staff are trying lead bands of shoppers out but every exit loops us back around and the managers are gone. There is no escape now, there is just IKEA.

*****

All we had were meatballs. Even though delicious, they were becoming a little boring since past 3 days. I looked over to the guy beside me, Dave, he was an linguist. We had become a small rag tag team of survivors, trying to find the exit.

"Did you see anything?" I enquired as my team mate came from scouting.

"No....just more meatballs, and some extra screws and planks" Larry handed me yet another bag of meatballs and then handed the lumbar to Dave. I shook my head. :"We can't assemble these furniture without help of a pure blood Swedish. Only he can enchant these pieces and decipher their puzzle." Even though Dave knew Swedish language...he didn't inherit the power.

But alas! none of us knew any Swedish. Dejected, I take my team and keep walking, furniture house after furniture house. I never thought you could construct an entire house inside Ikea Mall. But, here it was. They did. If only I had a swedish beside me, we could even build a wooden tank and plow through all these aisles.

After what seemed like half a day of roaming around, walking we stumbled across a couple, and the woman was very late into pregnancy. "Oh..finally Do you guys know the way out?" I asked them. They had pitched their own tent, of wood, which had a functioning door, lights and even a small basement. "Umm...you mean the EXIT?" The man looked a little confused.

"It's a word I haven't heard in a long time." The woman replied and gently caressed her belly.

"Oh...congratulations on your..." I chuckled and pointed to her belly bump. "Meatballs?" I offered them a bag to which they said no. "We...have the basement full of these..I don't know who cooks them and secretly scatters them all around here." The man said frustrated.

"If someone comes here to put these meatball plates...why can't they also guide us out?" Woman said. They were right. But I don't remember ever seeing anyone walking in and placing meatball plates in here.

"Umm...just out of curiosity...how long have you guys been here?" I asked them since The woman seemed a little out of touch with reality. They looked at me with longing eyes.. "The she is 8 months pregnant... so around 10 months"

I was shocked.. They have been here since almost a year? "WHAT? And you never found the exit?" I asked, grabbing the man by his shoulders.

"We were strangers...and came here to buy a chair.. But then we met and now this. I am pretty sure they also have a freaking hospital in here but no exit" He groaned. "This place.....is cursed." I said fearfully.

"If only we had a swedish with us...we could decipher the way" Dave said to which the couple shook their head. "The Pure blood swedish is just a legend..they don't exist anymore. Not after the great Snow ball war. We are better off butting our heads together and figuring out this place"

Since they had been here for a lot longer than us, we tied a string to their camp and scouted around. We met people from 27 different nationalities...but no Swedish. We saw a medieval class fort section where you could build an entire castle, and army out of planks and screws, and a death star section. I didn't want to know what it was. Time passed, the baby was naturally delivered. And he was a year old by now. And then...we found him. His name was Ingvar.

"Do you know the EXIT?" Dave asked. "And how long have you been here?" I asked. These had become routine questions. He answered. "Oh.. I don't know what an Exit is... is it some kind of a new screw?" I was perplexed. He looked old, in his 50's, yet he didn't know the word Exit. "Are you...a Swedish by any chance?" I asked again to which he shook his head. "What's a swedish...is it some kind of furniture?" He looked at us almost innocently as if he was unaware of everything. "Ingvar...Where did you come from?" I prodded him to which he laughed. "Come from? what's that, a new section?" I was frustrated beyond my control. "This man is playing with us... He is old yet behaves as if he doesn't know a thing about outside world" I scream.

Dave takes a step back..."As if...he never set foot outside... Ingvar..where were you born?"

He answered.. "Do you mean assembled? Just there in Living room section" It's true.. he was born here.. probably the first person inside and lived his entire life around IKEA furniture. We followed him, he knew each and everything about IKEA designs, their furniture and had a few designs of his own. We told him about outside world and strangely, he wasn't much interested in it. He said he could build the outside world in IKEA store if he needed to.

"Dave!" I exclaim... "he is the authentic swedish..." I said with a sudden realization. Ofcourse, he is even more swedish than a pure blooded Swedish, his diet was only meatballs and his world was IKEA. He took him back to our camp and gave him parts that we had collected.

"Can you build like a tank that can plow through here and get us out of here?" I urged him and gave him a design of tank. "A tank? what does it do?" Ingvar asked.

"Oh...it can go anywhere through anything" I said excited. "Ofcourse I can build it." He replied.

And within a month, he had truly built a tank from parts we scavenged around. And ofcourse...it ran on meatballs. Hurried, we got into it. My team, the couple and their child. But Ingvar wanted to stay. He bid him farewell and promised to help him once we got out and fired up the Tank.

Even though it was made of wood and screw, it worked really well. I shifted gear and it moved forward... Gleefully, I looked outside. As we built up the moment to breakthrough the isles and walls, slowly a small blue ball of energy appeared at the mouth of its turret. Was...Was it a plasma Cannon? No...it kept getting bigger and was flat in shape. Before I knew what was going on, it engulfed the entire tank. We were washed over with darkness and void.

When we opened our eyes...we noticed blue sky above us. I looked around...we were no more in IKEA store. I screamed with joy and celebrated with others. I don't know what happened But Ingvar got us out. I looked behind, IKEA store wasn't there anymore. Infact, no big buildings, no roads and electric poles, nothing of city was around us. We got out of the tank and talked to people.

However....people were different. Their dialect was...almost unrecognizable. Then Dave exclaimed.. "This...language. What year is this sir?" He asked a random passer by. "Ofcourse... it's the year 318 of the Lord. The romans have just been defeated and French now rules the World."

I had asked Ingvar to build something which could go anywhere, no obstacles. And ofcourse he built me something that had no obstacles. Not even time and space. Not only we had travelled back 1700 years..but to a parallel universe where French defeated Romans. It had to be the worst Parallel universe.

But we had the tank...and we could still go back. "Do you have any meatballs?" I asked with the help of Dave as Tank's tank was empty and with just enough meatballs, we could go back to our world.

"Meatballs? What are those? I have never heard of them." The man said and walked away. "Strange people sitting in their strange fort talking strangely"

Ofcourse...meatballs haven't been invented yet. Since then we try laboriously to gather required spices and ingredient..to invent the Swedish meatball, to go back home. But people wouldn't believe us. To them, we were really good chefs...who owned a strange shop shaped like a rooftop carriage with a long nose. We were determined however, to reinvent the meatball, and to leave this world behind.

*****

THE END