Plastic Graveyard - SCP Foundation

hol-chi 04/19/2020 (Tues) 11:03:00 #89238771

Have you ever had a virtual pet? Some sort of fake little creature that you’re solely responsible for? They were a bit of a craze in my town, to the point that our school district had to ban them. It was such a big problem that kids were skipping school to feed their Tamagotchis (me included, a few times), finding loopholes in the library computers so they could log into Neopets, smuggling their Digimon in their pencil pouches! Against a crowd of crafty teenagers, keeping them away was an insurmountable task. The teachers knew it would be, though– the school already had a pretty strong historical precedent for this kind of thing.

Even way back in 1997, when the Tamagotchi first came to the United States, they were immediately popular. But there’s one thing that’s different about those older models, compared to the toys of the current day: they’re fucking brutal! A few hours without feeding and they let out a fit of high-pitched shrieks and screams before dropping dead. Too many snacks? Dead! Low morale? Dead! And when your teacher confiscates your beloved pet for the rest of the class period, that can mean you never see them again.

I’m sure the kids knew they could reset the device and get another pet… but at some point, it was all too much for a few of them. They came together to dig holes in the fields, scraping at the dirt with woodchips and plastic spoons, carefully crafting a place to lay their lifeless devices to rest. But eventually, the graveyard grew too big, and it drew the teachers' ire.

The corpses were exhumed by the principal himself. He dug into the sacred ground with a rusty shovel, while the onlooking children were held back by some other staff. It sent the school into disarray: kids were screaming, parents were concerned– and they finally realized this problem was too big to simply scold away.

That was when the Jeffersons stepped in: a big, rich family that owned an unused tomb in the local cemetery down the street from the school. They offered a section of it to the community, to every kid with a “dead” virtual pet, giving each one a little drawer to act as a coffin. Some kids decorated them with stickers, or wrapped them in cloth. Sometimes, they even visited to leave flowers. At last, all the students slept soundly, knowing their Tamagotchis were at rest.

Almost half a decade later, that place is jam-packed with plastic, with ever-cycling LCD screens, only visible under the dim light of the sun creeping down the tomb stairway.

When I was 15, most kids at my school had already buried their virtual pets, and the tomb was rarely visited. But I went there, and I didn’t come back for fourteen months. During this time, my parents didn’t report my absence– I’m not even sure if they noticed I was gone. The school was unfazed. The few friends I had forgot about me.

The first day I came back, I creeped towards my dad, dirty and disheveled, and he nodded at me, sniffed, then chuckled with a slight scowl on his face. “I know boys your age don’t really get personal hygiene… but when it gets this bad, you go take a fuckin’ shower. So go. Now.” So I went to the bathroom, filled up the tub, and tried to drown myself.

I was already missing her.

When I walked down that damp, dark stairway I didn’t really imagine ever wanting to come back up. I remember the red pocket knife in my backpack– a detail I was almost fixated on. I wasn’t going to do anything, I really wasn’t, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

With each step I took, it felt like gravity was pushing down on me stronger and stronger, beckoning my descent. Eventually, I reached into my backpack and pulled out the knife, holding it in my hand. I flicked it open, pressing the side of the blade against my wrist, feeling the cold metal on my skin. In a moment of lucidity, I pulled it away and mustered the strength to throw it down the stairwell, watching it clink and clank into the darkness.

Then, everything looked different– as if the entire world had begun to glow. The stairway wasn’t as dim, almost like I had night vision. For a moment, I stared at the emerald moss creeping up the walls, and I swear it was looking back at me.

I started to run, tripping over myself as I gasped for air, every step an impact sending a jolt through my entire body until I reached the bottom. With tear-soaked eyes, I reached for a familiar drawer decorated with shiny rainbow stickers and patterned origami paper. But when I yanked it open, it was empty.

And for a moment, everything flickered.

Then I heard her guttural, droning voice. She didn’t even have one when I first met her, but I could tell it was hers. “I’ve really missed you, you know?”

I froze, barely feeling my legs enough to turn, to see her. She looked so different than I imagined. Her tan, textureless body towered over me, but she looked so thin. The frills on her tomato-red head drifted from side to side in the slight draft running through the tomb. Her black squiggly-line of a mouth on her pale white face looked happy, I think.

“Tosa?”

Her whole body tilted to the side. “Yeah?”

I lunged at her, tackling into her slender body with a hug. “I’ve really missed you too.” She felt like a marshmallow, warm in my arms, like she could melt at any moment. But she didn’t– she only grew softer.

Eventually, she laid a hand on my shoulder, slowly pushing me away before looking into my eyes, while I stared back at hers. They looked like button candy, the cheap kind you have to peel off sheets of paper.

“Do you want to eat them?” She asked. “My eyes, I mean.”

I chuckled a bit, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my hoodie. “N–no. Of course not.”

Tosa’s squiggly mouth straightened out for a moment. “You’re my guest. It’s okay if you want to.”

“No! I just…”

“You are hungry, though. I can tell.” She started lumbering behind my back, resting a hand on my shoulder to keep me facing forward. Then, she waved a hand over my eyes, and I was suddenly in a kitchen. There was a set of eyes and a mouth on the matte gray fridge. It was chewing on something constantly, like gum, but it didn’t seem to make any noise. Before I could sputter anything out, she guided me to a table and firmly pushed down on my shoulders, sitting me down in a chair. Then, she set a plate in front of me, some kind of sausage and toast.

I never really liked breakfast foods, but I cleaned my plate in an instant. Tosa seemed happy about that.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?”

“I think so– but I don’t–” She waved a hand in front of my eyes again, and I was suddenly tucked neatly into a massive bed. The sheets felt like how I would always imagine clouds would feel.

“Goodnight,” Tosa said, flicking the light-switch off. I stared up at the light in the ceiling, and saw it blink, slowly fading into darkness, before closing its eyes. Eventually, I did too.

The next morning, Tosa sat me at the table with the same meal she fed me before. I was happy to eat, but I couldn’t stop stealing glances at her on the other side, just staring at me, watching me. “This is really good, but… can I make something for you?”

Her eyes went white for a moment. “Maybe. Do you remember my favorite?”

I froze.

“It’s what you’re eating right now.”

“Oh.”

She shook her entire body, letting her red frills slap together on top of her head. “It’s okay. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

I wanted to say it had been almost five years, but I couldn’t remember for sure. So I just nodded instead, and went for another bite. When I cleared my plate, the face on it winked at me.

After that, things just… repeated. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Sometimes we’d play a card game, or fiddle with some random toy together. I liked the spinning top. It would always get so dizzy and disoriented– you could see it in its eyes. They would turn to little spirals… and we’d always laugh at it. Otherwise, it was a regulated schedule– almost like school, but so much more relaxing.

One day, Tosa woke me up and brought me to the table and set a wrapped present in front of me.

“Go ahead, open it!” I tore the box open to find a big, pink bow, which she immediately grabbed from my hands and clipped into my hair.

“It’s cute on you,” she said, holding a mirror in front of me.

I could only agree with her. As she tucked the mirror away, I brushed my hair back. “But it’d be cute on you too, Tosa,” I blurted out.

She paused, then turned to me, her eyes completely black. “I don't think most Tosakatchis would agree with you…”

“…but?”

Her mouth straightened out. “But I think I do.”

The weeks went by in a flash. After a while, Tosa had gifted me an entire cabinet of accessories, which she occasionally swapped out, paying attention to which of the ones I liked the most.

At some point, she adjusted a little opera mask on my face, and as she was focused on my eyes, I grabbed the bow and put it up in her frills.

“See, Tosa? It looks nice on you too.”

Her mouth squiggled even more, looping around itself like a spiral.

“Right?”

“That’s not how this works.”

“W-what?” I stuttered out.

“You wear it.” Her voice was suddenly so dry and raspy as she reached for the bow, tearing it out of her red frills, ripping one out of her head completely. Something gray dribbled down from the spot where it was. “I’m not like you! I don’t know why you think I am. I don’t know why you treat me like this– why you ever did!”

I took a step back. “Tosa– Tosa, stop. Please.”

“I don’t know why I can’t change.”

She waved her hand in front of my eyes, just like she had been doing for weeks, whisking me away to a new place. But this time, everything went dim.

I was at the entrance of the tomb, which was padlocked shut. It usually was– I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten in before.

I don’t remember the walk home, but when I got there, my dad barely acknowledged me. Told me I was just like the usual shit-smelling teenage boy. You know the story.

Before I could think about what I was doing, I locked myself in the bathroom, filled up the tub with ice-cold water, and submerged myself, taking a deep breath of water, feeling my lungs fill up. I pushed against my own instincts, forcing myself to stay under. After what felt like hours, things began to fade.

And then I saw the frills. The pale arms pulling me upwards, slipping a pill into my mouth. And suddenly, I felt okay. I heaved for a moment, trying to cough up any water in my throat– but it was all gone.

I put my hands to my face. My tongue felt prickly, but sweet, like I’d just eaten some popping candy. Eventually, I climbed out from the tub, and I looked at myself in the mirror, my disheveled, ugly self. For a moment, I thought about trying again. But then, I froze. Raising my hands to my face, I waved them in front of my eyes…

And when I looked back in the mirror, there was a bow in my hair.

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