Steilacoom High School, our beloved campus. Though small, the building contains a plethora of classrooms, students, and memories. It sounds innocent enough, but recently, I began to wonder what lies undiscovered in the hidden rooms of the school. What is the “USAgain” clothing bin outside for, and how does it always go unnoticed? Why is the area near the auxiliary gym so quiet, seemingly abandoned? Why did I feel something crunch in my school-lunch chicken alfredo? I’m dedicated to finding out.
My first area of investigation was by the aux gym. The gym itself was not what intrigued me, but what could be up the stairs right beside its doors. In all my three years attending this school, I’d never known what was up there. With intrepidity, I made my way up the steps, to find… a door. Technically two – one is a forgotten entrance to the school, set by the greenhouse. But what caught my interest was the other door, labeled “Roof Access”. I crept inside and saw boxes upon boxes. It appears the room is used as a storage space for extra supplies, like paint rollers, air filters, and menstrual pads. But a few things seemed out of place: a giant box TV and a ladder leading to a trapdoor on the ceiling. The trapdoor called to me, but I held myself back from climbing up to it. As for the TV, why was it tucked away in this room? What cursed programs had been played on it?
Moving on with my investigation, I decided to explore the kitchens. At first I set out with the intention of exploring the roofed area of the student parking lot, near where the food trucks deliver groceries. Wandering around, I saw nothing out of the ordinary – pallets of cans, a walk-in freezer, a shed for storage – except for mass amounts of broken tables and chairs. I was inspecting them, wondering why in the world they were there, when a staff member emerged from the school. A short conversation later, and I was being led into the kitchen. I passed through a long hallway with shelves of dry food to my right and large ovens to my left, and at the end of it was the door into the kitchen itself. Walking in, I observed the lunch ladies working dedicatedly, but as I explored something didn’t feel quite right. Then I watched as a human hand was tossed into a pot of alfredo sauce. Where it came from or why it was put in there, I didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to ask any questions. I left quickly after that. People always complain about school lunches being bad, but I don’t think anyone would guess cannibalism to be the reason why.
The last thing on my list was the mysterious clothing bin at the side of the school next to the student parking lot. Labeled “USAgain” and masking itself as a recycling bin for old clothes, it looked run-down and worn. Funny, I’d passed this bin many times before, but never acknowledged its existence, and never saw anyone else show any signs of knowing it was there. Peering inside I saw nothing but a black void, and experimentally I threw a small rock into it. I never heard it hit the bottom of the bin, indicating that either there is clothing inside it and it muffled the sound, or it’s a black hole in disguise. Either way, I’m going to be keeping my eye on it to see if the SCP Foundation shows up to take it away.
