Back again

A little over a year I have been in this hell hole, Wrapped up by a jacket colored white, and left alone with my twisted and messed up thoughts. It is me and them. Hiding away in the darkest corners of the room that I have been confined to. The humiliating factor that remains true no matter which way you look at the situation, the unpleasantness is that I am to blame for this. It is far too quiet here. It is far too loud. I didn’t estimate just how horrible it would be to be alone. Being in this room 24 hours a day has made me long for my needy, loud, children and ignorant wife.

I blink once. Again. Both blinks within the same second. I stand. My steps remain even. One foot directly in front of the other. I take a misstep and fall on the padded ground of my prison. I stand back up using the balance that I lost for a moment too long. I walk all of the steps back ensuring, that I do not take another tumble. I can not even begin to imagine the pain and chaos that would transpire if we escaped. All of that crazy released into the world terrifies and excites me at the exact same time. Excitement is an unfamiliar feeling to me, at this point in my confinement, this is my heaven, and my hell. A place of escape but also a loss of my freedom. I want to be free but I do not think I could handle being free. I think that the outside world would overwhelm me. I am a shell of the person that I once was. It is not like I don’t deserve it. I was not a good person while living on the outside. I doubt I will be any better if I go back. I refuse to sleep in the bed. Sleeping in their bed feels permanent. I don’t know if I will ever leave the prison but I will not be their little lab rat like the others. When I first arrived I would see and hear people in the halls and at the cafeteria, there wasn’t much but on occasion there was laughter. People would visit, not my family, but people. People on the outside. We were at least treated like humans. Not anymore. I realize I will never leave this place. I will never feel the warm feeling of the sun on my skin, or see the smiles of my wife and children who I left behind when I called that number. I did this and for as long as they decide to feed me I will be stuck here. When they stop I will be free, and only when they stop feeding me will I finally be free and leap into the embrace of death itself. Until then I will remain in this repeating cycle. The cycle of torture and needles. I never liked needles.

The only difference between today and yesterday is that today is the 582nd day and yesterday was the 581st. Why did I not just stay home?

Around what feels like 3 am, I get a knock on the door to my cell. “Hello Andrew Gammathorn. Follow me please” I don’t say a word. We arrive at the designated tested area in 5 minutes. “Did you finish your water and food?” I snicker in my head. I don’t know if you can call it food. “Yes”. I maintain eye contact with the ground. “You know the drill. Give me your arm.”, I lift my arm in his direction so that he can do his job. He grabs a needle, just as big as the last, and sticks it in my arm. In the corner of my eye, standing in the shadows, I see him. A shadow figure, about 8 feet tall. He moves his head from side to side, not saying a word, watching, waiting. Waiting for what? Sometimes he tries to speak to me but I never talk back.Taking the first tool he opens up the stitches from last week. He takes a look using I don’t know what and nods. Little did I know what he was really doing. He sews me back up and sends me on my way. As I walk, the shadow creature follows. Slowly walking in the shadows, following close behind. I was used to this. He goes where I go. under different circumstances, I might consider him a friend. Every day, exactly the same. Day 583. When I wake up, I see the figure in the corner, standing, watching, not saying a word. I stand, already seeing breakfast at the door. I think that they put something in the food. I walk to the door, breaking my pattern by falling. This time, I just keep going. I drink my water, I eat my bread. Today doesn’t feel like yesterday. When I look up, in front of me, I see the figure. He has never been this close. “Hello” I say. I hear the sirens. An announcement was made over the intercom that I did not know still worked, “This is an automated message. Code Yellow. All Patients to their rooms and all staff to the emergency area. Patient 444996 has made contact.”, I freeze in my tracks still staring, unable to move. “What is going on?” I say still staring at the figure. At that moment someone opens my door to my cell and 300 doctors and guards walk in. Guards all pointing their guns at me, the doctors standing behind them. I look at them, then I look back up at the figure who stands there, motionless. “We’re going to need you to come with us.” So, this is the end I guess. I sigh and look up, meeting the figure's eyes one last time before turning back to the crowd. I make eye contact with the doctor who seems to be in charge. “Why?” I ask, simply. The guards raise their weapons with their fingers on the triggers, ready to shoot me on their leader's command. The doctor I spoke to steps forward and the guard in charge looks like he signals for them to lower their weapons. “Someone is being brave today, aren’t you?” I smile. “Well I don’t have anything to lose. If I go with you then I am dead. If I stay then I am dead.” I chuckle lightly and slowly it becomes louder and louder. “I mean my wife probably moved on with my 2 kids! I lost them when I joined this stupid “hospital” and your physcos are going to kill me anyway so I don't care. “We aren’t going to kill you. Come with us and in one year we will set you free.” I had no idea just how true that statement was.

The doctors led me to the door before unlocking it with a key hanging from the leader's neck. When The door opened I swear my heart stopped. The breath I was holding out of nervousness desiccated in my throat and my entire body halted in place. “This is the main lab. All experiments happen here after a patient makes contact which hasn’t happened in 35 years by the way.” the doctor explains. After my painful “examination” he brings me to a room that I had never seen.

I cannot recall the last time that I slept as well as I did last night. “Hello Mr. Gammathorn. How are you doing this morning?” the doctor asks. “What are you not telling me…?” I ask cautiously. 585 days. I have to leave this horrid place and get back out into the world. Freedom. That sounds nice. I wonder how my wife is. I wonder if my children ever miss me. I have lost myself to the monster that the doctors created. And my sins are a result of my own misjudgement. 586 days in. You would think that by now I would be used to this empty and depressing environment. I hear an alarm sound and a door open. I run at my first chance of freedom and black out. I somehow arrived at my home. I saw my wife, my children. I saw the fear in my children's eyes and the hatred in the eyes of my wife. I look down at myself and I don’t recognize the person that I am looking at. I see sharp dark claws, long legs, pitch black shape with no defined features. I see something that is not me and yet, I have not felt more like myself in years. The look of fear in my children and wife's eyes didn’t make me guilty for once. The fear actually strengthened my bloodthirst. There was a certain- I don’t know how to describe it- it was like a rush that went to my head while staring at their motionless bodies scattered around our front room. They're gone.

Comments