CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "I pretended to be insane to avoid being conscripted into the Russian Army" Creepypasta

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

AUTHOR'S BOOK► https://www.amazon.com/Artyom-Deresch...CREEPYPASTA STORY►by TheScandalist: ►https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...►https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...►https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...►https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...CREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►AdrianBukowski: https://www.deviantart.com/adrianbuko...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7YCb...►"Personal Favourites"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEa2R...►"Written by me"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX6RA...►"Long Stories"- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪-This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only-

To this day, the Russian army still relies largely on conscripts to man itself. Every spring and every autumn, for three months, all the young men, ages from 18 to 27, who don't have something to keep them from the army, are being hunted by the ever vigilant draft officers. It doesn't matter if you're tall or short, slim or fat, short-sighted or the other way around. The Russian army lovingly accepts all. There are a few ways to avoid the draft. First of all, you can bribe the officers. This is Russia we're talking about after all.

You won't be conscripted if you study at the university. If you have three children by the age of 27, the army will also get off your back. They must think that you'll suffer enough as it is. They also don't touch the disabled, and they have this strange rule where they will let you go if more than 70% of your body is covered in tattoos. 70%! That's quite the thing.

cutaway line. And the funny thing is, when I was kicked out of my university this winter, I almost considered it. I mean, I could turn myself into a tiger, or leopard, or living monument to Stalin's glory. That one is really popular in Russian prisons, but I've decided to go a different route. I've decided to go insane. Now, the chance of success was really small. The medical committee, which decided to decide whether you're fit to serve is very experienced and can determine with ease whether you're faking it or not.

If they catch you, straight to the army you go, right from that room where they examined you. But the only other option I have is mutilation or bribe. I have no desire to do the former and no money for the latter option. I come from a poor family

that lives in a village and the money I'm earning in town is just enough to give me a roof over my head and put some food on the table. My savings wouldn't be enough to sate some fat cat's appetite. Now, you might be thinking that the new epidemic

might have put a hold in the country's draft. Russia is on lockdown after all. But no, those guys don't care. They decided to keep the draft going despite the pandemic because to them, conscripts, are less than people.

They are just cannon fodder and cheap labour force to build their country houses. A few weeks ago, the draft officers handed me the note which required me to show up on the expected day to pass the medical committee. I was ready. I had spent days studying how to trick them, how to pretend to be clinically insane so that they wouldn't suspect a thing. It was going to be a tough mission. They were ready for people faking all kinds of disabilities and they knew their orders, to enlist as many people as possible.

You might think, why go through so many hoops to avoid the draft? Why not just serve in the military for a year and protect your motherland? I understand how it looks, but trust me, the Russian army is not what it once used to be. If the stories of the older generation are true. In the modern army, you'll just be wasting your time, either dying from boredom or doing some meaningless chores meant to instill discipline into you, like scratching the entire parade ground with a toothbrush. Very often you'll be sent to some general's country house, either to work in his garden or to paint the walls.

Once a year, you'll be sent to a shooting range where they'll let you shoot from an AK-47 once and explain how to throw a grenade. Not to mention the accidents that sometimes happen, like the soldier accidentally losing his legs to cold because his superior officer forgot that he sent a soldier outside during winter without any clothes on as a disciplinary measure. Don't be mistaken, there is a professional army, and there are good bases where conscripts are actually taught something valuable. But for a conscript in our backwater town, the chances of being sent as such a base were practically zero. And yet, there's still this stigma that, if you didn't serve, then you're no man. Go figure. So, yes, I'd rather be deemed insane than going to the army. So, the day came, and I went to where the committee was supposed to take place.

I had memorized everything I was supposed to say by heart. I had lived with it for the past few weeks. I almost believed myself to be truly insane. I could do it. The place was crowded, around 20 young men just like me. All of us were instructed to take off our clothes before going in, and so all of us stood in the cold corridor in night. nothing but her underpants.

Someone on the far end of the corridor was coughing to no end, but we paid no attention to it. Catching COVID almost seemed like the desired outcome at that point. My name was called out and I went inside the cabinet. Picture this,

me, almost naked, standing on the cold floor in front of the entire medical committee. Six doctors in white robes and surgical masks. Yeah, of course they would protect themselves. Everything went easier than expected. They asked me a few things about myself.

I told them that I'm afraid to serve in the army because I scream at night, I feel anxious all the time, etc. With a sigh, they handed me a test to evaluate my psyche and sent me to a separate room to complete it. Since I knew what I was doing, I knew which boxes to tick and thus was quickly able to make it look

like I had a severe paranoid anxiety disorder. I also threw in schizophrenia just for good measure. The psychologist took my test, asked me a few questions to verify the results. I told him that I'm scared of the army, and he told me that I had to spend a few months in an asylum. Congrats, he told me in a dry voice, you won't serve in the army after all. I was overjoyed that I had succeeded. I was almost free.

well, almost. I still had to go to the asylum to serve my sentence there, but at that point it didn't look so bad. Surely being in the hospital couldn't be that bad. But when I was brought there with a bag of my belongings, I realized that I should have looked up what the asylum in our town was like. It was a very old building, almost a ruin.

One wing of it was actually abandoned. the curse place, which was placed on lockdown for who knows what reasons. The paint on the walls of the ceiling was peeling off, revealing yellow walls underneath. It was very clear that no one had given a damn about the damned souls in the last 30 years or so. The only thing that differentiated the asylum with the abandoned ones in horror movies and video games was that it still had people in it. Which, considering how friendly the personnel was, made it only worse. From the very moment when I interacted with them, I realized that I was no better than a prisoner.

They took away my phone, my money, my keys, everything. They weren't asking me to do things. They were ordering us. The personnel was exclusively female, but the strength in their shoves could match that of a bull's charge. It was clear that they had had a lot of practice over the years. All of them treated us with distaste. snapping at me whenever I asked anything from them.

But the worst of them, the head jailer, the person whom even the other nurses feared, was Anna Nikolaevna Voevoda. Quite a fitting name, don't you think? I've always thought that the head nurse should have the last name which literally means warlord. She lived up to a name. From the moment I'd seen her,

I was wondering how one could get so jacked without working out. Despite being morbidly obese and having a huge strain on her back, she is almost two metres tall, towering over everyone at the asylum. She has the weight of three men and the strength of five. Her bicep alone is practically thicker than me, or it will be soon anyway, considering how poorly they feed us here. Despite her impressive size, she moves around with impossible ease. Her movements were all quick and jagged,

like she was swinging a sword at times. She is unbelievably cruel and demands nothing short of absolute submission from her patience. She demands that we call her Anna Nikolaevna, but we call her Voivoda behind her back. It is one of those cases when the true name is much more fitting

than anything we could have come up with, but we do so very carefully, looking behind us before uttering it in a whisper. She hates when people refer to her by her last name, even when she's not present. When you see adult men fear to speak her name, you know just how far her power goes. Just this week, she heard someone passingly mention it in a conversation with another patient. Her fury was swift and unrelenting. She did not care what they had been talking about, with a cry.

It's Anna Nikolaevna, you dumb yoke. She slapped the man so hard he fell down and hit his head on the brick corner of the wall. He'd been in the infirmary ever since. Of course, Voi Voda suffered no consequences for putting the man there. Her wrath and influence are so great, even the head doctor is too afraid to take any measures against her. She enjoys ordering us around, and I'm yet to hear her normal voice. She keeps hollering every word she says, making the already brittle wall shape. You can always tell when she's approaching your wing.

She either howls bloody murder at anyone she sees, or you can hear her heavy pace rock the foundation. As someone with her weight, she moves unexpectedly fast. I think I'll go mad for real if I just imagine the strain she puts in her heart, but the damn thing keeps on going without giving out. There are plenty of other colourful characters as expected from an asylum. but the damn thing keeps on going without giving out. There are plenty of other colourful characters, as expected from an asylum really.

There's Anton, an old man who believes that his neighbours wanted to kill him to take away his apartment. He'd been bothering the police so often they'd six medical workers on him who promptly locked him away. Anton says that the police are in cahoots with his neighbours, that they've received a bribe from them, and they've already taken his house away. I don't really know whether I should believe him

On one hand he's in an asylum But on the other Who am I to be the judge of that Then there's Sabog Sabog is not a name It means a boot The man refuses to give us his real name And the nurses, despite having it on file

Also refer to him as Sabog Sabog is a very straightforward man He is a criminal who pretends to be insane to prolong his trial. He told me so himself. But if you don't think about that, he's quite a decent person. Says the asylum is actually worse than a prison.

He knows from experience. And then there's Miran. We've met at the medical committee. He's the same as me. Those three are the only ones around who can maintain a conversation. Other patients are definitive wackos. They scream, drool,

talk to invisible friends. and so on. But they are mostly harmless, so I bear no ill will toward them, even if their lamentations sometimes get on my nerves. And of course, the abandoned wing. Every corridor on every floor was ending with the doors leading to it. On all floors, the doors are the same, massive constructs made of oak wood. All of them look different from any other door in the asylum, not to mention that the paint of them looks more fresh, which makes me think that they were installed specifically to make sure that no one goes in there. On top of that, the doors are barricaded with planks, with numerous warnings glued on top

of them. The warnings are all in different size and font, but they all say the same. Keep out. There are rumours among the patients that sometimes voices and footsteps can be heard there, which I doubt can be trusted, considering who the patients are. But even the same ones like Sabog and Miran say that they've heard the clanking of metal coming from there at night. My day has a strict schedule.

Wake up at 7.30. Go get your plate of cereal or gruel. If you're lucky, you'll get some black tea with sugar. Then you're off on your own. Try to avoid the nurses or they'll give you some chores to do, like helping them clean up or take some old patient's bed pan out. At 1pm, you'll have a break in the yard. At 2 p.m., dinner and pills.

Supper is at 7 p.m. And at 9 p.m. lights out. On Sundays, they give us our phones for a few hours, a result of some scandal that took place a few years ago. Vodaghavoda hates that we get contact to the outside world, but there's nothing she can do about it. Even though there's no money allowed in the asylum, there is a currency.

Cigarettes. Just like in prisons if Seppock's words are to be believed. Only the thing is, the currency is being issued by the nurses. They hand the cigarettes out when you help them. The exchange rate is abysmal. You get one cigarette for cleaning the entire floor of the wing. For the reference, it may take up to a few hours to do that, all for one cigarette.

I am not a smoker, so I'm keeping the ones I've earned, but the last week had me so stressed that I'm thinking about starting to smoke. I've had two cigarettes so far, and I've received wild offers from other patients who want them, offers too dirty to even speak about. An old crazy woman with no teeth, only black gums, offered with a coy smile to... Okay, I'll stop. I have both of the cigarettes in my pocket. I am tempted to smoke them both in one go. It'll probably make me puke my guts out since I've no prior experience, but I don't care. I want at least something to distract me or lull me.

Because, with how horrible things have been since I've arrived here, despite the horrible treatment, despite the terrible food and crazies all around me, and very vodas screaming a lungs out, they've gone and made things even worse. Because they've decided to open the abandoned wing, and have us clean it up for repairs. How worse have things gotten? Well, before the wing was opened, I had had no doubts about my mental stability.

Now, I can't afford that luxury. Ironic, isn't it? I was the same person in the outside, yet here I am starting to think that I really am crazy. Or maybe I always was crazy. Maybe I've made up their story about dodging the draft to rationalize my presence here, because I have no other explanation for what is going on. Around the same time I was locked in here, Beauvoda had a bright idea. Why not use us as slave

labour to clean up the abandoned wing of the asylum? With how bad things were in the operational part of the building, surely the abandoned one couldn't be much worse. For the record, we've had plenty of space in the rest of the asylum to accommodate, at least as many more patience as there are now. But none of us had any voice on the matter. From her point of view, we were there to follow her commands, not to do silly things like restoring our psyche and resting. It felt like unsealing a tomb. Vovoda personally tore off all the warnings, clicking her tongue and pried off the plank of the crowbar, saying that she didn't trust any of us to wield it.

To her, it took around the same amount of effort it takes for you to open a bottle of milk. Inside the wing was full of dust and rubble, so Vovoda gathered around 15 patients, instructed to give us mops and shovels and ordered us to get to work. This wing better be pristine by the evening. She hollered at us before leaving. Once we started cleaning up, It became painfully obvious.

There was no way to have it all cleaned up in one day. I was one of the shovelers, and just after a few hours of shoveling rubble, my arms were ready to fall off. The others didn't fare much better. You can't give a bunch of crazy mops, put them inside the abandoned part of a building, and expect them to be productive.

One man in his forties spent the first few hours having quite a meaningful conversation with his mop on topics I could barely understand before someone reminded him about Vovoda. He'd been working in silence ever since. It was around 5pm when one of the patients, Sasha, started trying to open the door to one of the locked-up rooms.

Sasha was one of the simpletons. He seemed to be born like that. He was shaking that door with strange determination, letting out mean and less grunts as he did so. And, with each minute, they were getting louder and louder. Finally, I decided to investigate what had gotten him so worked up. It wasn't like he was done with cleaning up in the corridor.

The floor around him was surrounded in the dust. What are you doing, Sasha? I asked him. Ah, good day to you, kind sir. Despite being a simpleton, Sasha had quite an impressive vocabulary and always talked like a gentleman from the old times. I was just hoping to unseal this door to help the fine lady inside. I looked at the door.

It didn't look like it had been open in the last 20 years or so, so the possibility of some female patient locking herself in there was out of the question. What fine lady, Sasha? I asked him carefully. I was not aware of simpletons had hallucinations, but I wasn't a specialist on such things. She walked in there a few minutes ago, and she invited me to follow her. Sasha simply explained,

she was giving me quite the lustful luck, I must say. He started grunting excitedly, the one that makes a man's blood boil with desire. Have you ever had such experience in the past kind, sir? Please tell me. He asked me, getting even more excited. Sasha, I think you're confused, I told him. But he shook his head.

I don't have visions like some of the other fine people in this establishment. You can still hear her in there. Please, listen. He told me, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me closer to the door. It was quite a strange suggestion, but I don't want to fight him. Sasha was absurdly strong, second only to Vovoda perhaps. So I decided to indulge him and leaning closer to listen to it. I didn't expect to hear anything.

But, freedom at last at my fingertips, you can touch them if you want, just follow me here, and I'll show you where the sun goes at night. It's a cold and gentle place right under your heart. Here, take a look, lend me an eye, and you'll see. I clearly heard a female voice whispering. Whispering, at such speed, it would make Eminem green with envy. Whispering without the need to stop, to take a breath. I shuddered and involuntarily took a step back.

Hearing voices coming from an abandoned room in an asylum was too extreme an experience for me. It felt like madness, something I was only pretending to have. No, I couldn't be hearing that. It was some trick, a prank. I saw clear small footsteps in the dust on the floor leading straight to the dusty door,

the door which very clearly hadn't been opened in the last 20 years. The absolute irration, personal fear seized me. I was seeing a chain of events, far too impossible to be true, yet, at the same time, the only one that could happen.

Sasha, how did she walk in there? I asked him. For a moment, the man lit up as if he knew the answer, but then he furrowed his eyebrows. Something in his memory didn't make much sense to him.

I, uh, saw her he started shaking as he was trying to remember she looked at me and he looked at me helplessly I saw her enter these doors

he shouted at me please believe me I'm not crazy I'm not like them he pointed at the rest of the patients I'm just different the other patients started getting restless as well Sasha's anxiety was quick

quickly spreading through them, like fire through oil. Some of them were starting to scream or ramble. What's going on here? Vervotus shout, roll through the crowd, instantly snuffing the unrest out. Why are you imbeciles not working? Sasha started rambling and the others caught on. Sapog instantly sold Sasha out. I gave him a reproachful luck, but he just shook his shoulders.

Can't leave you, idiot, even for a few hours. Can I? Vovera shouted at the crowd. All right, get your things. We'll get back to it on Monday. No sugarty for anyone tomorrow. She screamed. The patients were visibly displeased, but none dared to voice it.

Sasha was the first to leave the wing, leaving his mop behind. As I went to pick it up, I heard the sound to the left of me, the sound of a doorknob, quietly turning. I was too scared to. even take a look at the door. I simply grabbed them up and bailed out of there. Listen, have you... heard anything strange? I heard Anton ask me. I quickly shook my head. I was not about to admit that I started hearing things. Yeah, me neither, he told me, just asking.

We're supposed to return to the wing tomorrow, and I feel like I'm in some sick trap. If I admit that I've heard anything strange, if I tell someone about it, they'll think I'm even crazier than they've thought, and my sentence here will get much longer. Worse, I don't want to admit it even to myself. I still want to think that it's a prank, that the nurses decided to do it just for kicks. I don't want to think that I'm really going crazy here, that the place is starting to rub off on me. but I also don't want to return to that wing I don't want to even consider that I've really heard something there but I really did

I'm not crazy it really happened so the question is what is it that I've heard there what is it that has been sealed in there for 20 years my time is almost over I can already hear Vovoda going around gathering the phones. I'll post an update in a week, around the same time. If I don't go crazy until then, that is.

To be honest, at first, I didn't want to post an update. I've had a very hard week, and when I finally got my phone back, just for one day, the first thought was to watch some memes, funny videos, get an update and what's going on in this mad world outside. But I need these updates for two reasons. First, I need to recollect everything that's happened here. I need to lay it all out so that I can take a look at it and know whether it makes any sense or whether I am going crazy. If any of you are psychologists, I'd enjoy your input too.

Perhaps you'd see some pattern that could point towards a mental disorder. Honestly, I have expected to be honest. If everything is going on in my head, it's for the best. I realised the irony of me being locked up in the asylum and asking for outside help for my mental evaluation. But to all the local nurses and doctors, I am insane by default. Only you know the truth. And the second reason I post this update is if I go missing like Sasha, then at least someone on the outside will know about it. Vorovaoda has been sending us to the abandoned wing of the asylum every day now.

But after the last incident when the patients had gotten restless, it seems she's had an unpleasant talk with the head doctor, so now we only spend a few hours a day there. The scorn on her face says it all. She'd rather have us all relocated there permanently. Every morning I dread waking up in fear of having to go there. I can't forget about it even for a moment. Every time I go to the corridor, I inevitably see that door at the end of it. The keep-out signs are scattered around it. Nurses aren't in a hurry to remove the reminder that no one should be there.

And we all go inside that wing pass those signs every day. A be it, Mach Frey. We've developed a pattern for cleaning out the wing. Instead of doing it chaotically, we would go from room to room, from one cabinet to another. That way, we weren't just pointlessly cleaning it up. we were reconquering that building piece by piece. Each day, whenever we'd finished, the territory into which we'd expanded was getting bigger

and the wing was becoming more civilised. It was almost inspiring to observe the changes and I found it to be a great meditation to ease the strain of my mind. I knew that eventually we'd be done with it so the corridor of the abandoned wing served as a progress bar. Each day, the wall of dust,

coal bulbs and rubble, was getting pushed farther and farther away. We were akin to conquistadors who were uncovering the secrets of the dense South American jungles, minus all the slavery and eradication of the local cultures, of course. But of course, it was always still there.

That border between the civilized and the unknown, and to push that line further, we had to venture beyond it, into the dusty halls and abandoned rooms, and abandoned rooms, where the walls were covered in mad ramblings, and you're not sure what you're seeing and hearing. I swear that the world there seems less colourful, more colourless, I even want to say. Maybe it's because of all the dust, but everything there has this white and grey filter.

Since the four of us, me, Anton, Sabag and Mirren, are the most reliable. We were charged by Vovoda herself of unsealing the barricaded rooms. It may be because she doesn't trust the rest of the locals, or locoes, with the tools, but I think it's because she knows something. I think she just wants the strongest minds to be at the helm of her mission, for the weaker ones might succumb to the things within. We still hear things, like the pit-batter of bare feet, coming from the barricaded room next door to the one you've unsealed,

or someone whispering into your ear. We all pretend that we don't hear those things, but from time to time some of us cry out and shock from seeing or hearing something we know the reason why but we always pretend to believe their half-assed explanation

no one wants to be the first to admit that they see and hear ghosts not when you're in an asylum that said we found some interesting things as well notes of the former patients written on the walls and small pieces of paper with one such curiosity

They range from cryptic ones I'm innocent brain rattles To more fun ones I love tea with sugar Sasha found something while he worked there A girlfriend

He was happy Beyond belief when he told me about that Perhaps the happiest person In the entire building He didn't tell us who it was Prompting Miran to think That you was made up I thought about that woman with black gums

and shuddered. The most interesting thing we've ever found, however, was the old documents Mirren pulled out of the trash bin in one of the cabinets we've unsealed. All the documents were at least 30 years old. Some dated back in the 80s, back when the USSR was still very much a thing. All of them half burned,

all of them bearing the same stamp on their yellow covers. For your eyes only. Whoever they were meant for did a bad, job of disposing of the documents. We expected them to be the patient's files or something else to do with the asylum. But instead, they were something else entirely. Schedules of new arrivals. Three new patients designated for that wing every week.

The strangest thing about them was, all of them were coming from the prison on the other side of town. Zabog was very alarmed by that. He claimed that no matter the prison they wouldn't be able to provide three insane people a week There are some crazy folks behind the bars, sure, but none of them crazy crazy, if you know what I mean.

Either some shady things were going on in that prison or the patients they brought here weren't crazy, he said. Besides that, we found half-burned pages with seismic activity in the area. The bottom of the page was destroyed so we couldn't know what it was all about, but from what we could see back in the 80s, the small earthquakes were happening

locally almost every month. But one of the most seismically stable areas of one of the most seismically stable countries in the world, it was most unusual. Our town is located in the middle of a huge tectonic plate. There shouldn't be any earthquakes there at all. We've decided to quietly throw out the papers. didn't want anyone to know we found them. Who knew how secret they were and whose eyes they were meant for? After that, things were getting weird. On Friday, it was the 1st of May,

the International Workers Day. For our post-Soviet country, where the majority of the population had been born in the USSR, it was quite a big celebration. In Russia, we usually celebrate by going to the woods for a picnic with family and friends, where we cook Shasliqi, pretty much a kebab, only done with marinated pork or beef, which is cooked over an open fire. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that people will be celebrating like that even during the pandemic. But, Bori Voda decided that we should celebrate to, quote, like in the old days, by having a long day of productive work. So, she announced that we would be doing extra hours.

hours until sundown. Of course we couldn't object. We were no more than slaves to her after all. So on that sunny day we'd spent its entirety inside the abandoned wing. When we emerged from it, we'd cleaned up twice as many rooms as we'd usually had in the past. I was tired, but I was feeling satisfied with myself. I was hoping that very soon we'd finish that place and, in cleaning it up, we'd finally purge it of all the ghosts of the past that haunted it. That, we found out, that Sasha was gone.

No one had seen where he'd gone. No one had seen him come from the abandoned wing. He'd just disappeared. Voa Voda was furious to find out that one of her patients was gone. All the windows of the asylum had grids on them, so escaping was impossible. But if Sasha wasn't in the habitated area of the asylum Then it meant that he escaped at the depths of the abandoned wing

The sun was already setting and the wing was getting dark very quickly So she instructed the rest of the nurses to get the flashlight One of them was told to put the patients to sleep and guard the doors So that none of us followed after them She didn't want more than one patient to get lost We were ordered to go to our rooms and sleep it off Rowavoda personally promised all of us a day of hard work on the next day in retaliation for Sasha's transgressions.

But of course, even before they left for the abandoned wing, most of the patients, including me, carefully started peeking out to see them. Even though they've turned off almost all of the lights, I could see them very clearly. Five figures in white nurse gowns with flashlights in their hands standing next to that dark portal of Oakwood would seem to be even bigger than usual. I have to give Vovoda credit.

She was the one at the helm of the procession into the wing. Her pace showed no hesitation and she urged the rest of the nurses not to lag behind. One after another, the four nurses disappeared in the inky depths of the abandoned wing, leaving just one nurse to guard the entrance to that abyss. She seemed lonely, restless, scared. I could tell that she was afraid to even stand next of those doors

and her flashlight wasn't helping her very much. After all, it was just a cone of light. Sure, it banished the dark, but it couldn't illuminate everything. She turned around and glanced at us. The cone of her flashlight glanced across our curious faces. Dozens of faces of the mad, peeking at her from behind. the barely opened doors. I expected her to tell us to go to sleep, to stop unnerving her.

But she told us nothing. Even if we were just a bunch of crazes, we were at least keeping her company. For ten minutes, nothing was going on. It was getting quite boring, but I wanted to see with my own eyes whether they would bring Sasha back. Plus, I'd spent way too much time there at Roa Road's behest to miss such a show. I wanted to see for myself how they would like it when they were the ones in there. Ten minutes of silence.

Then. A scream. The high-pitched one, the one that before that moment existed only in 50s horror movies. In reality, without the protective veil of suspension of disbelief, it was much more chilling. The kind of scream that makes your hair stand up. makes you want to crawl under the blanket and pray for the sun to rise soon. The echo that followed made it much more sinister. They were really deep in the wing, much deeper than any of us had ever ventured.

The nurse at the door started panicking. I saw that she didn't know whether she was supposed to escape or run inside to help. In any case, if there was any tangible threat within the wing, she'd be the first one to fall prey to it. Two or three minutes we saw the lights. Vovoda was practically pulling one of them. The woman was hysterical and her words were completely incomprehensible. Whatever she'd seen or heard there pushed her to the edge. Get a hold to yourself, you'll alert the patience,

and I don't want to calm down these freaks. Go to sleep. She screamed at us when she saw us peeking, and we all obeyed. I did too. But before confirming, with my own eyes that Sasha was not with them. I heard Vowavoda chastising the nurse for not keeping us in check and telling the hysterical one to get a week off.

After that, I fell asleep, her cries still echoing in my ears. I woke up to the same cries in the morning. At first, I thought it was one of the patients, but without a doubt, it was the same voice crying in the corridor outside. The other patients had been woken up by it as well. I could hear them gathering outside, coming out from their rooms and getting agitated. Not to miss out on what was going on, I hurried to the corridor as well. The nurse was sitting on the floor in front of the door to the abandoned wing,

the door that, unusually, was already open. She was gently weeping, and although I couldn't tell what was going on, I could see that she was sitting in the pool of blood, most likely her own. I glanced at the other side of the corridor to see where any of the nurses were until one of them lying on the floor. Later I found out that she was just unconscious, but back then I thought that she was killed. It was quite unnerving to find yourself in the hospital where the only nurse was weeping while sitting in blood.

As much as I dislike them They were the ones who fed us Who brought order to the asylum I was afraid that we'd die of hunger within those walls That no one else would come Little by little We approached the weeping nurse As I was getting closer

I saw that she was holding her blooded hand in front of her Forming a cup out of them A cup she was seemingly offering to someone When I came close to look at her face. I almost gagged. Her eyes were gone, clawed out of their sockets. And the angle of the scars and her eyelids that were hanging over the gaping dark holes left no place for interpretation. She was the one who had done it. The finishing touch, the one that made me run away from her, with a footprints. Huge footprints of bare feet, leading to her.

to and from her. The footprints of the one who took her bloodied offering away. The footprints so big they could belong to only one person. Sasha. Vovoda came in half an hour later. Even when she saw all of that, she wasn't shaken. She called the ambulance for both nurses and had them taken away and that was that. She didn't talk about Sasha and didn't make any more effort to find him. It was as if he really disappeared. This morning, I saw her walking away with some files

in the direction of the trash bins. I don't know for sure, but I suspect it was Sasha's files. Just like that, she erased the proof that he was ever there. If I go missing, she'll do the same to my files too.

When Antonaster, if we were going to return to the abandoned wing tomorrow, she chastised. him for being lazy and cowardly and assured him that we'd work there as usual. I can hear a coming. Time's up. Just one more thing. Mirren thinks that she's making us look for something there. He says he saw something in the old files that could give him a clue as to what it is. But if he saw it, why didn't he show us? After the events that transpired the week before, Vovoda was

more careful before sending us into the abandoned wing. She started demanding that at least one nurse should accompany us. I have to say, it's a breath of fresh air. Not only do I feel more comfortable that someone sane is in there with us, but they also keep other patients in check. Also, I must say, after them being so rude and inconsiderate to all of us, it was pleasing to see them shiver and fear. I'm sure they also hear the whispers coming from those halls and rooms,

Some of them even tell us to quit pranking them and that it isn't funny But mostly, they keep to themselves They don't speak out There aren't our territory And they rely on us To give them protection from the things that dwell there This week has been the toughest of them all

I thought that by cleaning up the wing We were supposed to make things better By bringing order We were supposed to calm whatever had dwelt there But it seemed that the dealings deeper we were going, the more insane things were getting. It felt like instead of pushing it all away, we were getting closer to its source. I've started seeing unsettling dreams, dreams of a dozen cages deep underground, of long cables stretching into the darkness

from which I could hear the buzzing of electricity and rambling of men and women, the ground slightly shaking, as well as the sinister deep humming sound in the background. A humming sound that constantly changed this pitch and can be heard only when someone talks. That dream is a recurring one. I've seen it more than once, sometimes vividly, and on other days I can barely remember it, but it's almost always there. I'm scared to talk about it to the others, but I can see that they don't sleep very well either, which, considering where we are, is not surprising.

I think I sometimes hear Sasha's whispers coming from empty rooms, accompanied by the female laughter. It seems that the girlfriend he'd found for himself was really having fun with him. In any other circumstances, with different context, I would even be glad for him. But I still can't forget his footprints in the pool of blood. Others aren't faring much better. Anton has been the first among us to tell us that he's been hearing the whispers, the same ones he'd heard coming from the apartment below him, where, according to him, his neighbours had been conspiring to kill him.

He says that he hears the heavy footprints like the ones he'd heard in the apartment below him, and he is afraid that the cultists who'd lived there came back for him or sick their ethereal familiars at him. He was talking very convincingly, and yet, when someone tells you something so crazy, it's hard to keep a straight face. Sapog started talking about his past three wives

He said that they were the ones who locked him in there So that they could take all the money he'd earned working for the local crime boss He said that he'd heard other prisoners tell him about that You can learn all kinds of things over a prison's grapevine He mentioned with a meaningful look Mirren despite usually being the sanest of the bunch Started talking about strange things He'd usually pick a time when we were alone

and then he'd start talking about the secret experiments that he'd seen being ran underground, about the documents that confirmed the existence of some underground facilities, of a machine that could cause earthquakes and was running to this day, drawing power from some unknown sources. Whenever I asked him to show proof, to show me the documents he had supposedly found, he always refused or found some lame excuse. But things were also getting better.

This week, we've finally finished. clearing up the wing. We've reached the end of the corridor. Throughout the last few days, Vorova Voda was personally following us. When I first heard that she'd be the one to go in there with us, I felt devastated. It was already hard.

I didn't need her to keep screaming at us for working too slow. But surprisingly, she was quiet, and it was the first time I'd heard her talking normally without shouting. I must admit that I was. almost hypnotized by a calm voice. When you expected to roar at you at all times, hearing her speak like a normal human being feels nice for a change, almost soothing. It's like coming to hell to find out that instead of drowning the sinners in boiling

acid, they serve chocolate ice cream there. Not the best ice cream, but you're still satisfied since you know the alternative. Throughout those last two days, she'd been searching through the old cabinets. She'd instructed us to bring her all the documents and paperwork we've found. Sometimes, when she'd find something worthy of her interest, she'd put it inside a folder she kept it aside. And, throughout those two days, I watched the folder grow and get thicker. I feel like Mirren may have been right.

She is looking for something there. And I think that the entire cleanup was just a ruse, a cover. And it seems like on Friday, we finally found what she'd been looking for. In hindsight, it was clear from the beginning that that door would be the one to hold something like that. It was made of the same dark wood as the door that kept the abandoned wing sealed off, just as massive and imposing, with a massive thick chain holding it closed. The only reason we hadn't spotted it before was that it was behind the corner, at the very

end of the corridor. We had to clean up everything else before getting to it. The dust next to it had been littered with footprints of all sizes, coming to and from the door. After the four of us had unsealed another door, we found a spacey room inside. One half of it was lined with rusty iron beds, some of them still adorned with handcuffs. The other one was separated by a massive grate that stretched from one wall to another, with a lone gate at the centre being locked with a hanging lock. On the other side of the cage, I could see a massive table,

a chair and a few file cabinets, as well as something that looks suspiciously similar to the gun cabinet. The furthest wall had the stairwell leading down, as well as an old, out-of-place elevator, the one you'd expect to find in a mine or on a factory, rather than in the asylum. It seemed that we found the checkpoint of some sort. I remembered Mirren's words and shuddered.

Perhaps he really was onto something. Stay away, get out of here, you lunatics. Vovoda burst in, screaming bloody murder. Though she was ferocious, I could see that spark in her eyes. Jackpot. She was too overwhelmed with emotion to conceal that from me. Get out, feast your eyes on something else, she screamed at us and pointed at the door.

Go to your rooms, you're done here. You're welcome, I whispered. I thought she could. couldn't hear me, but as usual, I underestimated her. What did you say? She roared at me. Stop, all of you, she demanded. We all did.

She came closer to me, looked me straight in the eye. Say that again. You're welcome, I said, rising to the challenge. You know, you could be a bit more grateful to us. We've done all this hard work for nothing, so at least treat us with dignity. With dignity, she laughed into my face.

I felt the smell of her breakfast wash over me. People would treat you with dignity when you get out of here. Here, you're just a crazy lunatic, sent here for me to look after you because none of you could fit into the society out there. I told her that I'm not acting crazy and that you could at least take that into account. But she just laughed again,

far more ominously than before. It was a laughter that promised me nothing good. Vovoda's words still ringing my ears. You're all the crazy ones. Do you think you three are the only one special in here? You? She pointed at Anton. Had burned the entire building he had lived in,

claiming that his saint and his neighbours wanted to kill everyone there. A family nearby burned to a crisp, including a young girl. Anton squirmed when Vovodan mentioned her. still hearing a beg you for ice cream, hum? She wondered with a smirk before turning towards Sabog. You killed two of your wives

because you thought they worked for the police and wanted to rat you out and you killed your aunt when you thought that she was one of your wives as well, didn't you? She asked Sabog. They've gotten what they deserve, Sabag whispered,

and I saw the embers of mad fire light up in his eyes, the fire of righteousness and anger. And you, she turned to me. "'You think you're the smartest one, huh? "'Think you can dodge the giraffe by hiding in here? "'You still think you're all right?' "'How do you know about that?'

"'I said, becoming pale. "'I was confident that none of the nurses had known about my plan, "'and I was extra cautious to make sure it stay that way. "'The doctors were only supposed to know about the things I've told them.' "'Vovoda pursed the lips. "'Honey!' "'That word sounded like poison, when it dripped from her lips.

You won't shut up about that to your imaginary accomplice. You keep walking around and talking to him about how you've tricked everyone. Haven't you realised that yet? Have you been taking your pills? I wanted to ask her who she was talking about, but I already knew. I looked around to ask him to tell her that she was wrong,

but he was nowhere to be found. Mirren, my friend since day one, the one who had come up with the same plan as me had gone missing just at the moment when I needed him the most making me look like I really was the crazy one I knew that she was talking about him but that was just another game of hers

she wanted to get inside my head make me believe that I've made him up perhaps he was even another game maybe they conspired against me and came up with a plan to make me look like I was truly crazy Why? Who knew? Perhaps she promised him something in return. Perhaps she saw that the two of us were sane

and thought that one loony is better than none. After all, if we're sane, then we're out of her jurisdiction. She wants to stay in control. I had seen Mirren only once since then. The coward hides from me. He's too scared to look me in the eyes. He only dared to show up yesterday at the end. entrance to the abandoned wing, not too long after Vovoda had left it.

He was waving at me to follow him there, but I see through him now. He wants to have me caught there, that I'm going to the places where I'm not supposed to be. Well, we'll see about that. Perhaps if I catch him there, add a Vovoda's sight, then I'll show him what happens to those who conspire against me. First things first, last time when I posted, some of you see you see. suggested that perhaps I really am crazy and that I've made Mirren up, as well as the entire premise of me dodging the draft, that I'm really schizophrenic. It is so ridiculous, I wish I could laugh into all of your faces. Really, is that what you

think after I pour my heart out to you? Would a crazy person be doubting their own sanity? No, I can't believe how unbelievably stupid you have to be to think that I'm the crazy one. As I've said the last time, I'm the only one sane here. What more do you need to get that through those thick heads of yours? But, no matter, keep reading, I'm a reasonable man. I know that after you read this, even the greatest of critics will seed under the downpour of proof I'm about to shower you all with.

Only a reasonable man would manage to uncover the whole truth. A crazy man would not be able to tell the reality apart from their delusions. Although, it would be hard to blame them for that. The things that happen here make even me question what is real and what isn't. Only my indomitable will and my genius intellect can keep me anchored to reality. The rest of the people here are like blind puppies. I don't even bother to convince them. What do they know?

What uses them learning something new? Will an ape in a zoo become more useful to society if it learns about the patchwork of the universe around it? I doubt it. Sitting in a cage is all it'll ever be good for. Last week, the dreams had become unbearable. I see them with more clarity and the same scenario plays out in my head every night, an underground prison with thick weaving cables encapsulated in an absurd amount of insulation leading down the corridor to the source of the humming. It wasn't just the visions that I saw in those dreams that were causing me such distress. It was also the intensity

of those dreams. Their heavy atmosphere. I could feel that something horrible, something inhuman was going on there. Something that can't be put into words. It was like... Like a trip through a death camp on a day

when no one was executed there. You couldn't see it with your own eyes. But the little details around the place were giving you the full scope of the dread that loomed over that place. In some dreams I saw the prisoners being led away from the humming door. They were rambling and their facial expressions left no room for doubt. Whatever had happened to them there, they'd been damaged by it beyond repair.

All that was left to do with them was to stick them into the asylum, where no one would take their rambling seriously. One such particularly intense dream was interrupted. I think it was Wednesday. I woke up to see the sandsonger. up to see the sun was still down, which puzzled me for a bit. I usually woke up early in the morning, around 7 a.m. But then, I started hearing the sound that had woken me up. The rattling of metal beds, the clanking of spoons in the cafeteria. It seemed that the ghosts that before that

moment had inhabited the abandoned wing finally decided to move out of there. The other patients started waking up, many of them becoming agitated by the things that were happening. Damn fools. It was their panic that reminded me that I was supposed to stay calm, that I wasn't one of them. In that moment of clarity, I realized what the true culprit of the chaos was, and it was a revelation that made my hair stand up. It was an earthquake. The impossible earthquake that wasn't supposed to happen in our town. Thirty years after the last one, it finally happened, and I suspected that I knew why.

It definitely had to do that room we had unsealed last week. The room with a stairwell leading down, I knew that it was where the prison in my dreams was. Not for a fact, but I strongly suspected it. After a short while, the earthquake had subsided. The nurses came in to calm everyone down, telling us that all go to sleep, and then left. But I knew that something was wrong. Something had gone off that night to cause the earthquake.

So I only pretended to be asleep and instead stayed awake. I kept pinching myself under my bedsheets and broken my fingers on sharp springs that were sticking out of bed beneath my mattress to stay awake. Almost an hour later, the weight had paid off. I heard the familiar thumping pace of Vovoda, as well as shamblings of bare feet next to her. Keep going! Even Vovoda's whispers were loud. Don't you dare wake anybody up?

I heard a mumbling, rambling voice answer her, and although I didn't know for sure who it was, I had a strong suspicion. Carefully getting out of bed, trying my best to make sure that the springs under the mattress wouldn't betray me. I carefully proceeded towards the door and carefully slid it open, just enough to peek through the slit. My guess turned out to be correct. It was Sasha. Somehow, Vorovaoda had found him down there. He had lost almost all of his weight and was almost a walking skeleton.

It was clear that he had nothing to eat in there, and I didn't even start to think about what he drank in there. The walls of that part of the building were always so moist. He was rambling something to himself as Vovoda was practically pulling him like a mannequin. It wasn't clear what exactly he was saying, but I knew that it was nothing like how he spoke before. All of his mannerisms of a professor were gone, making way to the primitive speech patterns of an animal that leaves deep within all of us. Hey I heard someone call from me from the other side of the corridor

Looking there I saw Mirren grinning at me He had been evading me all that week Why did he decide to show himself then Making a gesture for me to follow him He disappeared into the darkness Of the abandoned wing I was tempted to follow him there

But I knew that Boa Voda would see me But I knew that Miran had been hiding now It wasn't just a hunch anymore. It was all but confirmed. I needed to come up with a plan, and, befitting for a genius like me, I came up with it before my head even hit the pillow. I needed a distraction, and I knew how I'd get it.

On the next day, I approached a few of the patients from other rooms. Faining friendship, I offered them a deal. Each of them would get a cigarette if they'd, They could create a distraction for me at night. My healthy lifestyle had paid off. After weeks of slaving for the nurses, I had almost a dozen cigarettes. One cigarette was all it took to convince someone to help me out. I also spent two cigarettes to convince Sabog to steal a flashlight for me.

Without it, navigating the dark halls of the abandoned wing at night would be hard. We weren't on close terms anymore. Both of us avoided each other's company, so I decided to promise him something. in return, promising him a reward paid off. I don't know how he'd accomplish it, but before we went to bed, he snucked me a working flashlight, one of those the nurses used. I didn't know if the patients could be trusted with the plan, but I made it as dummy proof as possible. I told them to start screaming either at 3 a.m. sharp, or if they heard someone else scream.

I didn't get an ounce of sleep. I was too excited and I feared that I might have overslept by accident. I was now out of cigarettes now. There wouldn't be another chance to pull it off. Someone started screaming at 1.30 a.m. Not ideal, but it worked. Whoever it was, they were doing such a good job, they must have woken up the rest of the patients as well.

One by one, they started screaming and lamenting, drawing the nurse's attention to them. It seemed my plan worked even better than expected. I could hear that almost the entire hospital worth of patients was screaming. Even those who weren't in on the ruse had become agitated. The wave of panic was spreading like fire through gasoline. Running past them was easier than I thought. They were too busy putting the patients to rest and noticed me in the hall.

I only heard some of them call for me when I'd already run into the abandoned wing, but at that point it didn't matter. I knew they wouldn't follow me in there, not after what had happened to the other nurse. I turned on my flashlight and headed for the room with a stairwell. Luckily, the path there was pretty straightforward, so I knew where I was going. Throughout my entire trip there, I could hear the whispers coming from the rooms, slapping of bare feet. Nothing menacing, aggressive, just the sign that something else was in there with me. A few times I saw something run from one.

one room to the next in front of me, just at a reach from the flashlight's cone of light. It would always make me stop, make me want to reconsider what I was doing. But then, I'd remember how far I've come. I was going to uncover the secret of that place for sure. I was going to find Mirren and make an answer for what he'd done. As I slipped into the room with a stairwell, I noted with pleasure that the hanging lock on the door in the grate that separated the room in two halves had been broken.

No doubt, Verovoda hadn't found the key and decided to brute force a way in. I slipped through the door and headed for the stairwell. The elevator next to it didn't work, but I didn't expect it to anyway. It was probably dangerous to use anyway. Even before I started my descent, I could tell that the stairwell was very deep.

The light of my flashlight couldn't illuminate the bottom of it. Bracing myself, I started descending. I'm not sure how long it took me to go all the way down. I can tell, though, that it was one of the most terrifying experiences in my life. The stairwell was very dark, with walls covered in black moss, absorbing all light from my flashlight, and the echoes from my footsteps were so loud that it was hard to tell if it was me walking or someone else. I expected something to jump at me at every corner, and the last. length of my journey down was making me paranoid that there was no end to it. But I was stuck in a sort of limbo, a stairway between heaven and hell, and I was descending

that stairway. It didn't make it easier to stay calm when I noticed the bleak red light coming from below. I imagined brimstone and fire. I strained my hearing, ready to hear the cries of tormented souls, but there was nothing like that. Only when I descended a few dozen metres more, I noticed that it wasn't the fire of hell I was seeing. It was the red lights of the emergency system. At least my destination had some electricity, I noted. Downstairs there was a massive bunker door with a switch next to it. I instantly recognised it to be a master switch, though I had no clue where the electricity was coming

from, it was nice to know that the place still had it after 30 years. Perhaps some backup generators withstood the 30-year test and could still work as intended. I opened the door, stepped through, and immediately found myself in a corridor going in two directions from the door. I didn't know where they led, but somehow I knew which one to take. Most of my dreams were about the underground prison, which I had no doubt was somewhere there. But I could somehow navigate my way to it, almost as if the dreams had left some residual memories in my head. Memories I had no clue about until that moment. After a few minutes of wondering through those halls and corridors flooded with red lights, I finally found it,

the door leading straight to the prison. I didn't open it. I didn't open it yet, but I already knew what was on the other side. I was correct. The place which had haunted my dreams was there. It felt very bizarre to be there for the first time, yet to know the room so well. A dozen cages lining the walls, cables thick like anacondas on the floor, and the door at the end of the room. The mysterious door from my dreams, which always separated me from the source of that accursed humming sound.

Now, it was open. The inside was a control room of sorts I could see numerous panels the meaning of which I didn't understand and enough chairs to accommodate at least 50 people All of that was walled off by huge dusty panes of glass on both sides leaving only a narrow path in the middle

leading to another door there If my estimate was correct The prisoners which had been transferred from the prison On the other side of town were taken through here to their destination. And the scope of the control room meant that whatever they had conducted in there was huge.

No way the higher-ups of the USSR didn't know about it. I had stumbled upon one of the biggest secrets of their dead super nation. I was sure of it. I headed for the door at the end of that room. Though it was dusty,

I managed to make out the words on the plaque on it. The communication core. Who could they be communicating with had touched depths. I opened the door and stepped inside. At first glance, the room was relatively small. In the middle of it stood a chair with armrest, a headrest and the belt.

No doubt the chair was meant to keep the prisoner in place, and locking above, I understood why. Above the chair, hanging from the ceiling, was a massive construction. I could see thick cables connected to it, saw the huge, Titanic muscles of hydraulic pistons which were meant to move it up and down, once shiny edges of Tesla coils encircling it, details which I'd never seen before in my life. And, at the centre of its bottom,

there was a hole, right above the chair's headrest. Whatever that machine was, it was meant to be put on someone's head. I could only imagine the horror of seeing that massive 20-tone construct come alive and come down onto you, But what was it for?

Was this some sort of communication device? Only then did I notice that the room was much bigger than it seemed. That behind the chair there was a wide pit leading down. Half of the cables connected to the machine were leading there and I couldn't help but come closer to take a look. The pit turned out to be bottomless. I couldn't see the end of it. But at that moment when I pointed my flashlight down

I clearly felt it. Something down there in the abyss could see me. The feeling was too much for me. Everything I'd felt before that, it was nothing next to it. It was some animalistic panic. My brain reacting to feelings

it was never wired to feel. The contact with that thing down there, if only visual, had shaken me too much to handle it, and I rushed out of there. through those corridors up the stairs, abandoning all caution and falling right into Vova Voda's arms.

She was in that room. No doubt, someone had alerted her that a patient had escaped to the abandoned wing and she rushed to the hospital to retrieve me. I could see it in her eyes that she knew where I've been. It was a mix of fury and, strangely, panic. Her secret had been revealed. How did you manage to break the lock?

Was all she asked me, pointing at the shards on the floor. I realized that it hadn't been her who broke it. She must have had the key from the start. Right now, she keeps a close eye on me. For some reason, she didn't quarantine me or throw me into the solitary cell. She lets me walk around, but I understand that she must have a reasoning for it. If not for my strength of character The strange contact below the ground would have shaken me

But I'm glad to report that I'm still perfectly fine My mind operates with perfect clarity And when I send you a photo of Mirren's head You'll see that I was telling you all the truth I've finally found it I finally found the answer to what's going on Many of you have thought that I was the crazy one that people don't go to the asylums to dodge the draft.

I know that many of you doubt that I'm telling the truth, but I've decided to give you one final update. After all, if you don't hear it, then you'll remain ignorant and think that it's all madness. Vovoda has been keeping an eye on me throughout the entire week. I'd always felt her eyes on me. She was curious why I hadn't gone mad like the rest of the people in there. I was sure that she was.

going to throw me into that machine. At one night I would wake up in her arms as she was bringing me down there to make me the same fool Sasha had become. But it seemed that destiny itself intervened. Last Wednesday, Sasha suddenly started talking, talking loud enough to wake the entire asylum. The nurses were anxious about him. No matter what they did, they couldn't make him shut up. After a few more hours Vovoda appeared on the doorstep of my room She told me that Sasha wanted to talk to me And that he refused to talk to anyone else

I refused at first But Vovoda never took no for an answer Grabbing me in a bear hug She practically pulled me to Sasha's room And threw me in You won't come out of there until he tells you everything is seen You hear me? She hissed at me

Before closing the door behind me "'Ah, there you are, good friend,' Sasha greeted me with a smile. He was bound by a restraining jacket, and his eyes were looking in different directions. A classic loony, almost the caricature of one. Only, I didn't find it amusing. I was locked in with that person, and even though I had unrestrained movement, I felt that it wouldn't save me from him. "'Hi, Sasha,' I greeted him.

I've met my girlfriend's father recently, he said, eagerly, getting straight to the good news. I still remember his girlfriend and how she was whispering into my ear, so I didn't congratulate him on crossing such a milestone. He's a terrific person, although I don't have to tell you that. You've met him too, haven't you? He suddenly asked me, I don't know how, but I understood what he was. was talking about. The dark, mysterious presence in the depths of the underground facility. Why did you want to talk to me, Sasha?

I asked him. Why? Because we've both met him, of course. He said, like it was the most obvious thing ever. He wanted to talk to you so, so much. Too bad you haven't stepped into the machine. You were too scared of it, I understand. But don't worry. He lowered his voice.

voice to a whisper. Once I tell you everything, you won't be afraid anymore. The story he told me seemed absolutely ridiculous. If I hadn't seen the things I'd seen with my very own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. It turned out that back in the 50s, the Soviet geologists, concerned with the seismic activity, which was quite unusual for the place, had found something underneath our town. A giant creature who cyclopic size defied all reason. A creature so massive

that while it thrashed around in its sleep it could create earthquakes. Telling about such a discovery to the world was out of the question. During those tumulus times, anything they could bring even the slightest edge in warfare was a closely guarded secret and the creature of such impossible size

was a curious specimen. Studying it, would lead to new discoveries, new findings that the scientists had hoped, could make Russian tanks stronger and planes faster. After a few decades of studying it, the scientists came to a conclusion. The creature was sentient. Not in the conventional way that allowed it to use tools, no. Its intelligence was, in fact, so potent that it was above that. Its mind was a boundless ocean, a megacputer that could keep an entire universe in its imagination. While we were thinking where to get money or food or how to find a fitting mating partner,

it could calculate the Earth's trajectory for the next few millions of years, in just a moment, no less. Such was its mind's power that with a mere thought, it could either drive nearby people crazy or enlighten them with the secrets of the universe. That was the edge that the military was looking for, a gateway to the secrets of the universe, which would be then inevitably weaponised. They've started constructing the communication facility immediately and even rolled out a prototype of a communicating device.

Very soon, however, they'd found out that contact with the creature's mind was usually driving people crazy. A chance of successful contact was one in a thousand, which meant two things. First, the scientists would require a lot of test subjects, and second, they'd have to dispose of them somehow after they were used up. They needed a front, a place where they could put all the crazy people coming out of their facility, preferably nearby. Which is why the asylum was constructed, right above the facility. so that they wouldn't have to move the test subjects too far.

But very quickly, it turned out that the contact had another nasty side effect. The creature was leaving an imprint on the test subject's minds, which was leading to quite unusual psychic activity, a psychic activity that couldn't be controlled, and residual effects of which could be felt even after the test subject's death. With such dangerous side effects and almost no sizable positive results, the experiment was ultimately deemed a failure. When the Soviet Union collapsed, a new authority didn't want to keep up the operation

and they ordered to have the facility, along with the wing, to be locked down and abandoned. They didn't account for one thing, however. It turned out that while the creature's contact with humans was usually brief, it had gotten used to it, and now it wanted more. So much so that it started tracking potential, quote, interesting conversationalists, and bringing them to the asylum. While he was locked underground,

its psychic presence reached out far. It is talk to me, friend, Sasha told me, now it wants to talk to you. Naturally, I was not about that, and I didn't want Vovoda to know that too, but I couldn't stay there any longer. I called for Vovoda, and she immediately escorted me to her cabinet.

No doubt, she wanted to know what I've learned. How much did he tell you about the facility downstairs? She asked me immediately, as soon as I close the door of her cabinet. Not much, I quickly lied. She gave me a suspicious look, and then offered me a deal. I'd tell her everything I've learned from Sasha as well as everything I've seen and if she liked what she'd heard

then she'd grant me freedom she'd sign all the necessary paperwork and forge a few signatures to let me walk away from the asylum since I'd already served my time there the army wouldn't be after me either in their records I was already marked down as crazy

so they had no further interest in me once crazy always crazy I agreed. I told her everything. I told her what Sasha had told me about the facilities past. I told her that I saw and heard those ghosts in the abandoned wing, that I'd seen the paperwork with the prisoners were mentioned,

that I've known about their conspiracy with Mirren to make me the crazy one, and that I knew that he'd been living in the abandoned wing for the past few weeks. When she heard that, she smirked. It must have amused her how easily I saw through the their charade. Of course, I didn't tell her about my involvement and that the creature wanted to see me. I have no doubts that if I told her that, the deal would be off. After my moment of honesty, I gathered enough courage and asked her a couple of questions, for example, about her involvement with the project. Strangely, she opened up to me. She told me that she

found the document mentioning the facility by accident, and that she was intrigued by the creature's ability to imbue its powers onto people. She wanted them for herself, but of course she couldn't risk going crazy, so she was hoping to perfect the communication

process so that one day she too could have an ounce of its power. After that, we were done. She signed the papers, and I was free to go. I was free. at last.

And remember, she told me before I left the building, do not tell anyone what you've seen here, or you'll end up back here. So, there you have it. I'm out of the hospital now. An insane person wouldn't be let go from an asylum, would he?

The only reason I post on schedule is that I know that you people are used to it. So, this is my last update. Of course, I decided to go against my word to Bovoda and called the police the moment I had a chance. After all, she will keep torturing people down there if she is not stopped. But they didn't take me very seriously and hung up, so I guess she'll continue her experiments,

hoping to one day perfect the process so that she can do it on herself. Mirren still follows me around, apparently. Vovoda has let him go too. I don't want to talk to him, so I hope that if I ignore him, he'll eventually go away. Although, I do admit, that he sometimes creeps me out.

Right now, he's behind my window, and he keeps peeking inside my apartment. He thinks that I can't spot him, but I can. I've always been very attentive. I don't know why he'd go to such great lengths to keep stalking me. I live on the ninth floor,

so if he loses his balance, he might fall to his death. But whatever. The guy has always missed a few screws in his head.