The Dark Somnium - These Are Some of The Strangest Medical Conditions I have seen | A Compilation of Scary Stories

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Hello Everyone! I hope your holidays have been well! here is a new compilation for you all, I hope you enjoy it! Story list: In The Land Of Black And White DECAY If you’re armed and at the Glenmont metro, please shoot me My patient spent eight million years under a bench at the Glenmont metro Charles Bonnet Syndrome I Have A Condition that makes me hunt people My Doctor Told Me To Keep a Journal Of My Symptoms Every Year on My Birthday I have to Die Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bitterness is like a cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean. Maya Angelou. I know of an anecdote, one about a little girl named Madeline. Little Madeline was seven years old, with dark chestnut hair and wide blue eyes. Everyone thought she would grow up to become such a pretty woman, and a smart one at that.

Daddy loved to read books, all kinds of books, fairy tales and history, fantasy, and mystery. Her parents were so proud of her for being so smart, pretty, and brave. They knew she was special, but they were all so scared. You see, little Maddie was sick, very sick. She rarely left her bed, but she had her books and the love of her parents to keep her company. She was brave for both herself and then. Of course, Maddie didn't know any better.

One day, on a sunny afternoon in December, not a dark stormy night in autumn, just a few days after Christmas, Maddie's parents came into her room full of books and leftover wrapping paper, all crinkled and sparkling in the sunlight that leaked through her window. They said they would have to leave her alone for a while. Not long. Just an hour. Just enough time to meet with the doctor. They said that they would be right back and if there were any trouble to call them with the

phone that was kept on the nightstand. The one next to her bed. The red one. Maddie wasn't scared, and she knew it wasn't a good idea to move around too much. She was just too brave. Her father kissed her on the forehead, her mother on the cheek. Maddie smiled and asked if they could open her window. It was an especially warm day with a clear blue sky.

Some fresh air could be good. Maddie's father smiled back as he opened the window. Anything else? Her parents asked before they left. No, I'll be all right. She said to them, I'll just read a story for a while. Then Maddie was alone. All by herself in that great big house.

No sound at all except for the beeps of the machine, the one that kept check on Maddie's heart. She tried to read her book, but the sunlight that fell on her face made her sleepy. She closed her eyes for how long she didn't know, not long enough to dream, but long enough to lose time. To her, it was just a blink and nothing more. But she didn't open her eyes willingly. The squawk of a crow, a black crow, forced her from the peace of sleep.

Well, it wasn't just a crow. Maddie also felt warm, too warm for December even in the best of times. When she woke up, she saw that a crow had purged. itself on her window-sill. She also saw something else, something that made her shriek. The chair that was kept in Maddie's room, the chair that her mother would sit in just before bedtime, the chair that should have been empty, had been filled by a stranger. To Maddie, it looked like a person, but also not like a person at all.

It had a face with eyes and a mouth and a nose and all, and it had arms and legs, just like a man's. It was even wearing a suit, a black suit with a white shirt and a purple tie, but this stranger, this man, if you will, looked wrong to Maddie. His face had all the right parts, but they were mutilated in ways almost incomprehensible. Shiny and pink in some places, black and crackled in others. He had no lips, and his nose was made of two small holes that flared in and out as he breathed. His eyes were yellow and sunken, never blinking, not even once.

His body, while never falling to ash, had small flames dancing up and down the length of his arms and face, flickering hot light. His clothes were covered in stains of blood. He looked much like a burn victim would before the fires were put out. The machine, the one that kept watch over Maddie's heart, began to beep quickly and loudly. Maddie forgot how to be brave. Don't be scared, Madeline, said the dark man, his words sounding like nails against glass, more of her a rasp than a voice. I'm not here to hurt you.

Who are you? asked Maddie, feeling a bit less frightened. My name is Lazarus, and I'm a bad man for all the right reasons. He said back to her. Smoke was rising softly from the fires. He seemed to be in pain. but doing his best to ignore it, somewhat stoically. Lazarus, Maddie said out loud, pronouncing each syllable correctly. That's a weird name.

It's an old name, a very old name from a very old story. His eyes searched Maddie's face, looking for any sign of expression, but she gave nothing away. His eyes eventually fell upon the book in Maddie's lap, Alice in Wonderland. I see you like stories. Maddie nodded her head. Everyone knew she liked stories, even strangers. I happened to know a few. Would you like me to tell you one?

We have some spare time. Maddie didn't know what to say. She thought the Burning Man was being friendly enough, even if he was scary. But Maddie was alone. She was always alone, she realized. She never got to meet anyone new. So, she decided it best to let Lazarus stay. Besides, she loves stories, even bad ones.

Okay, she said. You can tell me a story, but you'll have to leave before Mom and Dad come home. I don't think they'd like you. Lazarath inhaled deeply, a wheezed through his mouth and an exhale of smoke through his nostrils. He nodded in agreement. There was once a family of rabbits. a mommy rabbit and three baby rabbits.

They lived in a rabbit hole in the forest. They were happy. The baby rabbits would jump and play all day under the shade of the trees or in the tall grass of the sunny meadow while their mother looked for food in the forest. At night, they would return to their hole and they would snuggle together in the warmth and safety. They never worried about anything,

as there was always plenty of food. and fun things to do. They always had each other for comfort when they got sad or frightened. It was good. But one day while playing in the meadow, a fox hiding in the grass approached the three little rabbits. They were unaware of the impending danger. Their mother came out of the thickness of the forest just in time to see the fox, but was far too away to call to her babies. She knew that she could not reach them in time to get everyone safely into the rabbit hole, and even then, the fox would always know where to weigh. What did she do?

asked Maddie. Lazarus raised his charred hand, motioning for Maddie to wait and listen. Well, the mother rabbit had a difficult decision to make. If she wanted her children to get away from the fox, then she would have to take action, all actions have consequences. She knew this. But she also loved her children more than she feared the fox. So, she ran out of the forest as fast as she could go.

She ran toward the fox hiding in the grass, and when she was close enough, she called out to her children. Go! Run back to the hall! She yelled. The three little rabbits heard their mother just as they saw the fox, but the fox was no longer interested in the little ones. The mommy rabbit had caught his attention. As she led the fox further into the meadow, away from their hole and away from them,

the little rabbits got away. Their mother was not so lucky. The fox had caught her, ripped her to bloody ribbons, but the children were safe. And that was all that mattered. Maddie was silent for a moment. So was Lazarus. That was a sad story, said Maddie. Lazarus nodded his head because he knew it was a sad story.

story. But then again, the truth doesn't pick favorites. I didn't like how the mommy had to die. Lazarus gritted his teeth together. She could have lived if she wanted to, but then what would have happened to her children? She died to save them for the greater good and out of love. Well, I guess so, but it's still sad that they had to grow up without their mom. Maddie looked at her windowsill. There were two more crows perched there. One of them stretched its wings and settled next to the others. She thought it was odd, but said nothing. Would you like to hear another?

We still have some time. It was hard for Maddie to tell if Lazarus was happy, sad, or angry. His voice was always the same. His face never changed either. Before she could answer, Maddie coughed into a tissue. It was long. It was a long, a hoarse cough. When she finished, she saw there was blood soaking through the soft paper.

I'm sick, she said, looking at Lazarus. He leaned in close to her, so close that Maddie could count each of his crooked brown teeth. He leaned in close and whispered into her ear. I know. Do you have any stories about sick people? She asked. Once again, Lazarus, the burning man, nodded his head. It doesn't have a happy ending either.

That's okay, she said. I'll still listen. Lazarus placed his bony finger on his lap and breathed in deep. A long, long time ago, there was a small town on the shore. There were people who lived in this town, all sorts of people, bakers, silk weavers, the carpenters, and many more. They lived happily and productively. They would work and play and marry and live.

live long, happy lives. But one day, people started to get sick. Not everyone, but quite a few, and more every day. The ones who got sick would grow black boils on their faces and necks, their skin turning yellow and green. It was a very painful sickness, one that would eventually kill. The doctors of the town could do nothing to stop it and there was no cure. The only option was to barricade the town, to stop the great plague from spreading. No one was allowed to leave once they entered the town. One of the people who lived in the town, a tailor had a wife who was outside of town limits before the sickness had taken over.

She had been away to visit her family a ways off. When she returned, she was stopped by a guard. He said that she may not enter without permission. The tailor's wife begged and leaded to the guard telling him that her husband, The man she loved was in the town. The guard finally told her that if her husband would allow it, then she would be able to enter. He also warned her that she would not be allowed to leave again. Word was sent to the tailor that his beloved wife was awaiting his permission at the gates.

At first he was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing his dear wife again, as he had been very lonely since her initial departure, but as he thought upon it, The tailor's heart began to sink. He realized that if he were to allow his wife to enter the town, that he would condemn her to the same fate as so many others. The thought of her suffering through the sickness, the sores and the bile and rot, the festering misery. He could not allow it.

He wanted her with him. Of course he did, but he loved her too much to let her perish along with him. He was already showing symptoms of the plague. So it was with a heavy soul that he refused the messenger. He was heartbroken. His eyes wet with guilt and grief. When word came back to the tailor's wife, who had been waiting at the gates all morning, her heart was also crushed.

It wasn't until years later, after she had remarried and raised several beautiful children, that she was finally able to forgive him. She understood that her first love's only wish was for her to continue on and be happy. By now the sun was no longer shining. Overcast had made the sky a light shade of gray, almost white when compared to the crows on the windowsill. More had shown up while Lazarus told his story, so many that there wasn't enough room on the sill for all of them. They were starting to perch themselves in a nearby tree. Maddie coughed some more.

I liked that one better than the first. At least it wasn't all bad, she said after her fit of coughs. But why are you telling me all of these sad stories?" Lazarus looked at Maddie, never blinking, never smiling, and a voice as black as coal, he said, I think you know why. Maddie looked down into her lap. She did know why, but she wasn't scared.

No. Maddie knew how to be brave, and not just for herself either. She turned to Lazarus. His face charred and scarred beyond recognition of her. humanity, former or otherwise. When? She asked. Lazarus turned his head to the window toward the black crows that had gathered.

Soon, he said to her, the beeps from the machine, the ones that kept check on Maddie, they became a regular, slowing down. Do we have enough time for one more story? She asked him. Not much, but we can try, he replied. Maddie shook her head. She said that it would be okay, that she would still listen, even if it had a sad ending. There was once a sweet little girl with chestnut hair and wide blue eyes.

She loved stories, all kinds of stories. When Maddie's parents returned, they found her lying still in bed. She had stopped smiling, stopped breathing. They cried into each other's arms, what they had been told by the doctor. They knew it was only a matter of time. Even still, they didn't think it would be this soon. Their souls had been profoundly crushed, shattered into oblivion, but in a strange way, not in a callous or indifferent way, they were relieved.

The weight of the inevitable had been lifted, and in its place a sharp sting. They knew this as they wept, and while gazing out of the bedroom window, they were focusing on the sky, which had grown into a bit of a bit of a bedroom. perfect and terrible shade of gray. They were so focused on their sorrow, but they had never even noticed the burns left on the chair. The crows had taken flight. Am I going to die? The kid asked me as he was being rolled into the operating theater. It was a question I'd heard a thousand times before, but answering it truthfully hadn't become any easier, even after years at the hospital. Of course not. We're going to fix you right up. I lied. He'd

been crushed in a horrific car accident, and though we would put all of our effort into saving his life, hope was a limited resource. The fact that he even remained conscious despite losing most of his blood was bizarre enough, but after ten years on the job, nothing surprised me anymore. The anesthesiologist quickly put him under while we scrubbed in for surgery. Damien would be the surgeon, a specialist in polytrauma cases, and I'd assist. No sooner had we opened him up before we shared a look of him. disappointment. There was no chance in hell he'd survived through surgery. Despite our lack

of faith, we tried our best, but after only half an hour on the table, his heart gave out. How was he still alive when he arrived? Damien asked. He pronounced the time of death and left us to clean up the mess. I took the responsibility of cleaning the kid up for the morgue, the task I had done countless times before. It wasn't something I particularly enjoyed, But to me, it was my final chance to pay respect to the dead. The kid couldn't have been more than 15, and as I'd hear, he was just learning to drive. Unexperienced, and attempting his first drive on a slippery road, he managed to steer off into a ditch. His father died on impact, but he himself lived long enough to face surgery.

As I put the needle to his open abdomen, his body twitched for a moment. I retracted the needle in surprise, wondering what had caused a post-mortening. him spasm. Then, the boy suddenly gasped for air as his eyes shot open. He let out the most violent scream imaginable as he suddenly returned to life. Help me! He begged with a guttural voice as I stumbled back in panic and slipped onto the floor. I called for help and the rest of the team came running into the operating theater, each

panicking as they witnessed the dead boy's scream on the operating table. His spine was fractured, so though he yelled in agony, he could do nothing to move. The anesthesiologist quickly attempted to sedate him while we checked his vitals. Despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, his heart had not started beating again. He was supposed to be dead. I started chest compressions, desperately trying to get his heart going. I cringed to the sound of his ribs cracking beneath my hands, and the boy's screams turned into gargles as he was unable to gasp for another breath.

He's not going under! The anesthesiologist yelled as he gave the kid a second dose of propofal. Of course, without a functioning heart, there'd be no way for the drug to flow through his veins, even as I tried my best to pump for him. After an hour of compressions, the chief of surgery had intervened and ordered us to stop. At that point, we caused more damage than we helped. What's happening to me? The kid stuttered, still conscious.

None of us responded. We couldn't find any words to describe the horrific sight before us. Most of the staff had left due to the sight. We'd faced many challenges in our career, but nothing quite like this. What's your name? I asked. Despite already having seen it in the file, I just wanted him to focus. Brian Dawson, he responded.

I took a deep breath, doing my best to keep my composure. You were in an accident, Brian, I told him. His eyes darted frantically around the room as he started to realize where he was. He tried to lift his neck, but due to the spinal fracture, he was completely paralyzed. I can't move. I can't move. He cried. I walked closer, standing directly above him. Brian, your heart isn't beating, I said.

The chief of surgery, George, grabbed me by the shoulder and whispered into my ear. We need to isolate the OR. Whatever is happening here is beyond us, and it could be contagious. George said. He rushed into the preparation room, picked up the phone. Through the glass door, I couldn't hear what he said, but I assumed he was calling security to shut down the ward. What about my father?

Brian asked, trying to hold back tears. I was taken aback by his question. I had just told him his heart was destroyed and that he was essentially dead, yet his first concern was regarding his father. I'm sorry, Brian. He died on impact. He sobbed quietly. So what's going to happen to me? I'm going to die, aren't I?

He asked. I didn't know what to say. I'd never been in any similar situation. So I just gave the only answer I thought might be of some comfort. You're not alone. I'm staying here until the end. George had been quick to shut down the operating theater, and the Center for Disease Control had long since been alerted to our situation.

We had nothing to do but wait and pray to any God that Brian wasn't contagious. I had already been exposed, so I examined Brian, checking for any chance of improving his situation. Can you feel this? I asked as I checked all of his limbs. Not a thing, he responded. But it hurts so much on the inside. Where exactly does it hurt?

Everywhere. Please do something. He begged. I gave Brian a dose of fentanyl, but without a heartbeat to move the drug around, I had a little hope it would take any effect at all. To keep him distracted from the pain, I asked mundane things about his life, what his hobbies were, family stuff. He was smart enough to realize my intentions, but went along with it.

Either out of fear or because he actually hoped someone could save him. Hours passed while we waited for someone to tell us what to do. Half of the surgical staff had been put into quarantine, terrified that they might be infected. Finally, the CDC arrived on the scene, fully geared in hazmat suits. They allowed us to roll Brian into his own space. A pre-operation room had been evacuated so he could stay somewhat comfortable. The rest of us would be put into the surgical office while the situation was being assessed. I decided to stay with Brian.

No one should have to suffer alone, especially with the CDC agents probing him with all sorts of needles, enthusiastically taking samples. The only reason they allowed me to stay was because I kept him relatively calm. We talked through the night. After the procedures were finished, I couldn't sleep, and I doubt Brian was physically capable of it. My eyes feel a bit weird, he said. Do they hurt?

No. The edges. just kind of blurry. It's weird. I left to talk to George, who was still working around the clock, calling around, making sure the other patients were redirected elsewhere. What if we put the kid on a heart, lung machine? I asked. George put the phone down for a moment and sighed. Then what? He has no functioning liver. His aorta is cut into pieces and his intestines shredded.

Even if we get him a new heart, he'd never survive. George responded. Just keep him company while you can. I knew he was right, but some of my professional knowledge was put aside due to the insane nature of the situation. Doctor! Brian shouted. I rushed to his side.

I can't see! He stuttered. I pulled out a flashlight and examined his eyes. Both pupils were unresponsive, and his eyes had started to almost deflate, which was one of the stages of decomposition. Brian had started to rot. Please, I'm so scared. Brian was a brave kid, but he started to lose his composure just like everyone else in

the ward. I kept talking to him, but the inevitable truth was that if he kept decomposing, he'd soon lose all his senses, all the while being conscious to experience it. As horrible as it might sound, I begged that it might finally allow him to pass on. We kept talking. I asked him if there was anyone he wanted to call, but as I already knew from the others, Brian's mother had died during childbirth, and his father had been in the same accident as himself.

As he talked, Brian's voice kept getting louder as if he was struggling to hear. Are you hearing me all right? What did you say? Brian basically yelled. His hearing had deteriorated within minutes, going from impaired to deafness before I could even begin to help. With him being blind and deaf, we no longer had a way of communicating. The matter of my attempts, I couldn't comfort the dying kid.

and the CDC quickly decided that my presence had become unnecessary. Brian kept screaming and tear and agony after I left. For each passing second, his own body started digesting itself, and nothing we could do would take the pain away. By the morning his screams had silenced. I barged into the room, much to the dismay of the agents. Brian was hooked up to hundreds of cables, monitoring his heart, brain muscles, and vital values. Of course, his heart showed no activity, and the decay had progressed to shut down all of his muscles. He had quieted down, not because the pain was gone, but because he wasn't able to scream anymore. The only part of his body still working was his brain.

What the hell happened? I asked. Get him out of here! One of the men demanded, the other men complied, but went outside with me to explain the situation. You don't have to worry about it being contagious. We'll lift the quarantine in a moment. He said. He looked weirdly somber as he spoke those words.

What about Brian? What will happen to him? He is still conscious, but he has no respiratory function anymore, so we have no means of communicating. Brian was still alive. Blind, deaf, and dumb, he had to suffer in loneliness, unable to die. How long does he have to suffer? I asked.

We'll know more when we move him to our specialized facility. The senior CDC agent demanded that his colleague kept quiet. it before they could tell me anything else. They left with Brian, covered him in an airtight capsule so no one would see the horrors that had just occurred within our surgical wing. As the quarantine was lifted, I headed home to write up my letter of resignation. I had a well-connected contact within the CDC, but upon trying to get more information, he claimed no such case had been presented to them that no one had ever been admitted to their facility

under the name Brian Dawson. But a month later, a lawyer, accompanied by a doctor, showed up at my door with a bunch of documents, all regarding doctor-patient confidentiality. The lawyer looked tired, worked down to the bone, as if he had made many such trips before. He asked me to sign the documents and never speak of this again, saying I'd lose my medical license if I did. Not that it matters to me, I'm done in that field for good. I was given an injection by the doctor. He told me that Brian's disease was not unfamiliar to them, and that it was extremely contagious, but only upon death.

He explained that half the population is infected with a disease that keeps the brain conscious for hours, even days following death. Brian's case was special in the sense that he actually retained some motor function and was able to speak to us. The injection given was not a cure. It only prevented me from spreading the disease, but once I die, I'll suffer. for a fate similar to Bryans. I just hope someone will stay with me when it happens.

Make it a headshot. Shoot me in the temple aiming slightly downwards. I need the bullet to travel the shortest possible distance through my brain before it hits my hippocampus. If I'm lucky, the sensation of the gunshot ripping through my skull will only last a few decades. As awful as this sounds, you'll be doing me an enormous favor. Death by a headshot. as soon as possible, it is vastly better than the alternative.

My ordeal started over 10,000 years ago, at 1015 this morning. I earn extra money by participating in drug trials. I'm a so-called healthy subject, who takes experimental drugs to help assess side effects. Once it was a kidney drug, a few times it's been something for blood pressure or cholesterol. This morning, they told me the drug I took was a psychoactive substance intended to a kidney drug accelerate brain function. None of the drugs I'd ever tested so far had ever done anything like this, in the recreational sense.

In other words, none of the drugs I've ever tested have given me a killer buzz or mellowed out or anything. Maybe I've always ended up in the placebo group, but nothing I've ever tested has affected me at all. Today's drug was different. This shit worked. They gave me a pill at 1015 and told me to hang it. out in the waiting room until they called me back for some tests.

Only about 30 minutes, the research assistant told me. I flopped onto the waiting room couch and read a few articles from a copy of Psychology Today that was sitting on the coffee table. They hadn't called me back when I'd finished reading the magazine, so I picked up a US news and read it cover to cover. Then I read an old scientific American. What was taking them so damn long? I sluggishly turned my head to look at the wall clock.

It was only 10.23 a.m. I had read all three magazines in eight minutes. I remember thinking this was going to be a long day. I was right. The waiting room had a little bookshelf with some used hard covers on it. When I stood up to walk to the bookshelf, it felt like my legs barely worked. It's not that they were weak, they were just slow. It took a full minute just to stand up from the couch. another minute to take two steps to the bookcase. I scanned the old books on the shelf and picked up a copy of Moby Dick.

My arms had the same problems as my legs. Just reaching out one foot in front of me to grab the book took a long time. I actually got bored just waiting for my hand to reach the spine of the book. I slogged back to the couch and collapsed onto it in a slow motion fall that reminded me of the low gravity hops of astronauts on the moon. I opened Moby Dick, slowly, and began reading. I started with Call Me Ishmael and got as far as Ahab throwing his pipe into the sea, which was all the way in Frickin' Chapter 30, before they called me back.

How are you feeling? The research assistant asked me. I feel slow, I said. Actually, it's the other way around. Everything seems slow because you're so fast. But my legs, my arms, they're moving in slow motion. Your body seems like it's moving slowly because your brain is fast. Your brain is running 10 or 20 times faster than normal.

You are thinking and perceiving reality at an accelerated pace, but your body is still constrained by the laws of biomechanics. Frankly, you're moving much faster than a normal person. He pantomimed a jogging motion. But your brain is running so much faster right now that even your fast walk seems very slow to you. I thought about my slow motion flop onto the waiting room couch. Even if my muscles had slowed down, my body would still react to gravity the same way,

but in the waiting room, I even fell in slow motion. Slow muscles couldn't explain why gravity seemed weaker. My brain was going at warp 10. That's how I managed to read three magazines in the first 30 chapters of Moby Dick in 15 minutes. They ran a series of tests on me. They made me juggle three balls, then four, then six. I had no problems keeping six balls in the air because they seemed to be moving so slowly. It was boring, frankly, waiting for each ball to move through its arc so I could catch it with my slow-motion hands and toss it back into the air.

They threw Cheerios in the air and I caught them with chopsticks. They dropped a handful of coins and I counted the total value before they hit the ground. The cognitive tests were less fun, but very illuminating. Finish a fifty-word search, three seconds. Solve an intricate maze drawn onto the poster-sized paper. Two seconds. View a slideshow projected at ten images per second and answered detailed questions about what I saw.

Ninety-five percent correct. They told me I measured over two hundred and fifty on the Noff scale. Apparently that's deep into the superhuman range of thinking speeds. Then they sent me home. It'll wear off in a few hours, they said. Which will seem like days to you. Try to use the residual effects to get some work done. Catch up on work emails while you're still in high speed mode.

The ride home was horrible. It was only three metro stops and in real-world time it only took about 35 minutes. But in my drug accelerated hypertime, it felt like days. Just walking out of the medical research suit to the elevator seemed like it took an hour. I sprinted out of the office, willing my legs to push me faster, but the laws of biomechanics held me prisoner. As accelerated as my brain was, I couldn't do anything to make my legs work faster. The huge disconnect between my body and mind made it extremely difficult to judge how and when

to slow down, turn, or rotate my body. I had basically turned into a giant slow-motion spas. I misjudged my speed and rammed into the wall by the elevator button at a pretty good speed. Even though I could see the wall coming at me, I couldn't make my finger outstretched to hit the elevator button, move away fast enough, and I jammed it against the wall, hard. The pain was intense. If my brain had been running at regular speed, it probably only would have hurt for 30 seconds or so, but in my accelerated state, the intensity.

Intense pain seemed to last for half an hour, 45 minutes maybe. The elevator ride was horrible. It felt like I spent four or five hours just descending seven floors, with nothing to look at but the interior of the elevator car. I sprinted to the metro station. I have to admit this part was almost fun, even though my body moved at what seemed to me super slow speed. I could still carefully choose how and where to place my feet, swing my arms, and

turn my torso. It only took a block or two to get used to having a brain that ran two dozen times faster than my body. Then I basically sprint dance the rest of the way, twisting and juking between people on the sidewalk and dodging moving cars with inches, or minutes, of clearance. I spent an hour, in my time frame, descending into the subway and running to the platform, endless tedium waiting the six minutes for the redline train to arrive. Though there was more to look at on the metro platform than inside the elevator, it was still

intensely boring. I should have stolen that copy of Moby Dick. The red train roared into the station in slow motion. The normally high-pitched squeal of its brakes was frequency shifted by my high-speed mind to a long, low tone, like a monotone tuba solo. It wasn't just the squealing subway train that was three octaves lower than normal. All sound was slowed to the point of near. inaudibility.

Voices were gone, shifted below the threshold of frequency of my hearing. I did manage to hear a screaming baby on my subway car. Her shriek slowed to sound like whale songs. Sharp sounds like a car horn or trucks bouncing over potholes were low, muddied roars like distant thunder. Back at the research office, I could still hear and communicate with the research staff, but now verbal communication with anyone would be impossible. The effects of the drugs were still intensifying.

I spent what seemed like days on that redline train, days listening to the wail song of the screaming baby and the tuba solo of the brakes. Where ordinary voices were frequency shifted out of my audio range, smells didn't seem to be affected. I never became nose-blind to the body odor, the stench of the train's brakes, and the melange of farts and other smells wafting through the metro car. I finally got back to my apartment, sprinting through my open door and into the front hall at full speed was like a slow, relaxing drift down a lazy river.

I was relieved to be home. At least I had stuff I could do there. I picked up the book I was reading, 100 years of solitude, and finished it, despite turning the pages so quickly that I tore many of them. It seemed like most of the time I spent finishing the book was spent on page turning and not actual reading. Three minutes had passed since I got home. I tried surfing the internet. My God, it takes a long time for computers to boot these days, but it was too frustratingly

slow. Hours, seemingly, to load each new page and a fraction of a second to read it. A hundred articles in my newsfeed read and just three more minutes done. I dipped into my pile of yet to be read books and finished two more. Four more minutes had passed. I decided to try to sleep off the remaining effects of the drug. Unfortunately, whatever part of my mind is responsible for perception, the part that's been accelerated to hyperspeeds by the drug, isn't the same as the part that governs sleep.

Despite being awake for what I perceived as days, my physical brain still thought it was 1.25 p.m. It was not ready for sleep. Nevertheless, I tried to sleep. I walked to my bedroom, a slow 45-minute drift through my apartment, and flung myself into bed, lazily falling like a feather onto the mattress. I closed my eyes and laid there for hours and hours, ten minutes of reality time before giving up. Sleep would not come.

I was facing what was going to feel like days, or maybe even weeks of being trapped in a slow-motion prison. So I took an ambion. The sensation of the pill and the splash of water I used to swallow it, sliding down my throat, was sickening, a lump that blocked my breathing, moving like a slug down my esophagus. I read a book. Ten minutes had passed. I read another.

Eighteen minutes since I took the Ambien. I threw the book across the room and disgust at my situation. The book slowly pirouetted and spun through the air like a leaf blowing in the breeze. It hit the wall with a long, faint rumble. The only sound I heard for what seemed like hours, then drifted to the floor like a flip-flop sinking into a swimming pool. The force of gravity hadn't changed since I took the pill. The laws of physics were the same.

It was just my perception of time that had gone wacko. This meant I could use the speed things seemed to fall in as a way of judging the effects of the drug. Based on how long it took the book to drift to the floor, I estimated the effect of the drugs were still intensifying. I read a magazine. I turned on the television. I clearly saw each frame of video like I was watching a slideshow.

Frustrated, I turned the television off. I read some more, the first two books of Churchill's, a history of the English-speaking peoples. Not exactly a light read. Frankly, I hated it, but, given the hours of tedium it would take to get another book off my shelf, just sitting on the couch and reading Churchill was better. or at least less worse. It had been thirty-five minutes since I took the Ambien. I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes.

Time passed, I inhaled, an hour's long process. Time passed, I exhaled for more hours. Sleep would not come. I needed a new plan. I decided to go back to the offices where they gave me the drug. Maybe they would have something that could counteract its effects, or at least, you know, something to knock me out until it wore off. I exited my apartment as fast as possible, taking hours in my time frame to do so.

I didn't even bother locking the door. It would have taken too long. Down the stairs. It's faster than the elevator if you run. Through the lobby, out the front door and onto the street. These few things felt like a long day at the office. Sprinting down the street, dancing and weaving between pedestrians with what must have looked like, to them, superhuman dexterity.

Down the first flight of stairs at the metro, across the landing, another hour, then on to the second flight of stairs. That's when the ambient hit me. The ambient didn't make me sleepy, not at all. Instead, it must have had a severe cross-reaction with the experimental drug I took this morning. I was bounding down the second flight of stairs, moving in slow motion, but still making perceptible progress. Then, wham, everything stopped.

The dull roar of the street and the metro noise ceased, replaced by the most perfect silence I've ever experienced. My downward motions seemed to completely freeze before the ambient kicked in. My perception of time was maybe a few hundred times slower than real time. After the ambient took effect, time moved thousands of times slower. Every second seemed like days to me. And just moving my eyes to focus on a new point was like an impossibly slow scroll across my visual field.

Over the course of the afternoon, I learned how to walk, run, and jump when my mind ran hundreds of times faster than my body. But with another four or five orders of magnitude of slowdown caused by the ambient, body control was almost impossible. I fell on the stairs, even though I was all but frozen in mid-step, controlling my muscles was impossible. I commanded my foot forwards for hours, then backwards for hours more when it seemed like I would miss the next step.

Hours attempting to adjust the angle of my ankle, then readjusting when it felt wrong. Despite these efforts, I rolled my ankle on the next step. The pain wasn't at all mitigated by the slowness. Hours of increasing strain on my bent ankle. The nerve signals that sent pain into my brain must work differently than the nerves in my ear, sonic energy was spread out over time, diluted until it was imperceptible. Pain flowed into my brain undiluted by the changes in my perception of time. Hours and hours of increasing weight on my turned ankle turned into hours of increasing

pain upon increasing pain. I pitched forward, my high-speed mind completely unable to control my low-speed body. I drifted downward for days, managing to rotate my torso enough to keep my head from impacting the ground first. I eventually landed on my right shoulder. At first, the impact wasn't even noticeable. Then I felt a slight pressure on my shoulder as I came in contact with the ground. The pressure grew, bringing increasing pain for hours upon hours. My shoulder finally gave out, popping out of its socket with an endless, sickening tug. I came to a stop days later, crumpled onto the ground, staring at the ceiling. The pain in my shoulders still screaming with

the intensity of a fresh, violent injury. I had plenty of time to think during that fall. If every second seemed like days to me, then each minute of real-world time would be like years. Even if the drug cleared out of my system in the next two or three hours, this nightmare would seem to last centuries. By the time I hit the ground, I had a plan. I would somehow get to the platform and throw myself in front of the train.

I twisted onto my hands and knees. days of my dislocated shoulder crying for relief. I misjudged my rotation and rolled onto my back. I tried again. Collapsing onto my face as I tried to figure out how to control a body that moved slower than grass grew. Weeks of effort were finally rewarded with success. I stabilized on my hands and knees.

If just getting on all fours was this difficult, I figured that walking or running was completely out of the question. So I crawled. I crawled through the Metro Tunnel. The dumb look on the faces in the crowd lingered on me for weeks. I crawled under the turnstile and onto the escalator. The escalator spilled the rush hour crowd onto the platform at the same speed as a glacier spills ice into the sea.

I looked out over the crowded platform during my interminable downward ride. The train status sign said the next train wouldn't arrive for 20 minutes. 20 minutes was like a year to me. I'd have to spend a year on the metro platform waiting to die. I crawled off the escalator, and during days of stupid expressions on the commuter's faces, I crawled a few feet to a concrete bench and curled up next to it, trying to find a position to lessen the pain in my shoulder. Then my problem with time got worse, impossibly worse.

The massive slowdown on the stairs was just the beginning of the interaction between the experimental drug and the ambion. It fully hit me while I was curled up by the bench. I blinked. Years of darkness followed. Sound was already gone, and with my blink, sight was gone as well. All that existed was the pain from my fall. My hyper-accelerated mind wasted no time compensating for the lack of sensory input.

Voices spoke to me. They sung to me in languages that never existed. Patterns and faces and colors came and went in my mind's eye. I recalled my whole life and imagined living another. I forgot English. I settled into a profound despair. I spoke to God. I became God.

I imagined a new universe and brought it to life with my thoughts. Then I did it all again and again. My eyes opened with geologic slowness. A faint glow. Weeks. A slit of light. Weeks. A narrow view of the Metro platform.

Ancles of the commuters near me and the advertisement on the opposite wall. I extracted my phone from my pocket. A project that span decades. How can I even explain the boredom? The pain in my shoulder is nothing compared to the boredom. Every thought I can think I have thought hundreds of times already. The views of ankles and advertisements never changes. The boredom is so intense it's tangible, like a solid object of metal and stone wedged

into my skull. Inescapable. What are my options? If I crawl and fall onto the tracks without an unconsorpe, I'd be able to be able to the tracks without an an oncoming train to crush me, I won't die. I'll experience even more pain from the four-foot fall, but I'll most likely be rescued by some do-gooder on the platform and unable to act when the train finally does arrive. My suffering in that scenario will be endless. So I wait for the train, so I can throw myself under it. When it finally hits me, I will experience

the pain of being ripped to pieces for centuries until finally the light of life leaves my brain and my experience ends. I've lived hundreds of lifespans at the foot of this bench. I am far older in spirit than any human who has ever lived. Most of my life experiences have been a snapshot of pain huddled on the floor of a subway platform with an unchanging view of ankles and advertisements. This post is my plan B, my Hail Mary, my long shot. I've spent lifetimes typing and posting this message in the hope.

that someone will read it and become convinced that my suffering must end. Someone on this platform right now. Someone who will find the man curled under the bench, the man who crawled down the escalator and kill him as swiftly as possible. A bullet to the temple. If you're armed and at the Glenmont Metro, please shoot me. No person, well actually, no living thing, has experienced more suffering than clinical trial subject S-47.

S-47 was a healthy male who volunteered to be a test subject for a trial of a drug called Mentinovics. Mentinovics typically yields mild improvements in memory and cognition. S-47 had a different reaction to the drug. I'm the research scientist who administered the dose of Mentinovics to this poor man, and I consulted with his doctors in the ER after he was found crumpled under a bench at the Glenmont Metro Station. I have firsthand knowledge of the devastating.

stating trauma that a MENTinovix cross-reaction can produce. So I couldn't understand why someone would beg me to put them through what S-47 had experienced. Then I took the drug myself. Mentinovics is essentially a calcium ion accelerator paired with a protein that binds to certain dentritic neuroreceptors. It makes signals flow faster through the brain, a lot faster. When I administered a mental speed assessment to subject S-47, 30 minutes after I gave him 25 milligrams, he was able to perform incredible inhuman mental feats.

He finished a 50-word-word search in three seconds, solved a maze drawn onto a poster-sized paper in two seconds. His mind worked fast enough to catch thrown Cheerios with chopsticks. Mentinoviks had pushed him well into the superhuman range of thinking speeds. His mental speed was still accelerating when he left our offices. I told him to enjoy the extra time he would seem to have, since, to his super-accelerated brain, Minutes would seem like hours. At the time, I thought S-47 would view the drug's effect as a positive thing.

I pictured him at home, happily speed reading through books he wanted to find time to read. That's what I would have done, or so I thought. It didn't occur to me that, from his point of view, just getting home from our office would seem like it took days. He must have experienced hours of perceived time just in the elevator from our office. A day waiting for the next train, and another day crammed in the same. inside a crowded and smelly metro car. If I'd thought of that while he was still in the office, maybe I wouldn't have just sent

him on his way with nothing more than a Mennonovic's trial pamphlet. But what happened to S-47 was much, much worse than experiencing the equivalent of days on the metro. Ninety minutes after I sent him home, I got a call from the ER at the White Oak Hospital. A man had been found behaving bizarrely under a bench in the Glenmont Metro station. By the time he reached the ER, he was unresponsive. Personnel in the ER found the Mentinovix trial pamphlet in his pocket and called my lab. I took a blood sample and ran an engram decay.

I'm oversimplifying the neuroscience here, but basically, the cell is in a conscious brain continuously make new connections and tear down existing connections. The new connections represent learning, and the torn down connections represent forgetting. When we sleep, cerebrospinal fluid washes away that. metabolic debris from this activity. The test I ran measures how much Ngram decay, forgetting, has happened since the last sleep cycle. Ngram decay is a good way of measuring the equivalent duration of consciousness. How long a patient has perceived they have been awake.

We use this in the Mentanovic trials to measure the acceleration in thinking speed. More Ngram decay means the subject has perceived a longer period of consciousness. S-47's Ngram decay results were incomprehensible. large. I ran the sample three times to make sure nothing was wrong with the lab equipment. I got the same result each time. Subject S-47's brain had run so fast that in the 90 minutes between leaving the lab and winding up in the ER, he had perceived 8 million years of consciousness. The man had been awake so long in his perceived time frame that he had forgotten everything, Literally, his mind had been running so fast that even the nearly instantaneous act of blinking

would be perceived as thousands of years of darkness. From his massively sped-up perspective, his view of the metro station from under the bench must have been an eternal, unchanging scene. The near-complete lack of mental stimulation he experienced, and the eight million years of perceived time were utterly devastating. His brain tore itself down in an act of forgetting. The ER sent me an fMRI scan. His cortex had no activity.

His gray matter was essentially a collection of disconnected neurons. At the time, we had no way of knowing what caused this extreme side effect, but we noted that his blood work showed that he had recently taken a sleeping aid. We guessed that the 25 milligram dose of Menterovex, already unusually active in this subject, interacted with the sleeping drug. I compiled everything I had on S-47 into a report. and sent it to the head office. The company published an adverse drug reaction bulletin and the Mentinovix trial was put on

indefinite hold. I never learned what happened to subject S-47. Two months later, I was in my office preparing for a trial of a new blood pressure medication when the reception is called. There's a woman here to see you. Then he whispered. She said she didn't need an appointment because of who she is. I met my unexpected visitor in the lobby, a woman in her late 30s or early 40s,

She wore a black business suit and had a ratty red chansport backpack slung over her shoulder. She introduced herself as soon as I walked into the busy lobby, as if she already knew what I looked like. My name is Helen, Helen Kaysen. I work for the Department of Defense, and I need to talk to you about Mintonovics. As soon as we got to my office, she pulled a stack of papers from her backpack and dropped them on my desk. It was the Mentinovics adverse drug reaction bulletin. I need you to do this to me. You want me to induce the worst adverse drug reaction I've ever heard of in you? On purpose?

The bulletin says that a high dose of flumenzoil could potentially reverse the reaction. I want you to induce the adverse men to Novox reaction in me. And when I give the signal, administer flumenzanil to slow my mind back down. The bulletin says potentially. Could potentially. That's two weasel words in a row. The bulletin has a mandatory future research section they needed material for, so they put in the only wild-ass idea they had. In reality, nobody knows how to prevent, induce, or reverse this reaction.

I'm okay with uncertainty. Why would you want to do this to yourself? For what purpose? Science. I want to watch someone die with my own eyes. An extreme slow motion. I thrust the bulletin back at her. Whoever you are, Ms. Kaysen, your idea.

of what science is and mine are profoundly incompatible. I won't help you destroy your brain. I won't participate in what sounds to me more like a satanic death ritual than clinical research. Six weeks later, I found myself escorted through security in building G-164 at Aberdeen Proving Ground. My escort, Dr. Helen Kazin. Those six weeks opened my eyes to what a truly well-connected person can accomplish, no matter how demented their goals. Dr. Kazan had somehow gotten a national interest exemption to the Mentinovix ban. I received the original document, signed by the director of the National Security Council herself. Frankly, until then, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a national interest exception to a restricted drug. Helen had also somehow influenced the directors of the huge pharmaceutical company that developed Mentinovics.

The CEO phoned me and asked me to participate in Dr. Kaysen's important experiment. I asked her if she knew exactly what Helen was doing. She said she had no idea, didn't care, and just told me to give her whatever help she needed. The way she said it made it abundantly clear that I was not to ask any questions. Of course, I did have questions. Why do I have to participate in this? Was at the top of my list. But I already received a counseling letter from HR complaining about my lack of judgment for letting S-47 go home while he was still in the grip of Mentinovics.

I felt pressure to lay down and go with the flow. And that's exactly what I did. Helen met me in the lobby of the massive office building. When she visited me at my office, she wore a black business suit. Today she was wearing a white lab coat with Kazin embroidered above the pocket. Thank you for coming. I trust you have the drugs. I showed her what I brought, a 100 milligram vial of Mentinovix HCL.

She had requested the Mentinovx be compounded in an injectable form. and a box of Ambien pills. I also had a single vial of Flumazinil, which, according to the hastily written adverse reaction bulletin could potentially reverse the Metanovic's cross-reaction with Ambien. The guard in the lobby gave me a red badge, displaying the letter E for escort required, and Helen led me into the offices beyond. Helen's office was a windowless chamber with a floor-to-ceiling whiteboard covering all four walls and even the back of the door. Equations and strange diagrams featuring stars, circles,

and what looked like electrical engineering symbols, or maybe ancient runes, filled the whiteboards. Helen watched me gape at the weird symbology that surrounded us. She laughed. It's just math. These. She pointed at the markings that looked like ancient runes. Are just stochastic tensors.

The whole thing is just a giant probabilistic differential. She thrust a clipboard of paperwork at me. Sign these, please. They're nondisclosure agreements. I worked through the paperwork while Helen rummaged around in the piles of binders and boxes in the corner of her office. You can wear this. She said and handed me a lab coat. I handed her the signed paperwork and put on the lab coat.

You're going to destroy your brain, you know. The patient who had the cross-reaction was left with a completely unconnected cortex. There's no coming back from that. Thank you for your concern, but I have a plan. I sighed. This was really happening, and I was a part of it. What's the plan? I'm going to predose with the sleeping aid.

I will also take 50 milligram of dexenphetamine so I don't fall asleep. Then we wait. Wait for what? We wait for the test subject to die. When Helen visited my office and told me she wanted to watch someone die, I thought she was a lone lunatic. Someone who did their own research, you know what I mean. I was completely wrong. Whatever Helen was up to, it had the full support of important people.

The head of the Fregan NSC signed the National Interest Exemption Memo, and apparently it is in the national interest to overdose Helen on an experimental psychoactive drug and let her watch someone die. Is this an animal study? The test subject is a human with a terminal disease. He volunteered to participate in this experiment. She turned to her desk and sorted through a stack of papers and folders. She found what she was looking for and handed me a green folder.

We have institutional review board approval for this. I know it's a little unusual, but everything that we're doing today is approved. I remembered telling Helen that her experiments sounded more like a satanic death ritual than legitimate science. Now, in Helen's office, with the walls full of strange mathematical symbols and diagrams of stars inside of circles, the same thought again occurred to me. Despite all the trappings of authority and approval, I cannot see how this ludicrous experiment was legitimate science. The phone rang. Helen answered with a terse. Yes. Whoever was on the other end of the call spoke briefly. We will be right there. Helen said and hung up the phone.

We have to go to the capture chamber. I will explain the plan in more detail when we get there. We marched out of her office, Helen in the lead. We wound through the halls of her second-floor office suite, then into the stairwell. We descended ten floors, through the fire doors at the bottom of the stairwell, then into another security vestibule. More checking of IDs, more signatures on sign-in sheets. I put my phone in a small cubby. I was given a second badge that read Detain and blindfold if unescorted. Then we passed through a glass-enclosed, one person at a time, man-trap and into a long corridor.

I read the signs on the doors we passed. Some were normal basement corridor sorts of things. Electrical, custodial closet, HVAC. Then the signs got weirder. Pharmacy, theology, hospice. We stopped at a door fitted with a small sign that said, Capture Chamber. Helen entered her code into the keypad lock.

I heard the lock click and open, and I had a sudden flash of fear, panic almost. The feeling was more than just a strong distaste for whatever Helen was doing, I sensed that whatever was behind the door was wrong. Not just ethically wrong or scientifically misguided, but cosmically wrong and dangerous. Helen held the door for me, and I entered the room in which I would spend the next 120 years. The capture chamber was a gigantic space, like a Walmart with all the shelving removed. A flawless white tile floor reflected the ranks of hundreds of fluorescent lights that hung from

the ceiling 50 feet above us. A hospital bed was positioned in the center of a raised circular platform in the center of the room. Even from the door, a good 150 feet away, I could tell that there was a patient in the bed. A vital signs monitor stood to the left of the bed. A man sat in a metal folding chair on the right. The platform was surrounded by heavy machinery. Huge cams mounted on shiny stainless steel shafts were linked to a maze of interlocking rails that surrounded the bed platform. A tangle of brightly colored cables wove through the equipment like tree roots or caterpillars, giving the apparatus the look of something organic. Another raised platform stood outside of the ring of machinery. Instead of a bed, this platform held a black leather reclining

chair that was oriented so that whoever sat in it could observe the test subject. At least two dozen computer monitors were mounted on a metal framework surrounding the chair. Helen led me to this second observation platform. The test subject. She pointed at the patient in the hospital bed. Stopped oral intake six days ago and lost consciousness 36 hours ago. We are monitoring his respiration and mandibular movement. We believe he will die in the next two hours.

Who is the man sitting next to him? That's his son. Our protocols specify that the terminally ill test subjects must be comforted by one family member. Because both the test subject and the family member must have top secret clearance, finding test subjects that match the protocol criteria is quite tedious. Something about the way she said this suggested she thought having family members present was a waste of resources. We climbed a short flight of steps to the observation platform with the leather chair. The chair faced the center of the platform with the hospital bed where the test subject lay dying.

Two huge mounting stands holding a dozen computer monitors each stood to the left and right, framing the view of the hospital bed. The monitors flashed and flickered patterns that appeared to be random noise. Helen walked to the leather chair, and I stumbled behind, slack-jawed, trying to make sense of this bizarre experiment, or whatever it was. Helen continued talking to me, oblivious to my confusion. I'm going to predose with the Ambien and Dexamphetamine now. The dexamphetamine will counteract the ambient. So I should have no problem staying awake. We will wait until his respiration slows to be six breaths per minute.

Then you will inject me with 40 milligrams of Mintonovics. She sat in the chair, a surprisingly ordinary reclining armchair. Please put the drugs here. She gestured to a small table to her right that held a tall glass of water and a prescription bottle labeled dexamphetamine. Bolted to the left arm of the chair was a gray metal bottle. box that held a small garden of switches and lights. A large red mushroom-shaped button, labeled Dose Now, stood above the others. Once the test subject dies, and I have observed what I need to see, I will press the Dose Now

button, and you will immediately inject me with 200 milligrams of flumenzoal. She pointed to her left shoulder. A small square of fabric had been cut out of the lab coat, exposing her shoulder. This is where you will inject the Menterovics. You will inject the flamenzanil directly into my neck. I will need it to act as rapidly as possible. Helen, did you actually read the bulletin about S-47? He perceived being conscious for 8 million years.

His mind was gone when he got to the ER, completely devoid of cortical connections. His suffering was unimaginable. I've done the math. She replied testily. With the dosage I'll receive, I expect to experience only three to 500 years of consciousness. It should be a nice break, frankly. A nice break? Nice? Five hundred years. Years of just sitting in this chair watching a corpse while these monitors flash noise at you? Those monitors are displaying reading material. That one. She pointed to the upper left monitor on the right

side bank of crazy flashing screens. It's displaying Wikipedia pages at a rate of 500 per second. The one next to it is scrolling through 20,000 works of English literature and 500 pages per second, and so on for the rest of the monitors. News archives, scientific publications, social media, and so on. We bought special monitors with a 500 hertz refresh rate just so we could display information fast enough. I stared at the two banks of flashing screens. I couldn't perceive anything but painfully bright flickering.

You're going to read for 500 years while you observe that poor man over there? catch up on a few emails. She rotated a computer keyboard out of a slot in the arm of the chair. Let's get ready, shall we? She produced a headset from the pocket of her lab coat and put it on her head. This is Helen Kaysen. This is the audio record of observation activity 54. Observation 54?

How long had she been watching people die in this bizarre room? Helen continued talking into her headset. Current time is 1423. I am predosing with one am. Ambien and 50 milligrams of dexenphetamine. She popped an ambient out of the blister pack and downed it with a swallow of the water. Then she took two pills from the dexamphetamine bottle and swallowed them. Now.

She said, turning to me. We wait. She pressed a few keys on her keyboard. One of the monitors in the right bank of screens stopped flickering and instead displayed a standard computer desktop background. Helen clicked on icons and slid windows around the screen. When she was done, the screen held three windows. At the top of the screen was a data strip, slowly updating graphs of what I assumed were the patients. Sorry, test subjects, vital signs.

Blood pressure, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, and so on. Below that was Helen's email box, 1,478 unread items, and a word processing window open to a blank page. I understand that once the Mintonovics kicks in, audio energy will be attenuated to the point where I cannot hear anything. I will not have enough fine muscle control or breath control to speak, so I will type my observations and anything else I need to communicate here. She moved the mouse cursor to the word processing window. Please keep an eye on it as we proceed. It will be the only way I have to communicate. We waited.

Helen ignored me while she read and wrote emails. The patient's respiration slowly decreased. I wandered off the platform to get a closer look at the machinery surrounding the patient. Stay away from that area. Helen shouted at me. I'm going to start the capture sequence soon, and there are a lot of mechanical hazards present when it's operating. Feeling a little like a chided child, I sauntered to the short flight of stairs leading

to the platform with the hospital bed. Aside from Helen, the dying man and his son were the only two people in the huge room, or chamber or whatever. The test subject was an emaciated man who looked to be at least 90 years old. He slept. Rather, he was in a state of unconsciousness that did not look at all restful. His bony, withered body barely made a dent in the soft mattress of the hospital bed. Bruises up and down both arms betrayed a long battle with disease that required a lot of intravenous medicines.

Hey, I said to the son, a middle-aged man sitting next to the patient. He looked up from the book he was reading. Before he could speak, Helen shouted across the chamber. No communication with personnel on the test subject platform. The patient's son rolled his eyes and whispered to me. Helen's a bit of a stickler for protocol. I nodded in agreement and wandered back towards Helen on the observation platform. I walked about, examining but failing to understand the machinery surrounding the test platform.

I stared at the flashing banks of screens, trying and failing to perceive even a single screen of content. I stood behind Helen and surreptitiously read a few of her outgoing emails. Subject. Risk analysis of portal capture experiments. Subject, military benefits of applied theological research. Subject, time card failed floor check. Helen glanced back at me with a glare that clearly communicated she did not appreciate me reading emails over her shoulder. I returned to strolling about the perimeter of the room. An hour passed, then another.

I thought about Helen's plan to spend centuries of perceived time in this room. I had only been here two hours, and I was desperately looking forward to getting the hell. out, to spend multiple lifetimes here, to look forward to spending lifetimes here, was a sign that Helen was different. It's time! Helen shouted at me across the room. I jogged to the observation platform. Helen had already prepared the injection of Mentinovics.

On the far platform, the son was standing over the bed, holding his father's hand. Helen was speaking into her headset when I got to the top of the stairs. Blood pressure is dropping. Respiratory rate is down to six. The probability of death in the next ten minutes is over 90%. Starting the portal stabilizers. She flicked a few switches on the control box that held the Dose Now button. A claxon blared, red cop car-style lights on the machinery started flashing.

The apparatus surrounding the patients slowly came to life. Motors hummed with rising pitch. Shafts turned faster and faster. Their cams pushing the strange grid of beams up and down. The fastest moving parts were, So the machine started to glow and flash, giving it the look of a carnival ride. The machine spun and gyrated faster and faster. The grid of blowing beams blurred.

The machine kept accelerating, and the seemingly random flashes became synchronized with the movement of the grid beams, resolving into a glowing five-pointed star inscribed in a circle that rocked in crazy, unpredictable ways. Captured device trim active. Dosing with Mentinovics now. Helen spoke into her headset. She handed me the syringe. Dose me with the Mintonovics, then stay on this platform and watch my log entries.

And what happens when I press the dose now button? 200 milligrams of Flunazanil in the neck. Yes. Prepare the injection now. There must be absolutely no delays when I press the button. I took the syringe of Metanovic's from her. You're probably not going to survive this, you know. You will suffer terribly for what you perceive as centuries.

Eventually your mind will tear itself down in a catastrophic act. of forgetting. I'm aware of the risks. Now inject me. I did. Helen was quiet for a minute. She looked at the patient on the far platform. She stared at the flashing computer monitors.

Then she snapped her head to face me and said... I think it's starting to take effect. She blurted the words out almost too fast to hear. Your perception is definitely accelerated, maybe about ten times faster. Helen turned away from me so fast that she almost fell out of her chair. She darted her hands to the keyboard and typed. The key press sounded more like a drum roll than a human using a keyboard. I can hear you, but your voice is slowed and frequency shifted.

I cannot understand. I will communicate through this screen. Please type your response to me here. I leaned over her keyboard and typed. How long does it seem to take for my pen to fall? I stepped in front of Helen. Her eyes were darting about in a frenzy. Her gaze oscillated between me and the computer monitors and the patient on the far platform.

I pulled a pen out of my pocket and dropped it on the floor. Helen drumroll typed her response. Days to fall. Sound is gone. Time to get to work. Helen did exactly what she said she would do. She jerked her head back and forth between the screens, reading whatever information they were flashing at her.

She opened emails and slammed text into the response window. Occasionally, her eyes would linger on the patient in the center of the whirling machinery. Then she would return to the frenzy of reading. reading and writing. Minutes ticked by. I tried to calculate how long she perceived those three minutes to be. If the quarter-second drop of my pen seemed to take days for her, then each second that ticked by would seem to her to be about a week.

Three minutes would be over three years. I watched her closely. She didn't appear to be suffering. She could push the dose now button at any time, but so far had chosen not to. Her pattern of frenzied motion and typing suddenly ceased. She fixed her gaze on the patient for a second. Two seconds. Three.

Three seconds were weeks of her time. Helen shot her fingers at the keyboard again. This time she typed a message in the journal window. He's dead. Chaos broke out. A moment after Helen typed her message, the vital signs monitor threw up a red warning message. Respiratory zero.

Heart rate zero. hands erased over the control panel in a blur, flicking switches and turning dials. The churning satanic carnival ride of a machine came to an abrupt stop with a screech and a bang. The floor shook as the foundation of the building absorbed the forces involved with bringing tons of spinning and thrashing metal to an instant stop. The circle and star shape glowed brighter than ever, held fixed at a strange angle by the frozen machine. In the same instant, the patient's son screamed in pain and he fell to the floor. No, it wasn't that simple.

I looked closer and saw that he didn't fall. His legs collapsed under him, bent like they were made out of rubber or melting plastic. His legs continued to melt until his torso sat on the platform in a pool of red goo. The man tried to scream again, but the severe trauma or whatever it was that ruined his legs started to affect his abdomen, with his diaphragm destroyed, screaming was impossible, so was breathing. Every instinct in me urged me to run to the door, to get out of that room, but I had a duty to administer the antidote to Helen. I would not be responsible for another person going through what S-47 had. Helen hammered out another message. He's taken his

second death in the portal. Dose yourself with MentaNovex now, or you will die. I had no idea what the first line of Helen's message meant. Second death, portal. The Those words meant nothing to me, but the second line I understood. And there was no way I would dose myself with that drug. To live a thousand lifetimes in this bleak underground facility, I'd rather die. On the far platform, the son of the man, who apparently died five seconds earlier, continued to dissolve. His chest splashed apart like a breaking water balloon.

His head and arms fell into the puddle that his body had made, floated like a horrific pool toy for a moment, then melted away. I had seconds to think about what Helen wrote, Take the drug and live. He took his second death in the portal. What would happen to me if I didn't take the Mentinovics? Would I literally liquefy like the son of the test subject? As bad as that looked, it would be far better than 8 million years of sensory deprivation

the S-47 experienced. What the hell did second death even mean? But where I only had seconds to think, Helen, in her hyper-accelerated mental state, had the equivalent of days to decide what I should do, to decide what she would do to me. I turned from the screens to look at Helen. She was staring at me, studying me, with unblinking eyes. For her, every slight micro-expression that flashed across my face, every tiny change in my body language, would be an hours-long process.

She probably knew what I was going to do before I did. I was not going to take the drug. Helen rose from the chair before I could even nod my head. to signal no to her. Her preoception system was running 10,000 times faster than her body. With that kind of disconnect and mind and body control, moving normally would be nearly impossible. Helen discovered this problem as she tried to stand up. She misjudged the force required and literally threw herself from the chair. In another setting, her fall to the floor would have been comical. She launched herself in a twisting arc. Her arms and legs flailed about wildly, but she was unable to control her fall.

She landed face first on the platform and continued to thrash her limbs uselessly for a few seconds. From her warped perspective in time, her fall must have taken a day or two. These futile efforts on the floor occupied a week of her time. Whatever else Helen may be, it's pretty clear that she's smart as hell. She can figure stuff out and learn quickly. That's exactly what she did on the floor. She froze, then methodically began moving one limb at a time. She lifted one leg, then let it drop.

She brought her other knee to her torso. She pushed herself up onto her left elbow. She steadied herself with her right arm. Then she rose. For a moment, I thought she was going to fall again, but her movements this time were more controlled, purposeful. She had learned how to move under the influence of metanovic's. Blood ran from her mouth and nose where she smacked her face on the floor.

She glanced at the far platform. The test subject's son was still busily liquefying. Then she turned towards me. Her movements were more like a bird's than a human's, a sequence of blindingly fast motions punctuated by short intervals of motionlessness. She moved sideways with a lurching twitch and grabbed the syringe and the vial of Metanovic's from the table next to the chair. Her eyes continued to burn into mine as she stabbed the needle through the seal of the vial

and filled the syringe. No? I knew shouting was useless because she couldn't hear. But fear had decoupled my mouth from my brain. Panic and fear replaced all other thoughts. I turned to run. I started to turn anyway. Helen had hours to watch me slowly shift my posture and start to engage my muscles.

She lunged at me, perfectly anticipating where my neck would be when her arm reached me. For her, physical struggle must have been an intellectual activity like chess and not a physical endeavor like fighting. In the split second I tried to get away, she had analyzed my face for tells. saw all the small ways my body telegraphed what I was going to do, then calmly made a plan to stop me. Despite my attempt to duck and dodge, she stabbed me in the neck with the needle. Even though her attack was lightning fast, she managed to inject the metanovics directly into

my jugular. I was already off balance trying to duck her attack with the needle when she slammed into me. I fell hard to the floor. Well, actually no. I started to fall towards the floor, but the massive dose of the drug injected directly into my neck took effect almost instantaneously. All sound dropped in pitch, then died away entirely, as if the soundtrack of life was a vinyl record that suddenly stopped spinning.

The world froze before I hit the ground. In one instant I was struggling like a madman to get away, and in the next I was frozen in mid-fall, like a bug fossilized in amber. I was suspended in mid-air. Helen's lunge into me knocked me into the air. Both my feet had left the floor. floor. I could see Helen's ankles and left hand at the edge of my vision. The syringe was still stuck in my neck, an annoying, painful pinprick that didn't let up. I assumed it was empty, and Helen had

pushed all 100 cc's of the Mentinovics into my bloodstream. I waited. Nothing changed. I was still falling at the floor. Helen's feet were a blurry feature in my peripheral vision. I waited. Nothing changed. I had started screaming when Helen slammed into me. My chest was still tight. My abdominal muscles were compressing my lungs and pushing air through my vocal cords, but there was no sound, and the pressure in my chest didn't diminish. I was still screaming, but with geological slowness. My view of the floor remained unchanged. I returned to the thought that I was like a bug fossilized in amber, fossilized, with nothing to look at but the floor. I had, I had plenty of time to think about that word.

It implies millions of years. From the perspective of the fossil, that's millions of years of nothing. Nothing but endless wading in the dirt were deep inside a sedimentary rock. In unchanging darkness. S-47 experienced 8 million years of consciousness in the metro station. That's a geologically significant amount of time. That's longer than it took for ancient hominids like Lucy to evolve into modern humans. Imagine everything important that has ever happened to the human race, the invention of language,

use of fire, the slow development of agriculture, Sumerians, pyramids, the feudal system. Imagine spending all that time in silent darkness. Was that what I was facing? I felt sick with fear and despair. I waited. Nothing changed. I thought about ancient hominids. I thought about all the movies I had seen and the books I had read.

I thought about my childhood and about my career. I waited. Nothing changed. How much perceived time had I experienced? Five hours, a day, without anything changing except my thoughts, judging the passage of time, the perceived time anyway, is hard to do. I was still screaming. Air was slowly moving out of my chest.

I had not inhaled for hours in my time frame. I waited. Something changed. The floor was closer. Helen's feet and hand had shifted slightly, relative to each other. This meant I could still perceive the forward motion of time. Perhaps a tenth of a second had passed since Helen jabbed me with the syringe. I remember that I was falling face first out of control.

It sounds funny, but I'd forgotten that I was in mid-air, reeling from a high-speed, high-energy collision with Helen. So much time passed in my time frame that my ongoing fight with Helen was a distant. Even though it would take days, a week maybe in my time frame before I hit the floor, I had to start planning for my landing now. I willed my arms to move upward, to protect my head when I slammed into the floor. Then I found ways to pass the time. I wrote poems in my head and memorized them. Then I thought about Menterovics.

Helen predosed with the sleeping aid for the drug but caused S-47 to have such an extreme drug interaction. I injected her with 40 milligrams of Mentinovics. According to the adverse drug reaction bulletin, the extreme mental speed-up that killed S-47 was likely caused by the interaction between Mentinovics and Ambien. But I hadn't taken the sleeping aid that caused the cross-reaction. Why was I having a reaction to the drug like S-47 did? Maybe because I got a hundred milligrams of it directly to the neck.

What did I know about the pharmacococonetics of Mentinovics? Quite a bit, as I was the drug. the principal researcher for the human trials. Because me, Helen, and S-47 had taken different doses in different ways, we had different absorption and distribution rates of mentinovics. My extreme reaction could have been due to the enormous dose I received rather than interaction with another drug. What does this mean for the antidote? Will it work for me? Flumazanil is a benzodiazepine antagonist that is used for the complete or partial reversal of sedative effects caused by benzodiazepines.

Mentinovic certainly isn't a sedative. It does affect the same gaba receptors that flumazinil binds to. My educated guess was that the antidote would work for me. The only problem was it could take years, from my perspective, to simply walk to the table with the antidote and inject it. My arms eventually moved upward, like plants slowly growing towards the sun. My arms started in an arms out pose to push Helen away from me, and slowly rose to shield my head from the slow motion fall.

The floor was even closer to me now. I was accelerating toward it. The act of moving my arms introduced a twisting motion to my fall, and my view slowly changed from the floor to Helen. She was falling with me. The way she leapt at me had sent her into a trajectory, though it eventually sent her to the floor behind me. This complicated motion slowly developed and evolved over hours and days.

Helen's ankles slid into view after I began moving my arms. I tried again to find ways to occupy my mind so that the days long wait until I hit the floor would be bearable. I started writing a novel in my head. I eventually saw Helen's knees. I tried to remember the lyrics to every song I could ever remember hearing. Then the hem of her white lab coat moved into my field of vision. Then finally, her face.

Her eyes were fixed on me. Was she studying how I moved through the air? Was she planning on optimizing her next move? based on how she predicted I would land? I fell through most of a year. If Helen hit me in springtime, I spent summer airborne preparing to hit the ground. When I finally felt my arm gently touched the floor, it was like the first day of autumn. Imagine spending an entire summer staring at one face that was looking back at you,

an entire summer trying to imagine what she was thinking, thinking about what she was going to do next. Thinking. I was already so tired of thinking. Every conceivable thing I could think about I had already dwelt on over and over again all over the course of a second and normal time. I practiced meditation, learned how to clear my mind. It made the time pass faster.

I landed on my shoulder. Impact began as hardly a noticeable tickle in my upper arm. Then the tingle grew into a gentle pressure. Then a not so gentle pressure. Then pain. I tried to adjust my body so that the fall. would turn into a roll, but the disconnect between thinking about moving my body and actual muscle movement was too vast.

I managed to twist into an even more awkward fall, saving my shoulder at the expense of crushing my face. My cheekbone hit first, like my shoulder, impact started as a gentle tickle, but as inevitable as the coming of winter, and nearly as slowly, turned into a pressure, then pain. I imagined an extreme slow-motion video of a boxer taking a punch to the face. In the instant the punch lands, the boxer's face becomes an unrecognizable mess, bouncing and stretching skin and cartilage. It felt like the same thing was happening to my face, but in my sped-up time frame,

my face was stuck in a distorted, crushed, and smashed mask for weeks. The skin above my eyes tore in a slow, painful, unzippering, and something slowly bent and then snapped in my nose. Pressure on one of my molars simultaneously pushed the tooth into the inside of my cheek and popped it out of my jaw. I winced what would normally be just a quick blink and experienced days of darkness. I practiced meditation again. I got good at it.

Zen master good. My eyelids finally bounced open and I was rewarded with a different view. Between Helen's simultaneous fall away from me and the side of the side of the side of the sudden twist in my neck that my headfirst impact created, I found myself looking across the capture chamber at the far platform. The bloody and bizarre stuff happening on the far platform now seemed like a problem from years past, even though only a few seconds had passed since the test subject died, and his son liquefied in front of me, but whatever was going on over there had spurred Helen to inject

me with Metanovic's. Now, with a hundred milligrams of it screaming through my brain, I saw what Helen saw. There was a hole in the space above the test subject's deathbed. A perfectly pentagonal black pit was hovering in the air about three feet over the bed. It wasn't a trick of perspective or the light in the room. It was a floating hole. A neat, clean cut through our three-dimensional space to somewhere else. I remembered what Helen typed on the message screen immediately before she injected me.

He's taken his second death in the portal. This floating five-sided hole in the air must be the portal she was talking about. There was more, though. Something, a tongue or a tentacle had reached out of the floating pit and was busy slurping up the goo that the test subject's sun had become. I started to scream. Of course, in my hyperfast state, no scream came. Sound would eventually come out of my mouth, seemingly months after my brain had sent the scream and blind terror signal to my lung. and vocal chords, but without the release of hearing a scream, my mind stued in fear and terror

for what felt like a long, long time. I eventually managed to mentally talk myself down to a more managed state of fear. I was still scared, but I was able to pay attention to what was happening and able to figure out a way to safety. Looking back, during those long, fearful moments when I started to realize just how dangerous and evil Helen's experiments were, I thought whatever would happen to me was. would happen relatively quickly, I would either soon be killed by whatever was groping its way out of the portal, or I would dose myself with the antidote and escape. Even after being imprisoned

in time itself for what I perceived as more than a year, I had no idea the length of the ocean of time that lay before me. To my overdosed mind, my struggle for survival would last longer than a human lifespan. My first impression of the thing that reached out of the portal was that it It was a tentacle. On further study, and I had plenty of time for further study, it looked more insect-like than octopus-like. It had five elbow-like joints that I could see. From the point of view of my frozen face-smash, it looked like it had an exoskeleton or

a crab shell. It was dotted here and there with small hairs and pores. A tangled clump of wet-looking, finger-sized bits of red flesh poked out of the holes in the tip. Each one curled like a dog's tongue, drinking the liquefied glop that had been a man a few seconds ago. As horrible and strange as it was, I was glad to have something to look at besides the view of the floor. I stared and stared and stared at the far platform. I studied this unchanging scene with the intensity of a homicide detective studying photos of a scene of a long unsolved murder.

I noticed that the five-sided portal was aligned exactly with the pentagonal center of the glowing star in the circle made by the weird equipment that surrounded the test subjects bed and the platform it was on. The sign on the door to this vast underground space said it was the capture chamber. Was this equipment here to capture the portal? Capture it from what? Why did a man need to die at the center of the swirling machinery for the portal to be captured? The word portal implies a passage between locations.

If this capture chamber was one end of the portal, what was on the other side? While Helen jabbed me with a huge dose of metanovic's, I couldn't see anything other than the liquefying man on the far platform. Why could I only see this with a hyper-accelerated mind? I developed and refined these questions over what felt like months. I searched for answers, both in my memory and in the details of the scene. I studied the strange equipment that appeared to have captured the portal, developing theory after theory about how it worked without any way of determining which, if any, was correct.

Eventually, the complicated forces I had set in motion with my flailing and twisting fall rotated my bleeding face away from the far platform and back to Helen. She had already hit the ground by the time I could see her again and had started pushing herself back to standing. She wasn't staring at me anymore. Thankfully, her eyes were now fixed on the portal. I drew my knees to my chest and thrust my hands at the floor. I mean, I started to perform these motions.

I meticulously planned how I would stabilize my fall and bring myself back up to standing. Then I waited for my limbs to cooperate and for gravity and momentum to slowly bounce and slide me across the floor. Occasionally, I would make slight changes to where my hands and foot were going. At one point, I spit out a molar that was knocked loose when I smacked my face. I stabilized myself and rose. I felt my autonomic nervous system switch my breathing from an exhale to an inhale. Everything that had happened since Helen's stabbing with the syringe had occurred in just one breath. I kept my eyes on Helen as I rose.

Helen remained fixated on the far platform. Something about her looked different. I waited. I meditated. I designed a mechanical clock in my mind. I meditated more. Helen's face changed further. She now had a look of fear.

She extended her index finger and began to raise her arm. I recognized the gesture, even though she had only just started making it. She was pointing to the far platform. I twisted my neck around to glance at the portal. Incredibly, my situation had gotten worse. A second long, jointed probosciscus had emerged from the hole. This one wasn't aiming for the man-puddle on the floor. Whatever was in the portal was thrusting this second appendage into the chamber and towards us.

The second five-jointed exoskeleton human liquefire and feeding tube shot out of the pit and reached into the space in the center of the capture chamber. Of course, when I say it shot out of the pit, I'm speaking in relative terms. My mind was super accelerated to the point where a single breath seemed to last for a year or two. The second interdimensional death probosciscus moved fast enough that I could perceive minuscule changes in its position after each long meditation session that I engaged. In, to the unaccelerated mind, it must be moving lightning fast, like a barracuda or venomous snake making a kill. Helen was eventually satisfied that I saw what she was pointing at and stopped wasting time getting my attention. Instead, she flung herself toward the keyboard by the machine. I followed her motion, and eventually the banks of the computer monitors rotated into veal.

Before Helen dosed me with the drug, the monitors appeared to be flashing nothing but seizure-inducing noise. the influence of the mind accelerator, however, I saw that what Helen said was true. Each screen was being updated with new data 500 times a second. One monitor was displaying the Wikipedia page for Bolivia. The screen next to it was scrolling through some old work of fiction. He tossed the still-lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves, the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. The screen below that one showed part of an academic paper, full of equations. I couldn't even guess what the subject area was.

I can't exaggerate the relief I felt at seeing this random and eclectic set of information on the screens. These computer monitors gave my mind something to do. I read the Bolivia page over and over. I memorized the page of fiction, and I studied the mathematics so thoroughly that I began to understand it. Eventually, the screen displaying the Wikipedia page updated. A slow process were a slow process.

I got to watch the screen slowly redraw itself one row of pixels at a time. This is what a 500-hertz update rate looked like when overdosing on Mentanovics. Helen started typing. She could take her time, I thought. As boring as the information on these screens might be under ordinary circumstances, they gave me something to do, stuff to think about besides whatever my mind and memories could conjure up on their own. Days later, the first two letters of Helen's message appeared in the word process.

She wasn't wasting time, typing spaces. The second proboscis had visibly stretched further into the room. I read dozens of Wikipedia pages and about a hundred screenfuls of the work of fiction that flew up the screen. It was Moby Dick. I wondered what Helen was trying to say. We need to what? Eventually, more of Helen's message showed up. We need to shut it to.

I guessed what she was communicating. We need to shut it down. Shut what down? The portal capture machine? I took in more of the information scrolling past on the 500 hertz monitors. After the seeming eternity with nothing to look at but the floor or Helen's face or the horrific stuff unfolding by the portal, reading Moby Dick and random Wikipedia pages felt like pure hedonism. Helen finally finished her message.

We need to shut it down. breakers on distribution cabinets on left and right. Helen didn't spend time turning around to see if I understood. She jumped off the platform as soon as she finished the message and started running towards the equipment on the right side of the portal. I made a snap decision, which in my mental state meant that I thought it was over for what seemed like days. Helen, I guessed, assumed that I would take on the job of turning on the breaker on the left

side of the chamber. She just ran off to the right without checking with me. What if I did this? What were the risks from coming close to the interdimensional horror that was thrashing out of it? Would I even recognize the distribution cabinet if I saw it? Would I be able to figure out how to turn off the power? There was simply no way to think out the answers to these questions. They could only be answered definitively by committing to the course of action.

If the answer to any of them was the wrong answer, then things would get even worse for me than they already were. What was the worst-case scenario? That the portal monster would liquefy me, and in my mentally accelerated state, liquefication would take months, not seconds. That was a pretty bad worst-case scenario. Frankly, it was utterly terrifying, but even after mulling over every possible way I could think about the situation, I couldn't come up with a better idea. Staying on the platform and waiting for Helen to shut off both boxes amounted to spending

additional centuries in this room. What if Helen got killed shutting off the breakers? that I was supposed to shut off. I willed my legs to move, to leap off the platform as Helen had done. The commands to my muscles formed and screamed out of my brain at light speed, only to slam into my glacially slow muscles. I imagine my mind as a Victorian-era woman trapped in a tower, writing a message with a quill pen. My dearest legs, I hope this note finds you well.

Please jump off the platform. Then the message was sent by rider and sailing ship to the other side of the world. while I waited for months and months alone in the tower. From the edge of the platform, I no longer had the view of the computer monitors. I was outside my refuge from boredom in front of the displays. Instead of reading Wikipedia articles and journals from the world of higher mathematics, I spent the time waiting for my legs to obey by studying the death limb that was climbing out of the portal and into our universe. The portion of the limb that had emerged from the portal was dark brown with five elbow-like joints,

arranged to odd angles. The design of the multir radial elbows appeared to give it the flexibility to bend around the complex obstacles. Something about the way it stretched into the center of the room made me think it couldn't see or sense what was there. If there were eyes or other sense organs, they must have been on whatever incomprehensible body lay inside the portal. I passed the time thinking about what the rest of the creature might look like and what

the environment was wherever it came from that led it to evolve into the man-liquifying monster that was climbing into the capture chamber. I finally left the platform. I was airborne for months as I leapt three feet to the ground. I configured my body well and didn't fall when I hit the ground. It wasn't exactly the sticking the landing that earns you a ten in Olympic gymnastics, but it was good enough. Although I didn't hear it, my landing produced noise. The five-jointed arms seemed to change its pattern of motion.

when I landed and instead lashed out towards me. Did it hear me move? I urged my body to sprint towards the back of the room to where Helen said the electrical distribution cabinets were. I moved forward with the speed of grass growing. The arm pushed towards me, all five of its elbows straightened at once, launching the human liquefying mop-like end towards me at a speed that would have been faster than perception for a person under normal circumstances.

I had plenty of time to think about the best way to dodge its attack. It was clearly much faster than I was. I judged that I might move forward about two feet by the time the arm was fully outstretched. I estimated the length of each of its inner elbow segments and guessed that at full extent it was going to be long enough to reach me. In other words, I was going to die. If I was right that the extra-dimensional horror that was hunting me was working off the sound of my landing from the jump from the platform and it couldn't see me, a big if, then its thrust

would probably tend to aim at my landing spot near the floor. If I leapt upward, then the fraction of a second of upwards motion I'd achieve before the arm's strike reached me would maximize the distance between me and my landing point. I leapt, then I waited. I suffered through months of terrified waiting to see if I would survive the strike or not. I slowly left the ground, rising many times slower than the moon rising over the horizon. The arm got closer and closer. it was going to be close.

What would it feel like? I wondered. Would the process of liqueification feel like being burned? A rending of tissue? Maybe it would just be a dull numbness. I thought about each of these possibilities, trying to prepare myself for what would happen if the arm hit me. As tense a moment as this was, it still managed to eventually become boring.

My life or death gamble felt more like a long-term financial investment strategy. buy and hold stocks, then wait and wait and wait and see if you made the right choice. I meditated. I reminisced about my entire life. I pondered the mystery of the portal and of Helen herself. How did she learn about the effects of Mentinovics overdose and its possible antidote? That's when I realized the interdimensional death probiscus, or whatever it was, wasn't my worst problem. I had so much time to think of the plan since Helen typed her instructions to me,

why didn't this occur to me? There was only one dose of the antidote. Whoever made it back to the observation platform first would save themselves, the other, doomed to a literal eternity of silent glacial suffering. I was airborne, moving away from the observation platform, and waiting endlessly to see if the death probiscus would hit or miss me. Should I attempt to spin about in mid-air, risking a catastrophic fall and a most likely lethal interaction with the demon from the pit just to get a head start back to the platform where

the antidote sat on the table? What was Helen doing? Was her typed message about the electrical distribution racks a ruse to get me to run away so that she could take the antidote without a fight? I turned my head to look beyond the arm of death to the other side of the room. Weeks later, my view finally shifted enough to see Helen moving behind the portal machinery. She seemed to still be moving away from the observation platform. Toward the back of the room where the electrical distribution cabinets were supposedly located.

I made a major life decision. I decided to trust Helen. I didn't attempt to change course at all, just maintained a steady, all-out sprint toward the back of the room and hoped for the best. I eventually landed from my leap. The arm struck the ground 18 inches behind me. I ran toward the machinery in the rear of the room, and the arm didn't follow me. 20 or 30 years after I jumped from the platform, or about 50 feet later, I hazard a glance backwards, this initial year-long rotation of my head just to see that the arm was flinging itself toward the other side of the room, toward Helen. What would happen if Helen died?

Was the electrical distribution system for the capture equipment dual redundant? If I switched off the equipment on my side, but Helen didn't reach hers, was this whole effort For nothing? Would I have to try and spend another century running to the other side of a room to shut off the switches on Hell inside? I ran for years. I mourned my old life, the life from 60 seconds of normal perception time earlier. And I forgot.

That's what brains do. Learning and forgetting are just two sides of the same coin. Gaining experience and gaining ignorant are the same biological phenomenon. Five more steps. Another year. I meditated. I imagined new people and had years-long relationships with them. Another five steps.

I rounded a concrete footing that held one of the huge shafts that drove the capture equipment. Then I saw the distribution cabinet, a cabinet bearing a lightning bolt symbol and words in a language I could barely remember. High voltage. It was 40 feet away, years away. I ran and I prayed. I prayed for the demon arm to return to a high voltage. emerge from behind the panels, or sneak up behind me and strike me down, dead. Finally, there would be no more thoughts, no more oceans of time to suffer across.

My prayers were not answered. I kept on living. Despite having a career-long amount of time to anticipate arrival at the electrical distribution cabinet, I still misjudged the deceleration required to have a smooth arrival and slammed into the door. I grabbed the handle as I rounded off the sheet metal and flung it open while steadying myself. Two banks of 70 amp breakers were mounted in neat vertical rows. At the top, a chunky main power switch with a red handle. I grabbed the handle, an act that took months, and yanked

it downward as hard as I could. Nothing happened. Were the power supplies redundant, both needing to be off to turn off the capture equipment? If so, perhaps I simply got to the left side cabinet before Helen reached the one on the right side, or maybe Helen had been killed by the demon arm before she could power off the racks on her side of the room. Or maybe she had betrayed me and was sneaking back to the observation platform to take the antidote. I invested the time in peeking around the equipment racks to look at the portal. It was still there. A perfect pentagonal cut in space time, the star in a circle-shaped frame of moving machinery

that somehow captured or created the portal still glow to achieve. cherry red. The capture machinery was still powered on. Both of the dinosaur-sized insect-looking arms still stretched out of the hole in space. One continued to slurp the liquefied man on the platform. The other arm, the one that had attempted to turn me into human juice, was busy with something that was obscured by the machinery. Then something changed. It changed fast, far faster than any phenomenon I'd seen since Helen injected me. It was the lighting in the room. Two dozen red emergency lights installed on the ceiling flickered on simultaneously. In my imagination, I heard an emergency claxon began wailing too, but my mind was far too

sped up for something as slow-moving as sonic energy to produce a noticeable signal. The portal change as well. The once sharp edges of the pentagonal hole in space were now blurry. I thought it over. Then I thought some more, and some more. What else did I have to do? Helen, I concluded, had shut down the right-side power distribution rack. Without power to the equipment, the portal was closing or destabilizing, or whatever

portals do when their capture machinery powers off. The antidote. I still couldn't see Helen through the forest of machinery and equipment racks, but I pictured her sprinting like mad back to the observation platform to take the one dose of the antidote for herself. I couldn't let that happen. I launched myself back towards the observation platform, pushing a little. off the electrical distribution cabinet for extra acceleration. Helen had injected me. I knew she had

reasons for doing it, but that didn't matter to me anymore. She co-signed me to a century of silent imprisonment in this room. I deserved the antidote, not Helen. I ran. I ran for years. Only 40 steps back to the observation platform, each one a bottomless well of empty time that I had to fill with my thoughts. I glanced backwards twice. Each tiny, gesture slowed me down slightly, causing months of delay. With my first glance backwards, ten steps away from the power cabinet, I saw essentially the same scene as before, the portal starting to blur and warp, and the two massive arms still grasping into the room.

32 steps from the power cabinet, two dozen feet from the platform. I looked back again, now both death arms were flailing about. Were they in pain because the portal was destabilizing? Enraged? Still no sign of Helen. I dove onto the observation platform, laying out horizontally in the air like I was playing Ultimate Frisbee. I hung in the air for a long time, feeling a little like Superman, then like an extremely bored Superman. I eventually landed on my belly and slid from the edge of the platform to the chair in the center. I sprung to my feet and snatched the syringe of Flumazino from the table. I spun my head around, looking for Helen. By injecting

myself with all the flumazino, I was effectively sentencing her to a death as awful as S-47s. Was she going to attack me again to take the drug away from me? I saw her. My decades of worrying and scheming about Helen taking the antidote were completely misguided. Helen was still wearing her white lab coat, was still by the test subjects platform, scaling one of the pylons of the capture machine. What the heck was she doing? I grabbed the syringe from the table and immediately injected it into my neck. This process took months, only seconds of real time passed, but in those seconds I saw Helen climb to the business area of the capture machine, the topmost portion with the red-hot glowing rails. In one fluid motion, Helen vaulted herself over one of the rails and into

the portal. She rotated to face me as she fell. Did she see me betraying her, taking the Flumazino myself? She was too far away for me to read her expression. Helen slowly fell away into the rift in space, and I pushed the dose into my neck. When Helen injected the Mentinovics into my neck, it took effect within a fraction of a second. The antidote, the Flumanzanil, also took effect that quickly. But since I was overdosed on the Mentonovics, the fraction of a second waiting for the flumanzinov to hit seemed like weeks. Time slowly accelerated over those weeks. Helen's fall into the pit went faster and faster.

The edges of the portal blurred and bent at a frantic pace. The huge five-jointed arm retracted into the pit, eventually moving so quickly that I could perceive their motion like a minute hand on a clock. I heard a soft, low rumble. It sounded like thunder from a storm dozens of miles away. Soon after, the portal vanished. I didn't know if it finally closed because the capture equipment was turned off, or if it was still there, invisible to me because my mind was not running fast enough to see.

it. The thunder sounded again, the sound rising in pitch. I felt my heartbeat for the first time in over a century, a slow squeeze in my chest. I sensed air rushing into my lungs. Then everything was back to normal. The soft, distant thunder was suddenly the deafening sound of a siren blaring. I heard myself gasping in air. I coughed. I screamed. I didn't recognize the sound of my voice. My legs gave out, and I fell to the floor with terrifying speed. Everything moved too fast. There was no time to think about anything. Behind me, the door to the capture chamber slammed open.

I screamed again, startled by the sound, and turned to look at the door. I didn't have to wait to see who was entering. My body immediately obeyed my wishes. A dozen men and women rushed into the room. Security guards holding rifles, as they might need to start shooting at any instant. People in lab coats holding Geiger counters and other sensors, a crew of paramedics. They moved so fast, it was overwhelming. How was I once able to exist at this speed?

How can a person process information in a world where everything moved so fast? Half a dozen of them surrounded me, blaring commands to evacuate the chamber, asking questions about my conditions, questions about Helen. I tried to answer, but could only stumble out fragments of words. I had forgotten how to speak. They rushed me out of the chamber, the room where I had spent the bulk of my century and a half of life. I was basically thrown onto a stretcher and wheeled to a medical facility that was off the same hallway as the capture chamber. They gave me a bottle of water.

I choked on it. I had forgotten how to swallow. They took a blood sample. I heard someone say the words Ngram decay later. They gave me the results of my blood work. My engram decay showed I had experienced 120 years of consciousness. I was 32 years old when I entered the capture chamber. My body is still 32, but my mind is 152 years old.

Most of my life has been spent in anguish, struggling to survive and escape my torment in that huge underground room. I was in the medical facility for a while, days, I think. It was like a flash, a blip. I know how to spend a year. worth of time doing nothing other than stare at the floor. Passing the time in the medical facility was no biggie. I recovered my ability to talk and to swallow and to walk. Then they let me go. Someone in a lab coat, one of Helen's colleagues, escorted me out of the deep basement facility

and to the front door of the building. It was so strange, repeating the journey through the offices and lobby that I took over a century earlier. Good luck, he said and held the door open for me. I stepped outside. I saw the sky for the first time in 120 years. I heard the wind whistle and felt it blow my hair about. I wept. There were so many cars in the parking lot.

Which one was mine? I couldn't remember. I finally found one that looked familiar. It opened with my key, and I sat at the driver's seat. A to-go coffee cup lay on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Was it mine? I didn't remember. I opened the glove box and found the registration.

It had my name and my address. Which of these cars was Helens? Had she driven to work expecting to fling herself into another dimension? I couldn't drive. It was too frightening, only having seconds to react to the changing traffic lights and motion of the other vehicles on the road. I walked to the main gate and got them to call a cab. The taxi delivered me to the address on my registration, a vaguely familiar-looking town.

townhouse, whose door opened with my key. Recovery is going quickly, everything is going quickly for me, compared to my life in the capture chamber. The day is raced by with terrifying speed. I spent a week writing down everything I remember from my long life in the capture chamber. I'm posting the record of my experiences here. Whatever is going on in that government lab should not be a secret. I know I signed an NDA in Helen's office, where I agreed not to discuss what I saw and experienced. Frankly, though, I don't care. What are they going to do? Put me in jail for a few years for divulging secrets? Believe me, I can do the time easily. I suffer from a condition called Charles Bonnet Syndrome, or visual release hallucinations

if you want to get more technical. It's a condition that's far more common than you might realize. It's estimated that as many as half of people with gradual loss of vision will experience one or more bouts over their lifetime. Yet, I'm willing to bet most of you have never heard of it. The reason for that is because most sufferers are scared to tell anybody what we experience. I know I was. I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Andrew, and I'm 26.

Two years ago, I woke up with awful blurred vision. Every single edge and detail clouded as if somebody had smeared Vaseline on a camera lens. It never got better. I was scared then, and got over to Dr. Harper's surgery as fast as I could. Suddenly needing to take a cab rather than climb into the car I'd driven without incident ever since I'd bought it three years prior. The doctor did some tests, asked me some questions. Have you been much thursday lately?

How often do you urinate? How would you describe your tiredness level? And then gave me the diagnosis that changed my life forever. Diabetes. Type 1. He explained that I would need to take insulin shots with every meal. that eating the wrong foods without monitoring my blood sugar could see me drop into a coma, or worse.

Then he got to my eyes. Andrew, your diabetes has resulted in maculapathy. Do you know what that is? I shook my head, dumbly, already reeling from the shock of my diagnosis, and Dr. Harper went on. It's when diabetes affects the blood vessels at the back of your eye, blocking them and causing them to leak into the macula, the central part of your retina that helps you to perceive color and fine detail.

When these blood vessels leak into the macula, it can cause significant damage. With a lump in my throat, I asked. Okay, so how do we make this better? I couldn't see Harper's face properly when he spoke, but his tone of voice was enough to tell me what I'd been dreading. I'm sorry, Andrew, he replied gravely. Perhaps if we'd caught this sooner, we might have had some treatment options available to us, but I'm afraid the damage has been pretty extensive.

We can take steps to arrest the development of the condition, but I'm afraid it's irreversible. I felt as if my world had come crashing down around me. I was just 24, still at my physical peak. I was active, playing basketball, cycling a couple of times a week, and now my health, my body, and my sight had been taken from me. The first six months were tough. I broke up with my girlfriend, a sweet girl named Holly, who tried to make it work, but couldn't because I was so damn angry all the time.

I lost my job, because if there's one thing an architect needs, it's his eyes. I even fell out with a lot of my friends, making excuses not to meet with them until they stopped asking. In truth, it was jealousy on my part. Envy that they got to keep on living while everything I'd ever hoped for had been snatched away. I became a recluse, never leaving my apartment, barely bothering to wash, shave, or get dressed each day.

I was so sure that my life was over, I stopped even trying to live it. I was an asshole. It took me too long to realize this, but in the end it was the nurse assigned to visit me at home, a tall, no-nonsense experienced woman called Lois who brought this to my attention. You're an asshole. She said. What? I gasped.

Shocked to her language. So you've got diabetes? Do you know how many people do? She asked. Then before waiting for my answer, she continued. Do you think they all hide in their apartments refusing to be? to get on with their lives? Losing your vision is a terrible thing and you have my sympathy.

But Andrew, it's no excuse to give up. But you don't, I argued, trying to defend myself, but she hadn't finished. Understand? She growled. One of the bravest men I know was paralyzed from the neck down when he was just a child and he hasn't given up. You can do so much more with your life and you have people that want to help you do that, but you can't even be bothered to shave that ugly fucking beard off.

Stop being a crybaby and make a fucking difference. Of course, it didn't happen overnight, and I argued with her. I was furious at her blunt insensitivity and told her to leave. I said I'd tell her superiors, but she laughed and told me I wouldn't. You won't, because you're a smart guy, and you've got too much pride for that, she said. I'll see you next week. That night I shaved. I opened up my curtains and actually looked around.

Things were blurry, but when I really looked, I could see the things scattered around my home, the mess I'd let it become. When Lois came back the following week, the place was tight. I was clean-shaven, dressed. I'd even attempted to comb my hair. She didn't say anything about it. Didn't mention the argument of the week before, but she took me out for coffee down the street. She guided me along the sidewalk to the coffee shop, talking to me, reassuring me.

It was daunting, even though it was less than a block away, but I felt so proud when I got there. We talked. Me and Lois. I think I even laugh. Afterwards, she walked me home. When she helped me back inside, she said, It's nice to meet you at last, Andrew. That day was the beginning of my new life.

I moved to a new apartment, a ground floor place, and joined a group of other young people with vision impairments. I made friends, got out every day, even if it was just a short walk, but I made a point of seeing what I could of the world. I bought what I could, but the Sawyers, the old couple that ran the local store, would bring my groceries by once a week. A gruff old coot, so he refuses to coddle me, and he's told me that he respects me for being like I am, for maintaining my independence, for not giving up.

From a guy like him, that's one of the sweetest things I've ever heard. Things were going so well. And then, one year ago, it started. I walked into my living room, a mug of coffee in my hand, and I saw a Victorian funeral carriage stood right there on my rug, complete with two huge, proud horses in full lavery, adorned with long black plumes in their bridles. They stood perfectly still while the driver, a small bearded man in period costume and a top hat fidgeted with the reins and peered at me expectantly.

Bizarrely, they were far clearer than the usual blurry shapes that I could see. I damn near pissed my pants. I dropped the cup, spilling scalding hot coffee over my bare feet, jumping backwards with a cry of pain and alarm. When I returned my attention to the horses and carriage back in the room, they were gone. At that moment, I wondered if I was going mad. Apparently, most of us do, which is understandable. How would you feel if you'd seen that exact same sight in your home?

Unless you're Jack the Ripper, I imagine many of you do not have a coach and horses just lying around. I certainly didn't. Eventually, after much quiet swearing to myself and more than a little self-delusion, I managed to convince myself that I had not seen what I thought I had, that it was merely a vivid daydream. This seemed to work and I got on with living, even if I entered that same room a little more cautiously in the days that followed.

Finally, I forgot about it. Two weeks later, I saw a giant floating, swirling orange ball in my bathroom. I damn near pissed myself again. I stood there staring at it. This bizarre, rotating, levitating globe that was a little larger than a beach ball hanging in mid-air over my tub. mouth for a full ten seconds before finally screwing my eyelids tightly closed and whispering to myself, That isn't there.

That isn't there. After five seconds, I opened my eyes again. It wasn't there. Have you ever had cause to doubt your own sanity, to wonder whether what you perceive is truly there, or if your mind has betrayed you? Honestly, compared to the loss of my vision, the prospect of losing my wits was so much more terrifying. I'd fought against adversity and took pride in the fact that I'm not just a survivor, but

somebody who's living his own life. Can I do that if I was insane? I barely slept that night, and I remained jumpy for days afterwards. Any side of movement or any unfamiliar shape would set my pulse racing would cause me to doubt whether it was truly there. It was the toughest time I'd ever been through, worse even than that time after I was diagnosed with diabetes. At least when Dr. Harper had told me about the diabetes.

as I had a definitive prognosis. I was given facts by a medical professional. My affliction was physical. It had a name and most important it had a treatment plan. This was something else. My own mind had turned against me. My senses and perception of reality had become twisted and unreliable. It's only when you're in that position that you realize just how terrifying it is.

Your senses in the way your brain interprets them are your only true defenses against danger. You perceive danger and you avoid it, preventing your body from becoming harmed, but what happens when you can't trust your perception to alert you to the dangers that are truly there?" Lois picked up the problem first, noticing my skittish manner. She asked what was wrong, if I needed to talk about anything, but I told her no. I was fine, but I hadn't been sleeping well. That last part was true. I hadn't been able to sleep a wink.

Just the very thought of being institutionalized, spending the rest of my days a sedated, blue pajamas-clad zombie in a white room with only the echoing cries of my fellow inmates for company, that terrified me beyond measure. But what was the alternative? Live life as a risk to myself and others? Ultimately, I chose to ignore it. I reasoned that if I was able to function around other people without them realizing what was going on, that was good enough.

A full month passed before the next incident, and I really did think that maybe I'd put this whole mess behind me. With every passing day my confidence had grown, so that Wednesday morning I had stepped out onto the sunny street feeling pretty carefree. Each Wednesday I'd treat myself to a latte down at Joe's, the same coffee shop that I'd visited with Lois. It was a custom that gave me a great deal of pleasure, one that had seen me forge friendships with other regulars as well as the staff, including Joe himself.

As I made my way down the street, white stick in hand, I glanced about me, taking in the colors and shapes of the world around me. I enjoyed the feel of the sun on my face and the sounds of the birds singing. It was a good day. And then I saw them, a party of pilgrims, six of them, all dressed in settler era attire, sitting cross-legged on the asphalt. They didn't look at me. Instead, they were engaged in a heated yet strangely silent conversation.

I froze staring at them. Still, they argued. Sticulating furiously at one another. However, I couldn't hear their angry voices, despite the fact that, judging by their ill temperament, they must be screaming at one another. Paralyzed by shock, the white stick fell from my numb fingers, clattering onto the sidewalk. I turned to leave, desperate to flee from the haunting sight of the colonists in the road, but I was so panicked in such a hurry that I stepped onto my cane.

It rolled underfoot, and before I knew it, I pitched over, tumbling to the hard ground below. I didn't quite break my fall in time, banging my cheek hard on the floor and skinning my palm. I heard a cry from a passer-by, a friendly concerned woman who rushed to my side. She knelt beside me, helping me up, applying a Kleenex to my throbbing cheek, which she informed me was now bleeding. I tried to tell her that I was okay. There was nothing to worry about, but this good Samaritan insisted on driving me to Dr. Harper's

office to get my injuries looked at. Now I think back to it. I'm pretty sure she knew my obvious distress. was nothing to do with the fall. At the time, I was embarrassed and angry, but now I realize I owe her a debt of gratitude. Without her intervention, I don't know how much longer this would have gone before I cracked up and ended up in an asylum after breaking down through sheer stress. Andrew, why don't you tell me what happened?

Dr. Harper asked, gently dabbing at my cheek with disinfectant. I explained that I'd just lost my balance and that no harm was done, but I think he saw through my feeble protestations to my underlying agitation. He didn't press or force the matter. He simply asked what might have caused my clumsiness. Then he asked how I'd been as of late. When I finished mumbling my way through the most non-committal answer I could muster, he placed a gentle, reassuring hand on my shoulder.

Andrew, he repeated gently. Why don't you tell me what happened? I burst into tears. I told him how scared I was, how I'd fought so hard for my independence, and now I knew it would be taken from me. He listened patiently, and then asked me to tell him why I ever thought that. I paused then, took a deep breath and thought about it. This was the point of no return, but really, what other option did I have?

So with tears running down my cheeks, I told Dr. Harper everything. I told him about the horse and the carriage, the orange globe, and the pilgrims. I told him how I had been living each day in fear, how I was terrified that I was losing my mind. Dr. Harper thought for a while, and then he said, Andrew, I don't think you're losing your mind. The sense of relief at that moment was so powerful it overwhelmed me, rendering me speechless. You say that even though you've seen these things, you've never heard any noise from them.

Have you detected any odors or experienced any other physical sensations, such as touching them? I shook my head, no, and he patted my shoulder once again. Andrew, have you ever heard of Charles Bonnett syndrome? He asked. Charles Bohn, who? I asked. Confused by this sudden, unexpected turn of conversation. Okay, let me explain.

Dr. Harper said kindly. Charles Bonnet was a Swiss naturalist who was born in the 1700s. He discovered a curious condition in his elderly grandfather, who was nearly completely blind due to cataracts. The old man regularly experienced visual hallucinations, including random patterns and even people and places. Sound familiar? Yes? I replied, still confused. Am I suffering from dementia?

No, Andrew, not at all. Dr. Harper reassured me. Do you know how perception works? In layman's terms, your eyes taken light via the iris and pupil, which is then processed via the retina and translated into electrical signals which are decoded by the brain, which simply organizes these signals into recognizable images. With me so far? I nodded, finally starting to understand.

When the retina becomes detached, such as those that have undergone macular degeneration, those signals become warped and jumbled. Dr. Harper went on. The brain still receives them, so it does its job, translating these distorted signals into an image. It kind of fills the gaps for you. Sometimes it fills these gaps with colors, patterns, creatures, and places that aren't present. This is called Charles Bonnet Syndrome.

I nearly wept with relief. So, I'm not mad. I cried. No, not at all. The doctor replied. This is an entirely physical condition. Your mind is in full working order. If you were suffering from any form of mental illness, your delusions wouldn't be limited to just

one sense. You'd hear these interlopers, smell them, even feel them. This is a condition solely related to your eyes, not your brain. As I left Dr. Harper's office, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Sure, my vision was still an issue, but I knew it was only a problem with my eyes, not my mind. I knew I could handle the situation. I was ready to face the world again. Since then, I've seen plenty of weird visions.

I saw a huge waterfall in the park, complete with a hazy mist and butterflies fitting about. I saw a Native American warrior complete with a huge feather headdress sitting at a stool at the counter in the coffee shop. I saw an intricate and quite impossible structure of scaffolding crisscrossing. the entire front of my apartment block. Hell, on the 4th of July last year, I even saw a great swooping green dragon in the sky, twisting and cavorting through the air overhead. All looked utterly and completely real.

Yet, now I knew they were simply tricks of the eye, they were no longer disturbing. In fact, I actually came to quite enjoy them, even looking at them as unique and entertaining little shows or works of art that existed purely for my pleasure and nobody else's. I came to welcome them. Then, a month ago, I saw her. It was night time. It's always night time when I see her. And I was just getting ready for bed.

I walked into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water and actually cried out in alarm when I spotted the figure in the corner. She was tall. By far the tallest woman I'd ever seen, and even though she stood hunched, she still had at least six inches on me. I was used to seeing characters and dated and bizarre dress. But this, this was different somehow. It didn't seem like an outfit from any one time, instead of a bizarre mishmash of items.

She wore a tuxedo jacket, figure-hugging in black, tailored to the female body shape over a dirty old ruffled dress shirt. To complete the ensemble, she wore bright red bow tie. On her hands, which she held out to either side as if shrugging, or maybe feeling for rain, she wore dirty white gloves. Her fingers were disproportionately long, almost spidery, and occasionally they twitched, as if she longed to grip and squeeze something in them. On her lower half, she wore shorts, the same crimson as her bow tie, over opaque black

nylons. Her legs were long, attractive. If truth be told, the legs of a dancer. She also wore red heels, the same hue as her shorts and bow tie, but they sparkled and shimmered, bringing to mind Judy Garland's ruby slippers. from the Wizard of Oz. As strange as this ensemble was, I couldn't tear my eyes from her face. Most of it was obscured by a jaunty bowler hat, tipped and tilted to hide her eyes and nose.

But beneath the brim of her hat, I could see the deathly pale skin of her face and a grin that sent shivers down my spine. It was wide, too wide with entirely too many teeth. A smile is meant to be an expression of warmth. It's meant to feel welcoming and benevolent, but the look of the look. on this woman's face oozed malice. It felt much like the sort of glee I'd expect from a snake as it corners a rat. However, the thing that startled me most was that she had a third arm sprouting from her

back, curled up and over her head like a scorpion's tail. It was longer than any arm should be, and the hand had only three fingers, like a claw. It was pointed straight at me, and as I swore in dismay and stumbled sideways it seemed to track my movement. I stood. staring at the creepy figure for a few seconds, trying to get my mind around the situation. She just stood there in the corner, grinning back. Finally, I realized that this was just another of my hallucinations and breathed an audible sigh

of relief. One of the tricks I've picked up over the months of suffering from Charles Bonnett syndrome is to break the line of vision towards whichever stimulant is causing my brain to interpret the images into the hallucination. Think of it like, um, restarting a faulty computer, how refreshing the system debugs it, To this end, I closed my eyes and count to five. Then, when I reopen them, the hallucination is gone. So, as I stared at the horrifying, malformed figure in my kitchen, I knew that to make the image

go away, I simply had to close my eyes. I'll be honest here. When I counted to five, I hesitated a little before opening my eyes. If I'd opened my eyes and she'd still been stood there, smiling that wicked smile at me, I think I might have had a heart attack. She wasn't, and I breathed another long sigh of a leaf. Fetched my glass of water and went back to bed. The tall woman haunted my thoughts in the days after I saw her.

She was different from the other visions I'd had. Somehow she felt more real. It was this agitation that my buddy Jason picked up on when we met for lunch the following Friday. Jason was one of those same friends I'd tried to drive away shortly after I lost my vision, yet he'd refused to give up on me, continuing to get in touch week after week. Good friends are hard to come by, but great friends.

The ones that will be by your side for life are even rarer. Jason, God bless his heart, is one of the latter. You gotta tell me what's going on, dude, he said, as we sat down over pizza. What do you mean? I asked, trying to brush it off. You're so distracted, it's like you're looking for something in here all the time. You've eaten like one slice of pizza and the time it's taken me to eat four, so I repeat. You gotta tell me what's going on.

Jason said, waving a slice of pizza around for emphasis. It's nothing. I replied, feeling a little stupid. I just had a hallucination a couple of nights ago that really got to me. I thought you were cool with those now. He asked, putting the slice of pizza down. Yeah, I am. I mean, I was, but this was different.

I replied, resigned to talking about it. She scared me. She? Jason asked. His interest clearly peasy. Peek. Tell me about it. So I did.

I described the tall woman and how she'd appeared to me. I explained that unlike any of the other hallucinations, she felt more real, and that she was the first to feature such a weird and unsettling mutation. Sure, I'd seen smaller versions of people in the past, a phenomenon referred to as Lilliputian by medical professionals, but the extra appendage and the impossibly distorted face were something I'd yet to encounter thus far. I think it was that. combined with the unnerving, expectant stance that had disturbed me the most.

So, Jason said after I'd finished. You say she had great legs. Shut up, you asshole. I laughed, throwing my napkin at him. No, seriously. I get it, man. Jason replied, passing the napkin back to me. If I walked into a room and a giant mutant was waiting for me, it'd scare the shit out

of me too. But you know what caused you to see this. It's like the coachman. and the waterfall you saw. It's a condition that you know you have, and it's one that you know how to deal with, okay?" I know, I know," I replied. Thanks, man, you're right. I did feel better too, so I smiled at him, took a big bite of my pizza, and changed the subject,

asking him about his psycho ex, a conversation that he was all too happy to dive into. The next time I saw the tall woman who was just under a week later. I was brushing my teeth. I was stood at the wash basin, brushing away, when I spotted a figure in the mirror. She was out in the dark hallway, peeking around the door behind me. That same sinister grin I'd seen before stretched her narrow face into a distorted grimace. The dirty bowler hat pushed down over her eyes once again. Each of those three long, spidery hands gripped the door frame.

As crazy as this sounds, it felt like she was trying to avoid being spotted. I cried out, spitting toothpaste foam all over the middle. mirror, my toothbrush clattering in the basin. I spun around, my heart thumping in my chest, my breathing ragged in my throat. She wasn't there. Of course she wasn't. The doorway was empty. I tiptoed forward, hesitantly, trying to look around the door frame into the hallway without

actually sticking my neck out into its shadowy confines. A second stick by as I drew closer and closer. I couldn't see anything, so finally, with a whisper of self-affirmation, I stepped out of the bathroom. The hallway was empty, as was the rest of my apartment. I was shaken again. This was the first time I'd seen a hallucination and a reflection, and I wasn't even sure that I'd actually seen it. Now, as I sit here, recording this, knowing what would follow, I think I thought like that to try to protect myself, to shield myself from the truth. I was an idiot. A full fortnight passed without incident. Sure, I saw a flash of color one day, a dancing yellow lightning

bolt that zigzagged back and forth on the street outside my apartment, but that was exactly the sort of thing I'd come to expect from my condition. It was exciting, otherworldly, but it wasn't scary, not like she was. In retrospect, that fortnight was blissful, and it was a reminder of what life could be like. The existence that I had carved out for myself since my diagnosis, life was good. The night that changed the way I viewed the tall woman. Last night, I'd been out and had a couple of drinks. I'd met the other guys with visual impairment for dinner, and we'd ended up at a bar afterwards.

I wasn't hammered, but we got through plenty of beer between us, and by the time I stepped out into the cool night air, I felt decidedly lightheaded. It took me a while to make it home, laughing and talking to a couple of the other guys from our group as we strolled along. It had been a great evening. It was probably the last truly good one I'll ever have. I bid the other guys good night, and fumbling with my key, let myself in. With swaying steps, I strolled into my hallway, slamming the door a little too loudly behind me.

I took off my jacket, hung it on the hook by the door, and then hit the light switch. She was waiting at the end of the hallway. All three hands held aloft into claws, reaching for me. That same maddening, malevolent grin on her pale face. I swore again, louder than ever, actually jumping back a step, recoiling from the impossible tall and terrifying figure lying in weight in my own home. The tall woman didn't move. She stood there, staring and smiling at me.

I stared back, but I sure as hell didn't smile. Jesus Christ, I muttered under my breath. You know how you can feel a little paranoid after a few beers? That feeling of non-specific post-alcohol dread. Imagine that combined with a giant grinning mutant woman suddenly appearing in your home. Suffice to say, it was very, very, very. Very uncool.

I don't need this. I sighed and closed my eyes. One, two, three, four, five. When I opened my eyes, her face was just a foot from my own, grinning wider than ever. She dashed the length of the hallway and was now stood so close that her long, grasping arms were either side of me. Her fingers twitching and clawing at the air around my face, I could see her chest heaving as if she were actually laughing silently at my attempts to dismiss her, as if the thought that

I could ever be free of her was amusing. I screamed, a full-bodied shriek of terror, and actually dropped to my knees, covering my head as if to fend off an expected blow. It never came. Finally I lowered my hands, grasping for breath, shaking. The hallway was empty. The tall woman nowhere to be seen. I stayed there on my knees for a moment, grasping for breath.

I was on my feet and I turned and ran out of the apartment, out of the building, and into the street. I stood there, shivering, terrified beyond reason, without a clue as to what I'd do next. Finally, I pulled my phone from my pocket and I made a phone call. Hey, Andy, what's up? Jason asked. Jason, I need you to come here. I said sobbing.

Jason didn't ask why. Didn't complain. Instead, he simply replied. I'm on my way. Less than 20 minutes later, his car pulled up outside. and he dashed over to the steps outside my building where I was sitting, shivering. He threw his jacket around my shoulders and asked what happened. His voice filled with concern.

She's in there. I stammered. The tall woman, she's back. Okay, okay, he said, gently helping me to my feet. Come on, men. Let's go in there and check it out. I wish I could say that I was brave when we went inside, but I'd be lying. I cowered behind Jason, one hand on his shoulder as we made our way through.

my home. Of course, we didn't find a thing. Of course, we didn't find a thing. We're talking a giant mutant woman in a pokey little one-bedroom apartment. Where the hell was she going to hide? Finally, after we checked every single room twice, I had to admit that she was gone. I'm so sorry, man. I apologize, feeling genuinely stupid.

I got scared. I'm sorry, man. Hey, forget about it, buddy, Jason said. So, I'm here now. Now, where do you keep your booze? Half a bottle of bourbon later, we were both feeling pretty talkative. She's, you know, just kind of different, you know? I tried to explain.

I get it, I get it. It's like he saw something bad and you feel bad and that's bad. He didn't get it. No, she's different, you know, like I've never had a repeat hallucination before and they've never been scary, you know, she's not like the others. Dude, dude. Jason said, taking another sip of bourbon. You've got like Charles Boney syndrome and you know how that makes you see shit.

So? He waved his hand in the air like a magician who just performed a trick. I know, I know. No, listen, Andy. He said. You know what makes you see shit, it's just your eyes, yeah? You didn't hear anything, you didn't feel anything. This is how that stuff goes.

It's your eyes and I know it's scary, man, but you've been through like hell and high water in your life, so you're tough. One of the toughest, bravest guys I know. You can handle some creepy hallucination bitch." I laughed. I couldn't help it. She is a very creepy hallucination bitch, though, dude. He laughed too, and we both took a drink.

You know, that could help. He said, finally, his voice thoughtful. What? Drinking? I asked. No. Well, yes, it does. He giggled.

I mean, like, the... It demystifying her, you should give her a name, something stupid so she's not scary. I've got to say, as much as I like creepy hallucination, bitch, that's a bit of a mouthful. I laughed. Yeah, I get that, he replied. Suddenly, something he'd said came back to me. How about Helen? I suggested.

Helen Highwater. Awesome. Then he raised his glass. Here's to Helen, buddy. To Helen. I smiled and drained my glass. Jason spent the night on my sofa. Mainly because he'd had too much to drink to even think about getting behind the wheel

of a vehicle. But honestly, I think the reason he drank so much was so that he'd have an excuse to stay and keep an eye on me. I'm glad he did. Knowing that he was there made me feel safer and I was able to get some sleep. It gave me a sense of security to know that if the strange vision I'd just christened Helen was to appear again, I'd be able to call on him for support. This morning we both needed support.

Oh, it feels like a mule kicked me in the head. He groaned when I made my way into the living room. Yep. I replied, my own head thumping. Joe's? Joe's. He replied firmly and staggered to his feet. As we drank strong black coffee and ate muffins, we didn't talk much.

Finally, Jason broke the silence. So, you feel cool now? He asked. His mouth still full of blueberry muffin. I nodded. Yeah, I think so. Not still freaked out about you know who, he asked. Helen?

I replied with a smile. I know. I really don't think I am. I reckon I can handle some creepy hallucination, bitch. Good. He laughed, giving me a hearty pat on the back. That's cool, man. I bet you can.

Now, as I sit here, cowering in my bathroom too scared to go out into my apartment, I know we are both wrong. About everything. Remember how earlier I told you that the thought of being institutionalized, that the very very idea of losing my grasp on reality was the most terrifying thing I could imagine. Now I'd welcome that, because the alternative is far, far worse. After breakfast, I said goodbye to Jason, and he climbed into his car and drove away. The day passed without incident, and when Lois stopped by this afternoon, she even commented

on how upbeat I seemed. You got a lady in your life? She asked casually. I laughed at that, wondered what she'd think if she knew the truth. Yeah. I chuckled. Something like that. Good for you.

She sniffed. Make sure you treat her right. That tickled me even more, and I had to bite my lip. Sure. I replied. I'll do my best. Tonight, stole a little wiped from the exertions of the previous evening. I decided to turn in early.

I brushed my teeth, washed my hands and face, and got changed. Finally, I fetched a glass of water and walked into my bedroom. I climbed into bed and instantly felt so, so relaxed. Within mere seconds, I was ready for sleep. That sudden overwhelming drowsiness that comes when you've spent a whole day keeping sleep at bay, I decided that resistance was futile, and I sat up to switch off the light. I nearly didn't see her, but as I reached for the switch, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye.

My heart leapt into my throat as I turned to the foot of my bed. The tall woman was crouched there, her grinning face staring at me from just beyond my feet. So many teeth. Her long, slender fingers spread out over my blankets, twitching slightly as she gripped at the end of the bed. Slowly, excruciatingly so. Her third misshapen arm came into view over her shoulder, joining her other hands on my bedding.

I froze, utterly petrified. I was at a crossroads here, arriving at a pivotal moment that had been coming for some time, but this time I'd had enough. You don't scare me anymore, I said. My voice filled with defiance and air. anger. I'm not letting you do this to me." I reached across to the light switch.

Good night, Helen. I said triumphantly, then flicked it. Plunging the room into darkness. I lay there, a sense of tremendous pride surging through me, and I grinned to myself in my warm, comfortable bed, overjoyed at the emotional victory of overcoming my own fear. And then it happened, the thing that led me here. Something that turned my blood to ice water and my bowels to jelly. Her rasping voice hissed from the darkness.

I don't need to watch to know where the woman has decided to hide. It's always one of three places, and out of those three, it's usually one specific spot. It's all so predictable. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't absolutely need to. If I could avoid it, I would. That's always the case. The problem is that I can't. when my condition reaches this point.

I really thought I was going to make it this time. That happens more often than you might think. I managed to get through the past two cycles without having to resort to this. I was so close to making it this time as well. Yesterday, my hand started shaking, though, and that was soon followed by the sensation of itching in the back of my skull. I knew then that I was out of time. There's no point lamenting what isn't to be.

I retrieved the pair of knives from the table. The blades bobbed up and down in the air due to my shaking hands, but I will just have to make them work. I slowly walk down the stairs leading into the main warehouse storage area. This would not be my choice of hunting grounds. Much of the space is taken up by crates and storage containers, and all the doors and windows are chained shut. It creates a claustrophobic environment that offers no chance for escape. which in turn takes away any potential thrill and makes for a tedious experience. Unfortunately, it can't be avoided.

I can't take any unnecessary risks, even if that means everything has become repetitive and dull. There was a time that I would have tried to drag this out for as long as possible. That was back when I still believed that I could make all of this mean more than simply fulfilling an unavoidable physical need. I thought that I could force satisfaction from it through ritual. Maybe there was a time when that did work, or at least when I could make myself believe that it did work. Now, though, there's no point. I just want it to be over with.

I make my way over to the large stack of crates with the opening between the bottom ones. This is where the majority of people choose to hide once they realize the escape isn't an option. If she isn't here, I'll move on to the storage container with the broken door, and from there the small office near the large metal doors. Those are the only three places in the warehouse where hiding makes sense, so inevitably one of them is chosen. It's all so predictable.

I don't have to check the other two hiding spots, because I can see the woman crouch down in the shadows between the crates. I sigh. Of course she is. This isn't some random woman. She is the chef and owner of one of the best restaurants in town. I stopped in to dine there earlier in the evening, and the pork I had eaten had been exquisitely prepared.

The meal had been the highlight of my evening. I had hoped that I would be able to spare her. She had sent her staff home when she had closed the restaurant for the night, though, and she had stayed late alone to do the final bits of cleaning. With no time to find someone else, my hands had been tired. She looked up at me, with wide-eyed tear as I approached. It doesn't have to take long or be overly painful. I'll finish this quickly.

I owe her that much for the pleasant meal. Television shows and movies would have you believe that people start screaming at the top of their lungs, or try to fight back when there would-be killer approaches. I found that's not typically the case. Oh, it does happen from time to time, but usually they behave the way that this woman is. She is frozen in fear, her mouth moving, but no sounds coming out. I suppose that this kind of reaction should make me feel powerful, maybe dominant. It does nothing for me.

I hunch over slightly to enter the small opening. She's whimpering now, but I ignore it as I raise the knives. The shaking in my hands is worse now, and it's all I can do to keep my fingers wrapped around the wooden handles. I need to get this done quickly. The knives plunge into her body, and for the first time she screams. I swear loudly as blood leaks out onto my hands. The blades haven't gone into the points that I intended them to. I had tried to make the stabbing lethal so that she wouldn't have to suffer.

Now I have to do things the messy way. I pull the knives free. I've waited too long, and my hands are shaking uncontrollably now. I have to forget the original plan and improvise. Tossing one of the knives back behind me, I wrap both hands around the handle of the one that I'm still holding. This is a bit better. I definitely have more control over the weapon, even if I can't hold it perfectly steady.

The woman is still stunned from the initial attack. I don't think it's registered through the shock that she's been stabbed. She stares at me blankly as her hands press against the pair of wounds. Before she can recover, I thrust the knife forward, and this time my aim is true. The metal slides into her chest, and I feel it pierce through her heart. I make sure to remove it instead of leaving it in. That way, the bleeding will increase, and death will come faster. I sigh again as I back out of the space between the crates and walk away.

She's not dead yet, but she will be in just a few minutes. I've been doing this long enough to know when a wound is fatal. There's no point in standing around and watching the inevitable. I hold out my hands in front of me. They're still shaking, but the tremors are smaller and easily managed. The itching is gone from the back of my head. It's an improvement, albeit a minor one. It's just so unsatisfying.

It never feels the same way that it does during that incredible final night of the cycle. My dissatisfaction is quickly being replaced by anger. Why can't it ever feel the same? One night of an incredible, indestructible, unmatched high. in nearly a month of rock bottom and just trying to exist until the next one. How is that fair? I force myself to calm down. The answer is that it's not fair, but there's nothing I can do about it either.

Besides, the end of the cycle is almost here. I just have to make it until tomorrow night. The smart thing to do would be to clean up the mess that I had just made and go back home and get some rest. I know from experience that I won't be able to sleep, though, and I'm not a lot of the And I'm not in the right headspace to make sure that I take care of any crime scene properly. Both those things will just have to wait. Pulling a set of keys out of my pocket, I removed the locks from one of the doors and pulled the chains free. I tossed them off to the side in a small pile and go outside.

The cold winter wind immediately assaults me, and I grip my teeth as I wish that I hadn't left my coat inside. Before I leave, I go around the side of the warehouse until I reach a space. bigot. I turn the valve and freezing water starts pouring out of it. As quickly as I can, I wash the blood off of my hands and dry them on the legs of my jeans. I let the water run long enough to allow the icker to flow into a nearby storm drain, then close the valve once again. A light drizzle begins to fall as I walk towards town. The warehouse that I use is located at an old dockyard that hasn't been in service for years. I don't own it, and the various Cargo items inside aren't mine, but somewhere along the way the actual owner stopped caring

about it and left it to rot. I look around at the other buildings that I'm walking past, and they're all in various states of decay. I often wonder what happened here to make so many people walk away at the same time and leave so much merchandise behind. Having such a large area to myself, especially one that includes more contained sections throughout the site has been extremely useful. No one is in the area to hear any noises from either myself or my guess, and there's no security

that might accidentally stumble onto my activities. It's basically the perfect environment. I grit my teeth. Except it isn't perfect, is it? If it was, maybe I wouldn't feel so hollow when I treat my condition. Maybe I need a challenge. And this place is making everything all too easy. I shake my head firmly.

That isn't it. I know that it isn't. The abandoned dockyard gives me safety when I otherwise wouldn't have it. I'm just irritable and lashing out. Another wonderful side effect of my condition. My car is parked at the edge of the dockyard. I ignore it and continue on foot. I found that the best way to prolong the effects of the treatment is to remain active.

The physical activity helps to distract from the return of myself. symptoms, at least for a short while. I check my watch, about 20 hours left. Damn. The road leading away from the docks is empty. That's no surprise, as there's nothing else out this way. There's no reason for anyone else but myself to be here. I walk down the middle of the road instead of off to one side.

In a very real sense, this is my own personal domain. I walk for over two miles before I reach an intersection. I continue forward without so much as a glance to either side. Both the left and right paths lead to highways. The direction I'm headed in goes into town. Before it does, though, it leads right past a smaller diner that's open all night. That's where I'm going. After another mile, I arrive at the diner.

I'm pleased to see that there are only two cars in the parking lot. I go inside and sit down at a booth in the corner. I'm alone in the eating area, and the cars must belong to employees. Speak of the devil, a woman comes out of the kitchen and gives me a smile. I see the smile slip a bit. It wasn't by much, but I definitely saw it. Do I still have some blood on me that I missed? Looks like you got caught outside in this lovely weather.

Did your car break down or something? A truck, actually. I lie easily. My worries dissipating. Just down at the 219 ramp, I called a car. it in, but I can't get anyone out till the morning. I had to walk here. I wasn't born a good liar, quite the opposite, actually. I was terrible at it as a child, and every time that I attempted lying, I would be caught. I've developed the skill over the years. It's been a necessity that I

do so. Now I do it as needed without even thinking about it. I order a cup of coffee to start before asking to see the menu. I smell a fresh pot brewing somewhere nearby, and I smell a fresh pot, and my walk through the cold and rainy night has chilled me to the bone. I avoid caffeine most of the time, but I'm willing to make an exception on this particular occasion. When the waitress returns with the drink, I order something off the menu. It's some sort of sandwich, but I'm not sure which one. I just point at a line, and she nods before going back to the kitchen. I'm not actually hungry.

I know that I need to eat, though. My body needs as many calories as possible during the fall. final phase of the cycle. The coffee helps get the chill out of my body. That, combined with time having passed since the kill, makes me feel more like myself than I have in days. It won't last. It never does, but for the moment, I don't want to focus on that. I sit in the uncomfortable booth for a little over an hour, slowly eating my rather mediocre chicken sandwich and drinking progressively worse cups of coffee. Eventually, it's time for me to go.

The diner is only a few miles from the dockyard, and I don't want to leave too much of an impression on the waitress, just in case something happens down the line. The waitress brings me the check, and as she does, she offers to give me a ride back to my non-existent truck. I give her a smile and politely decline, telling her that I've been stuck inside all day, and it feels good to be able to walk around and stretch.

She glances out at the still falling rain and asks if I'm sure. I assure her that I am. As she's walking back towards the kitchen, I feel the familiar itching in the back of my head. No, no, this is too soon. I've never had the itching come back just hours after making a kill. It's always a few days at the very least before I start to notice it. I sit still in the booth, the pin-like pricks working their way up and down my skull. Something is very wrong.

Usually the itching starts out so faintly that it's barely noticeable. Over the course of two or three days, it gradually increases in intensity until it's so strong that it pushes me to the point of insanity. That isn't happening now. The sensation is already intense, and I can feel it growing steadily as each second ticks by. I don't understand. This doesn't make any sense. Did I do something wrong?

change something about the kill? I shake my head. That doesn't make sense. There's no ritual or anything like that. Make the kill. Satisfy the need. That's all there is to it. It's not goddamn rocket science.

Calm down. Breathe. Maybe there was something different about the woman that I had chosen. All that had mattered before was the killing, but I guess that it's possible. There's no way to know for sure. Focus. Just focus. None of this matters.

What matters is what I do now. There's no way that I'm going to make it until the end of the day. I look at the clock hanging on the wall. The sun won't even be up for another hour. At the rate it's going, the itching will reach its peak soon. When that happens, the pain will begin. It will feel like spikes being hammered into every inch of my body. I'll be so blinded by the agony that I will no longer be capable of rational thought.

The last and only time that it got to that point, I regained. my wits in the family room of a house that I didn't know. The remains of three people torn apart and barely recognizable as being human surrounded me. Every inch of me was covered in hot blood. All my symptoms were gone, but I had no idea what had happened and where I was. It had solved one problem and created a multitude of others. I can't risk that sort of thing happening again. There's an odd thumping noise.

I dismiss it as a noise coming from the diners. Ancient-looking heating ducks. It continues, however, and it doesn't seem to be coming from above me. I look down and find that my hands are shaking so violently that they're banging against the top of the table. I stare at them for a long moment. I hadn't even noticed that they were trembling. I wrap my fingers around the edge of the table and grip it as tightly as I can in an effort

to stop them. I've come to a decision. I don't know when I started working my way towards one, or how I had arrived. at this particular conclusion, but I know what needs to be done. Taking my wallet out of my back pocket, I pull a few bills out and place them on top of the check the waitress had left me. I know that she's watching me through the small window that looks out from the kitchen into the dining area.

After all, I'm the only customer, and I'm not going to be ordering anything else, and she's already earned whatever tip that I decide to leave. At this point, she'll just want me gone so that I'm out of her hair and she can get back to doing nothing. I allow myself a small, imperceivable smile as she immediately comes out of the kitchen. Some people are just too easy to read. I don't have a plan. It doesn't matter.

I don't need one. I've taken so many lives over the years that it's instinctive at this point. She reaches the table and puts her hand out to pick up the check and the money. As she does so, my arm lashes out like a snake and my fingers dig into her brown hair before she can react, sliding her face into the edge of the table. Her scream is silenced almost as soon as it begins. She slides to the tile floor unconscious. I know that she's not dead. Instead of tending to that, I slide out of the booth and immediately head towards the kitchen. The waitress isn't going anywhere, and even if she wakes up, she won't be in any condition to leave or present a threat to me. There's

one more person in the diner, though, and I can't take the chance that they heard her short cry. The door to the kitchen begins to open just before I reach it. I grab a steak knife out of the basket of silverware behind the counter before kicking the door back towards the person emerging from the other side. There's a loud grunt as it smashes hard into someone. Pressing my momentary advantage, I throw open the door and thrust the blade at the large man standing behind it. The knife isn't nearly as sharp as the ones I keep at the dockyard, and the slightly

serrated blade is designed for cutting rather than stabbing. I wasn't expecting the person to be quite so tall either. The knife digs into his flesh, but it's not much more than a flesh wound. Ducking my shoulder, I ram it into his chest to knock the wind out of him. He really is big. He's got at least six inches and fifty pounds on me. This is the danger of not planning things out before killing. I find myself in situations like this where I can't fully control what's happening.

At the end of the cycle, this wouldn't matter. But until then, these kinds of risks are extremely dangerous. He's temporarily winded now, though, and he's been wounded. Judging from the expression on his face, he's also unsure of what's happening. I can work with that. I take a quick glance around me, and my eyes fall on the skiller on the stove to my right. Its contents are sizzling from the heat underneath it. I pick it up by the handle and swing it like a tennis racket at the man's head.

It impacts hard with his forehead. There's a sickening crunch of bone, followed by a crackling noise as the hot metal burns his flesh. His mouth opens, but he doesn't scream. Instead, he makes a gurgling sound as bloody foam spills over his lower lip. Thick red fluid also starts to drip from his ears in the corner of his eyes. The skillet makes a sucking sound as I pull it free from his face. It tears skin off as I do it.

It sticks to the pan like burned leather. I swing the skillet for a second time, and he immediately slumps over onto his side. His right eye has come free from its socket, and it lays across the bridge of his nose with the optic nerve trailing back into the gap. He's almost done. I have to give him credit for surviving the two blows with the skillet, even if he did so with quite a bit of brain damage. I allow the skillet to fall to the floor as I step over the man to reach a microwave sitting

on the shelf. Unplugging it from the wall, I carry it over to him and take one last look at him as he twitches and convulses. I raised the heavy appliance over my head before bringing it down as hard as I can. His damaged skull provides little resistance and his body goes still. There's a sound from out in the dining area. I hurry out through the kitchen door, worried that a customer has walked into my killing zone. Instead, I find the waitress struggling to get up. She's leaning up against the side of the booth's seat.

The salt shaker she had knocked over with her hand lying shattered on the floor next to her. I get another knife from the silverware basket and cross the distance between us. She looks at me with glazed over eyes, and I doubt that she can even see me. I adjust the grip on the knife and cut her throat. Blood bursts out from the gash. The small piles of spilled salt on the ground become sticky and clumpy as it covers them. The itching has stopped. My hands are as steady as rocks.

I sit down on a stool at the counter and sigh in relief. For the first time since the symptoms have started this cycle, I feel human. With the relief comes a familiar bittersweet. No matter how satisfying a kill is, it never has the same pleasure and overwhelming satisfaction that one does during the final night of the cycle. It's infuriating. It's like some higher power has decreed that I'm only allowed to be happy one night each month, twice a month every two and a half years or so. I allow myself a minute to sulk in my anger and

disappointment before I force myself to put it aside. There's a pressing matter to attend to. I've got two dead bodies and all the mess they've created to deal with. It won't be long before people start to arrive for breakfast. I have to figure out what I'm going to do before that happens. It doesn't take me long to realize that I've made a hell of a mistake. No matter what I do, this place is going to end up being a crime scene. Since it's only a few miles from the dockyard, the police are bound to search it. When they do, they'll find the woman that I killed earlier, likely along with evidence of previous kills as well.

I don't have any choice but to abandon the dockyard and move on to somewhere else. Probably another state entirely. I look up at the ceiling. Definitely another state. Fine. If that's what I have to do, it's what I have to do. Going back around the counter, I open the cash register and take the small amount of money it contains. I also go into the kitchen and take the money from the cook's wallet, as well as a set of

car keys from his other pocket. It doesn't end up being much in total, but it's better than nothing. I just have to make it through the day. If I can do that, I can end the cycle tonight in a different place before continuing on my own in the morning. I just have to make it through the day. The kitchen provides me with the answer. need for covering my tracks. There is an exposed gas line that runs through the kitchen, covering

my mouth. I break a section of the line before quickly making sure the pilot light in the stove is still burning. Good. I've broken a second line, not the main line. I leave the diner through the front door. There's still no one in the parking lot, and there isn't any traffic on the road either. I try the key that I took from the cook in the small white car first, but it doesn't fit the lock. It slides easily into the driver, and it slides easily into the driver's side door of the red pickup, though, so I get in and start the engine. The rain is stopped, and the first hints of the rising sun can be seen in the distance as I turn onto the road and head away from town. After less than a minute of driving, I see what appears

to be the light of a second sunrise in the rearview mirror. I nod to myself. It won't be long before the fire at the dinner is completely out of control, if it isn't already. At the very least, it will take the authorities a couple of days to dig through the rubble and ashes. Even if they somehow manage to find enough evidence to piece together what happened, I'll be long gone before then. The only thing working against me is the truck that I'm driving. It won't take the police long to figure out that it's missing. If they do that fast enough, they'll be able to get word across the state with the make,

model, and license plate number. That could lead to disaster. Luckily, I don't have to stay in this pickup for long. I drive back towards the dock, going as fast as I dare on the slick pavement. I reach my destination without incident and pull the truck up to the edge of one of the concrete docks before putting it in neutral and getting out. I try to push the pickup off the edge of the dock, but I'm barely able to get it to budge. I get down lower and press my back up against the tailgate as I push as hard as I can.

It eventually starts rolling forward. There's a crash of metal as the front wheels go over the edge. I nearly fall as the weight of the front end does the rest of the work for me. The truck slides into the dark water and sinks below the surface. I give myself a few moments to rest before dusting myself off and hurrying over to the car that I parked at the dockyard earlier. It's a black four-door sedan, the kind that countless people drive in every city in the country. I check to make sure that my backpack is still in the passenger seat before opening the truck

and retrieving a duffel bag. I change out of my blood-stained clothes and into fresh ones before getting into the car and leaving the dockyard. This time, I turn right on the four-way intersection instead of continuing towards town. My plan is to put as many miles between here and me that I can by mid-afternoon, then find a place where I can complete the cycle. I fish my phone out of the car's glove box and bring up the map app. The phone is a prepaid one, of course, and I purchased it under a fake name.

There are a dozen other ones in the car trunk and one in the backpack, all of which still have their packages and are listed under different names. The map confirms what I already thought. If I stay on the highway and don't make any stops, I can be out of Minnesota and into North Dakota by 9 o'clock. That should give me more than enough time to get myself oriented and figure out where I would spend the night. So that's what I do.

Ignoring the fatigue that creeps in, I drive towards the state border, making sure to keep speed at or under the limit to avoid the possibility of being pulled over. I have to resist the urge to go faster. While I know sticking to the speed limit is the smart play, I'm anxious to reach my destination. I almost nod off twice during the drive, now that the symptoms of my condition are gone, at least for now, my body is more relaxed than it has been in quite a while. It isn't helping that the roads in this part of Minnesota are mostly just trees and open land, nothing to break up the monotony.

It's with more than a little relief that I reach the state border. There is a sign for a rest stop a few miles past the line, and I gratefully follow it into the parking lot. I need to get out and stretch for a bit, get some fresh air. I've never been to this part of the country before, and I'm surprised to see that the rest stop isn't one of the standard ones with just a few bathrooms and vending machines. This one is quite a bit larger, with a cafeteria-like section, housing five or six chain fast-rood restaurants. There's also a small arcade, as well as a side room with

a dozen leather massage chairs. I'm mostly interested in the kiosk just inside the doorway. It contains racks of maps and brochures, both for specific landmarks and for North Dakota in general. I take a few of them and tuck them under my arm before I buy some lunch. Once I have my burgers and drink, I pick a table in the corner away from the other people and open up one of the maps. I'm looking for a town to use for the night. It has to fit some specific criteria, though. It needs to have a large enough population to be worthwhile, but also not so large that it

has a major police presence. The police aren't a concern during the final night of the cycle. I'm worried about what could happen the next day. I also prefer the towns that are isolated. The more that things are contained, the better. There don't seem to be many options that meet my needs. I'm starting to think I'm going to have to go with something less than ideal. I've had to do that in the past.

Never on this short of notice, though. I don't like going into something blind. It's not looking like there's a choice, though. Wait, there. A small town about a hundred miles from where I'm at. With enough clustered streets on the map to imply at least a decent-sized population. I pulled the town up on my phone and confirmed that this is indeed the case. Broken Bend, North Dakota.

Finishing my food, I toss the wrappers and map in a trash can. I make sure that I have the directions to my new destination before I leave. As I hold the door open for an elderly man, I notice a newspaper rack off to the side. The story on the front page of the newspaper on the top had the title, The Planet's Align. I fish 50 cents out of my pocket and buy the newspaper. I return to my car and open it. According to the article, over a roughly 18-hour period, the Earth will be going in and out of alignment with multiple planets.

It's extremely rare for this to happen. Normally three or four planets align for a short period of time, then move along their orbits until they're no longer in line with one another. This is different, because of where the planets are at in their orbit around the Sun currently, the Earth has been and will be moving in and out of different alignments with different planets. Two of these events will involve the moon as well. That has to be it. That has to be why my symptoms return so quickly.

I've always known that the lunar cycle is tied in with my own. Something about these planetary alignments must be throwing things off. There's nothing I can do about it. I tossed the newspaper into the back seat before getting back out onto the road. It doesn't really change anything anyway. I still need to reach broken bend and get myself situated before dark. The path to the town I've chosen takes me off the main highway and onto smaller state routes. The roads are in much worse condition on these, and I have to slow down to make sure that

the car doesn't bottom out in some of the larger potholes. The forests are much thicker along these roads as well. The trees are taller and closer together, and their tops reach out over the road like a canopy. Even though it's the afternoon on a sunny day, I have to turn on the car's lights to see where I'm going. It's like I'm driving through a tunnel. Two hours after I leave the rest stop, I pass a sign with the words, Welcome to Broken Bend painted on it. Just beyond it is a wooden bridge that spans over a river. The car bounces uncomfortably as I pass over the boards. A few minutes after leaving the bridge behind, the trees thin out and I arrive in town. I've found that most towns this size tend to look the same, and Broken Bend is no exception. The downtown area

area is comprised of local businesses and a couple of churches, a few government buildings, and a gas station on both sides. As I drive beyond that, I find that most of the older homes are on fairly large properties. There are also some newer-looking developments, with the houses much closer together. Past the residential areas are parks and nature preserves. I smile slightly. This is perfect. I begin to make plans.

There's a closed construction site just outside of downtown that I can hide my car and overnight. It's in both walking distance to the various shops and businesses, as well as at least two of the housing developments. I can park the car, go into town until dusk, come back to the car to get ready, and head for the housing development as nightfalls. I pull the car into the construction site and maneuver it around the equipment and park it behind a long trailer. I take a moment to make sure that I have everything that I'll need. It isn't much, since I'm going to be coming back to the car before a nightfall, I only really need my wallet. I get out of the car and feel the cold air against my skin.

Correction, my wallet and coat. I open the trunk and retrieve my heavy coat. While I do so, I also take out a large pocket knife. Typically, I don't carry a weapon with me. As strange as it sounds, it's safer that way. I don't have to worry about metal detectors, or, as has happened a few times in the past, frisk. Besides, it's not like I really need it. I can be quite creative when it comes to figuring out ways to hurt people. This is a new town that I'm not familiar with, though.

It doesn't hurt to take extra precautions. My short trip into downtown Broken Bend is uneventful, only a few cars pass by as I walk along the side of the road, and none of the drivers pay much attention to me. I'm not in any particular hurry. At this point, I'm just looking to waste time until sundown. When I reach downtown, I slowly walk past various businesses and shops. A number of pedestrians greet me as I move down the sidewalk. I nod and smile at them in turn. These people have no idea what is coming for them tonight.

That thought causes my smile to become even wider. It's been a long day, so it's a relief when I come to a bar. The painted window proclaims it as Rock Creek Tavern. I open the door and head inside. That's where I spent the next couple of hours. The food is surprisingly good, and the beer is pleasantly cold, and the patrons leave me alone. I've had worse afternoons. I'm struck by the need to go to the bathroom.

As I stand up to head to the restroom, I check the time on my phone. It's just past five. That's plenty of time to do my business, have one last beer, and start back towards the car. It's a single toilet bathroom. I lock the door before I relieve myself. Since I'm finished, I wash my hands and look at myself in the mirror. I'm feeling a bit warm. I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise.

It's been a long day, and I've been on the road for most of it. It's either from the stress or the beers. I look at myself closely in the mirror. I definitely look tired. My eyes are a bit bloodshot, and there are dark circles under them. I'm also looking a bit pale. Sying, I run a hand over my face. I stop.

My hand is shaking. I force myself to stay calm. The shaking doesn't matter. I'm only a few hours away from the end of the cycle. I need to make it until then. There isn't any itching at the back of my neck. Sweat begins to drip from my forehead. I'm getting warmer.

Gripping the sink with both hands, I lean in towards the mirror and take a closer look at my eyes. The black of the pupil is no longer circular. Instead, it resembles a blot of ink that has run out across the blue iris. It's happening. The end of the cycle has arrived. The change is beginning. This shouldn't be possible. The change shouldn't happen until the moon begins to rise.

The sun isn't even all the way down yet. I remember the newspaper story about the strange planetary alignments. There must be something about them that is just causing my symptoms to return faster, but also forcing the change to happen earlier. I leave the bar. If I hurry, I might be able to get to the car before— There's an audible snap as my right cheekbone breaks in half. I gasp at the sudden blossom of pain.

It's too late. It's happening now. As quickly as I can, I strip off the clothes that I'm wearing. I normally have time to pack away any clothing so that I can come back for it after the night is over, but I doubt I'll be able to retrieve them this time. It's still best to take them off. The less restrained my body is during the change, the better. I feel pressure in my upper back.

This signals that one of the worst parts of the change is coming. I sit down on the bathroom floor and slide my belt off my pants. Putting it in my mouth, I bite down on the soft leather. Mere seconds later, my arms slide forward in their sockets before dislocating completely. It's terribly painful, but not as bad as what comes next. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. My jaw pressed into my belt so hard that my gums hurt as my leg. leg bones jerk out of place.

I nearly black out as my spine pops and cracks, creating a steep curve near the top. Saliva and dark blood are leaking out around the belt from my mouth. More of it comes pouring out as the front of my skull starts breaking into pieces and my ribs pull apart further. I feel like I'm on fire, but I know that the worst is almost here. During this part of the change, my pain is doubled. This is because I have twice the amount of nerves in my body. The ones running to my current shell and the ones attached to what's emerging.

All of them are screaming in agony as they're stretched and mangled and torn. There is no thought or reason. There is only the torture, deep and infinite. I'm so lost in the void of torment that I can no longer register the individual changes that are happening. Everything is merely a part of the overall torment. I float in the agony as it engulfs me. Moments pass, years maybe.

It's impossible to tell. Well, time has no meaning now, only pain exists. Suddenly, mercifully, there is relief. My outer skin tears open as my new body emerges from underneath it. The belt falls from my mouth as I pant heavily. It's like an unbearable pressure has been released. There are small stabs of discomfort as the change is completed, but it's barely noticeable when compared to what I've just gone through.

The last of my bones lock into place, and I can feel my rational mind. mind beginning to slip. In moments, it will be secondary to instinct. I never lose my mind completely. I'm fully conscious of what I'm doing. It just doesn't matter. I get to my feet. Everything feels so different now, powerful. I can't believe that I ever managed to stand on my weak human legs. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The face of a wolf stares back at me. It is thin and gaunt. The skin stretched tight against the face and muzzle. The black fur is matted down with blood. I pull a loose strip of ruined flesh off the bottom of my jaw. Movies, television, books, legends, they're all wrong about werewolves. There's a resemblance to wolves after

the change, yes, especially in the face, but that resemblance only goes so far. My body is far more skeletal and thin than the popular interpretations. Certain parts of me, like my clawed fingers, appear almost delicate. I don't have a tail, and my long muzzle contains multiple rows of teeth. It's my eyes that tell the true story. They are completely black, with pinpricks of red light fairly visible in their depths. To look into them is to no fear. It's to no death. I hear movement out in the bar, and I turn away from the mirror. My senses are heightened far beyond what a human is capable of. I hear a stool pulling away from the bar.

I can smell the scent of beer wafting in from under the door. I can see every crack and imperfection on the tiled bathroom wall. I feel alive in a way that I never do except when the wolf comes out to play. I take one last look around the bathroom. There is blood everywhere, and pieces of my human skin come. over the floor. Even though it's my own blood, the smell of it excites me. I bear my teeth and turn back to the bathroom door. Finally, after all this time, the hunt is finally here. The door explodes into a shower of splinters as I burst through it. There's a man standing

nearby in the short hallway, a half-filled glass in his hand. His eyes grow wide with shock. Before he can say or do anything, my right arm is swinging towards him. The claws slide through. his skin, muscle, and bone as though they offer no resistance at all. His body splits into two pieces and falls to the ground in a heap. My heightened senses enhanced every moment of the kill. It's a pleasure that goes beyond the effects of any drug. More. I need more.

There are screams coming from the main room. Bar patrons are staring at me in surprise and a whore, and some are fleeing towards the door. I take two strides before leaping over their heads and landing between them in the exit. No one leaves. This is my moment. One of the customers swings a clumsy punch at me. I open my jaws to expose my rows of teeth and bite down into the flesh of his arm. The razor-sharp fangs sink in deep. With a twist of my head, I tear off the arm and fling it up against the far wall. The blood running down my throat tastes incredible. I'm a flurry of suffering and death. Throats are torn, limbs are severed, Lives are ended. Each kill increases my need for more. I revel as I rip apart the bar patrons.

I am the god of the hunt, and it is my purpose to reap the prey. The man behind the bar has a gun. He brings it up and fires once, twice, a third time. All shots are true. I feel the impact of the bullets as they strike my skin. The metal is hot, and it singes the tips of my fur. My mouth opens slightly as a grin spreads across my face. I jump on to the bullet. I jump on to the bar and snap my mouth around the side of his head. For a moment, I let him struggle, my teeth piercing his skin as he tries to free himself. Now he understands his place in the order of things. His struggling ends as I clamp my jaws closed. Music plays from the jukebox in the corner of the bar as I survey the room. The Rock Creek Tavern is now a monument to carnage. The scent of death

fills my nostrils as I bask in the pleasures of the kill. I raise my head towards the ceiling and howl triumphantly. A werewolf's howl is not like a wolf's. It is an inhuman sound, a deep guttural call that spreads fear to all that hear it. It is the sound of hell's gates being opened. I need more. The hunt has just begun, and I intend to make the most out of every second. I go out the front door and into the streets.

People immediately begin to scream, but I ignore them for the moment. The sun is just beginning to set in the distance. The sky is filled. with splashes of red and thick purples. I'm momentarily frozen in place. I've never seen the sunset before, not with these eyes. The change has always happened after nightfall. Even through my frenzy, the beauty of the scene before me is striking.

The spell is broken as I smell the blood on my fur. It's time to continue what I've only just started. A car is beginning to pull out of the parking space in front of me. Baring my teeth, I jumped through the passenger side window and into the vehicle. In one motion, I wrap my claws around the driver's neck and throw both him and myself through his door. We land hard on the concrete. I crush his throat before looking over my shoulder to watch the car crash into an oncoming truck. A man and a woman are running down the sidewalk away from me. I race after them and catch up to them before they even realize that I'm following.

The woman falls as my claws and arm pushed through her back and out of her chest. Grabbing the man, I lift him up over my head and rip him in half, his blood and entrails pouring out of him. I drop the body and narrow my eyes. The wind has brought a scent to me, one that isn't the sweet, coppery smell of blood, or one of the common smells associated with the small town. This scent is much different. For the first time, not just during this change, but for the first time ever in this form, I feel uneasy.

I don't recognize the smell, but I do understand what it means. means, someone else, something else, has already marked this town as its own. I'm in claimed territory. It doesn't matter. I only get this opportunity once per cycle. If another creature has claimed broken bend, it's more than welcome to come and try and defend its territory. Most of the people have abandoned the street.

They hope to hide from me, or at least put some distance between them and me. It's a futile hope, and I suspect that some part of them knows that. I'll hunt out those in the small downtown area, then move on to the housing developments. Before the night is over, I'll slaughter as much of this town as possible. I hear sirens begin to blare from less than a mile away. It isn't often that I encounter the police while under the influence of the full moon. Normally I make sure that I'm in less public places than this, when the change takes place to avoid that. The changes to my cycle from the planetary alignment is making this night.

far more complicated than it usually is. I bear my teeth, unable to contain my excitement. It's been so long since my prey has tried to resist its slaughter. I've missed the thrills of this so damn much. The first of the police cars comes around the corner. I grab a nearby mailbox and tear it free from the heavy bolts attaching it to the sidewalk. With one arm, I fling it into the approaching car's windshield.

It shatters the glass and smashes into the upper body of the driver. The car veers wildly to the right and crashes into the side of the store. The sun has set now, and the sky is growing darker. A second police car comes into view, its red and blue lights flashing and its siren shrieking. It stops a block away from me and two officers get out. Using their car doors as shields, they pull their guns free from their holsters. I begin running towards them, my jaws gnashing and my claws flexing eagerly. I get about halfway before I stop.

The air is full of the smell of the other creature. It's stronger now, no longer the lingering scent of something that previously passed through, but instead the fresh odor of something approaching. I ignore the officers and inhale deeply. It's coming from upwind. Either this creature doesn't know that I'm here, or it doesn't care that it's announcing its presence to me. There's something about the scent that makes me feel unsettled.

Even though I don't recognize it, it's like some primal. part of me, some past memory buried in my werewolf biology, knows that it means danger is near. I know that there are other unnatural beings out in the world. I've encountered a few over the years, but none of them have triggered this sort of response in me. I was the alpha predator. Nothing was above me in the food chain.

The hairs along my back stand up as the smells continue to grow stronger. I try to tell myself that these feelings are only a result of the unusual circumstance. circumstances surrounding tonight's change. My instincts know that this isn't true. The officers begin to fire their guns. I barely notice as some of the shots strike me. I concentrate on the smell, trying to decipher what I can from it. Thoughts begin to flash through my head. No, not thoughts, more like impressions. The scent makes me think of the dark, cold waters of the deepest oceans, the still and silent darkness down far below the surface. At the same time, I am reminded of the vast night sky, of the vast emptiness between stars.

The images flashed through my mind quickly, like single frames of movie film in a projector. There is madness in them. Fog is starting to fill the streets. It is cool and thick, and it makes my skin feel greasy. It has come out of nowhere and is rapidly becoming too dangerous. dense to see through. It smells the same as the approaching creature. The police officers have stopped shooting at me. I turn my head toward them and find that they are no longer pointing their guns at me. Instead, they are standing perfectly still. Their face is blank as they each point

the index finger of their left hands towards me. I've never seen anything like it before. People that have been hiding from me inside the businesses are now coming back outside. Each of them has the same blank look on their faces as the officers, and they're all pointing at me in the same way. I growl at them in warning. All of them no longer smell human, and instead wreak of the scent of the fog. My instincts scream at me that I need to abandon my hunt and escape. Whatever is coming for me isn't just unnatural. It's not of this world. I shake my head in frustration. This is my night. This is my hunt. And it is my right to spill blood and feast on flesh. I hear the creature coming.

It's close. If it wasn't for the fog, I would be able to see it already. It sounds, I don't know how to describe it. The closest word I can think of is wet. I look around at the gathered people as a realization comes to me. This isn't just some other creature's territory. This territory is part of the creature. I've come to a long, conquered town.

All the citizens are extensions of its will. My bloodlust melts away. If I remain, it will take me as well. I run, moving on all fours to get away as fast as possible. The scent of the creature rapidly fades into the distance. It's not following me, at least not at any significant speed. Its smell is still around me, though, and it's closing in from both sides and in front of me. The fog is expanding outward, and more people are coming out of their shops and homes.

The otherworldly creature doesn't believe that it needs to provide. personally come from me. It thinks that it can tighten a noose around me with its followers. If I was human, I would get back in my car and drive out of town. In this form, I don't have that option. Instead, I plunge into the woods at the edge of downtown. There are people waiting for me just inside of the tree line. These aren't just standing and pointing, however. Each of them is armed. Most of them with knives and the rest with various tools. They swarm towards me in a semicircle, looking to cut off my escape. I howl as I charge directly into the middle of the crowd. Their master may make me afraid, but these are just humans. With teeth and claws, I tear into their bodies. There are no screams

or wails of pain. They are completely silent as they stab me with their knives before being torn apart. As the last one falls, I pause to catch my breath. The creature's scent is closer. While the people weren't able to stop me, they were successful in delaying me. I continue on. Something slams into my side hard and I lose my footing. I strike a tree before sliding to a stop. I reach down with one clod hand and touch where I was hit. I'm bleeding. A man steps out of the brush and into view.

He is soon followed by one woman and then another. They are all holding heavy-looking rifles. Bullets don't typically hurt me, but these are large caliber weapons and pack far more of a punch. I regain my footing and keep running. are fired, but none of them managed to hit me. I'm moving slower than I was just moments earlier. The round that pierced me must have hit something important. I'm having a hard time breathing, and my right leg is slightly numb. I ignore these things and push on. I don't stop

until I reach the river marking the edge of town. Without pausing, I plunge into the water. It is freezing, and the cold causes my wound to hurt more. More gunshots sound from around me. I hear some of them slap the water, but nothing comes close to me. I reach the other side of the river and pull myself up on the bank. I hurry into the cover of the nearby trees before stopping to look back the way I've come. There's no sign of either the townsfolk or the fog, and I can no longer smell the creatures scent in the air. I've made it out of its territory. I look down at the blood dripping from my wound. It will heal soon. I raise my head to look back up at the other side of the river. feeling shame as I do so.

Something unholy has claimed broken bend, and it is the true alpha. January 30th, 2006. I finally went to the doctor. I told her about everything that has been happening to me. After having a CT scan, an MRI, and some blood test done, it was determined that everything seems normal. My doctor has recommended that I keep a journal to keep track of my symptoms, which she believes is due to stress. Basically, I'm forgetting things. I forget where I place my keys, or I'll

forget my appointments, or I'll forget the stoves on, things like that. But now I've also started forgetting words. I tend to replace words with the wrong ones. So instead of saying, for example, I need to take my aspirin, I will say I need to take my orange juice. This will be my first entry, so we'll see how this goes. January 13th, 2006. I keep exchanging the word dog with neighbor. An example of what I've said. I took my neighbor for a walk today.

My neighbor doesn't like it when I rub his belly. The neighbor was barking at the mailman again. I need to practice remembering the word dog. Dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog. Dog. February 23, 2006. I've been writing dog every day, and it's been working. I haven't confused my dog with my neighbor anymore.

I think this is all just psychological. February 27, 2006. The last couple of days I've been replacing dinner with Ambien, my sleeping pills. For example, Honey, the Ambien is ready. Will you be home soon? I was practicing writing the word dinner this week. Dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, May 15th, 2006.

I haven't written in a while because my symptoms seem to have gotten better. I'm practicing vocabulary words and started cognitive behavioral therapy, which has reduced my stress. Today I had an appointment with my doctor. She says she doesn't think it's an early onset of Alzheimer's disease, nor any other type of dementia. She thinks it might be psychological. In the meantime, I need to eat a healthy diet, take certain supplements, and keep my mind active. I think I'm going to be okay. May 20th, 2006. It has started back up again. This time it's sleep with work. I was dreaming

during work last night about my dog. I'm going to work, and I said to my husband at midnight. Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. June 1, 2006. I'm a little bit scared. I saw a horror movie, and now I replaced the word call with the word kill. Examples, I killed my mom today. I need to kill my daughter's professor. Will you kill me tomorrow?

Call, call, call, call, call, call, call, call, call. June 30th, 2006. So, I'm getting worse. Not only am I replacing words, but I'm also using them interchangeably. The doctor said to make a list of the words that I've been using interchangeably. Old ones, call, kill dog, neighbor, dinner, ambient sleep, work. New ones, car, microwave, knife, cell phone, papers, fingers, love, hate. Examples of some of the strange things I say.

I drove the microwave to the mechanic today. Did you give the client my knife? Where are my fingers? I really hate you. I'm getting worried. My thoughts are all jumbled up. July 14th, 2006. I think I got confused again.

I wanted to make dinner from my husband, but instead I gave him an ambient. And now he's working in the room. I love him so much. July 16, 2006. I think I called my dog last night because he wouldn't stop barking. I also killed my neighbor. because I couldn't find him. I killed him over and over again, but he never came back.

I really miss him. July 18th, 2006. I found my dog under the microwave. I guess I did call him after all. July 19th, 2006. My husband is still working. He hasn't stopped working in three days. I'm getting kind of worried for him.

I'm going to make him some more dinner. July 18th, 2006. I love my life. My husband won't stop working. I'm getting more confused. I keep on trying to call myself, but I can't find my cell phone. July 19th, 2006. I'm just going to have some dinner tonight.

July 20th, 2006. Dinner, dinner, dinner. Note. This journal belonged to a patient in Eastern Europe, suffering from bovine, spongiform, encephalopathy, also known as a mad cow disease. The patient was found overdosed with sleeping pills. The body of her husband was found in the home. She'd also killed her neighbor with a car.

The dog was found roaming the neighborhood. We study these cases at the medical school I'm currently attending. Nowadays, we have some blood tests that can detect mad cow disease, but they weren't available to this patient at the time she was going through the symptoms over a period of months. Unfortunately, there's still no cure for this disease. I died for the first time on the 18th of August 2006. It wasn't a particularly pleasant death, nor was it one that I expected. It was simply the random act of violence that destroyed my life, and it came out of nowhere.

We were just relaxing at the pub, enjoying a few drinks after a busy day at work. It was my turn to buy a round of drinks, and so I was trying to get the attention of the bartender. I felt someone punched me in the side. At first, I thought someone had just hit me, but then I felt the warmth and the rapid stream of blood pouring down my shirt. I realized then and there that I'd actually gotten stabbed. As far as I can remember, it wasn't even that painful. Still, my legs gave out under me, and I collapsed to the floor. Even then, I worried about ruining my expensive suit,

ignoring the fact that I might be dying. Oncoming death is funny like that. Everyone thinks they're the exception, that they'll get out from whatever horrible situation the universe has thrust upon them. At least that's what I thought, as the life drained from my body, the world around me just faded to black, and before I knew it, I had just died. There was the void. At first it was little more than darkness, only broken by weird shapes and colors in the distance.

As I regain a sense of my surroundings, I was dragged toward a new world, one without pain, suffering, nor death. All there was were people on a journey to different destinations. Whether they had all died like myself or if they weren't born yet, I didn't know. All I knew was that I wasn't afraid anymore. The worries, the anxiety, and all my fears had been left behind. A light appeared in the distance, endlessly far away. I knew that would be my final destination, my final purpose in the brief life I'd led.

Unfortunately, I never managed to get that far. I was jolted awake in my own bed, soaking wet from sweat and shaking like a maniac. My hand reflexively clutched my side to cover up the wound I'd sustained, but it wasn't there anymore. In fact, I didn't have a single scratch on me. Had it all been a dream? My phone lit up on the bedside table. I picked it up to find dozens of text messages and missed calls.

Hey man, we're at the pub. You coming or what? The first message read, sent at 9.43 p.m. Hey, Rick, where the hell are you? The second message said, sent at 10.23 p.m. Then there were a couple of phone calls and another message. I guess you fell asleep, or maybe you're getting lucky. Whatever, I'll buy another shot in your honor.

Happy birthday, Rick. Then I had over 20 phone calls and a singular message that sent shivers down my story. spine. For fuck's sake, pick up the damn phone. Something happened to Danny. I immediately called back. My fingers were trembling from both anticipation and from the memory of what had happened only a night ago.

Even if my death had been little more than a nightmare, I knew for sure I'd met up with my friends at the pub. The phone rang three times. Then Jake picked up. Rick? Is that you? Where the hell are you? Jake asked in a panicked, tired voice.

I... I don't know what happened. What happened? I guess I fell asleep? I half asked, half stated. Danny got stabbed last night, Jake said without listening to my explanation. Stabbed? How?

I don't know. Some nut job just walked up to him and stabbed him in the side. I almost dropped my phone in shock. Danny had been attacked just like myself in the exact same place. A thousand thoughts rushed through my mind, but worry quickly became my main concern. Is he all right? He's still in surgery. They're only letting his wife know about...

Oh, wait, here she comes. Jake put his phone down, but I could still hear the muffled sound of their discussion. Danny's wife seemed upset, but I couldn't make out the words. Jake? I asked. He's... He's dead. Danny's dead.

The next few moments turned into a blurry haze of information. We'd all known Danny since we were kids, and now he was just gone. The murderer never even made it out from the pub. Apparently he got shot by one of the patrons as he tried to attack another guest. Still, I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was supposed to die that night. Regardless of what happened, the time marched on without answers. Some of our coworkers quit after Danny's death, trying to hopelessly move on. I didn't blame them.

I also needed some distance. I never even told them what I'd experienced that night. It wouldn't have helped them anyway. A year passed and I hardly spoke to any of my friends. I started to get some semblance of normalcy in the wake of Danny's death, but that would all come to an end on the 18th of August, 2007. By the time day had given way tonight, I'd almost finished the bottle. Even as a rather large guy, the alcohol had hit me hard.

At around nine o'clock, I just passed out in bed, awaiting a horrible hangover in the morning. I only awoke around midnight when I heard the front door forcefully break open, followed by footsteps and whispers. I tried to get up, still drowsy from alcohol. As I took one step out from my bed, I slipped and came tumbling down to the floor. I produced a massive crash, loud enough to alert whichever intruders had broken in. I thought you said no one would be home. A man stated angrily.

Don't worry about it. I'll go deal with it. The footsteps moved quickly in my direction. I tried to lock the door, but they were too fast, kicking it open and knocking me back to the ground. A masked man entered my room, holding onto a gun. He only spoke a single sentence to me before pointing the weapon at me and pulling the trigger. You should have stayed quiet.

Unfortunately, the man had a horrible shot. He aimed at my head, but it hit me in the throat instead. There I lay, drowning in my own blood as I desperately gasped for air. I couldn't crawl away, and I couldn't call for help. I died on my bedroom floor, on my own birthday, just as I had a year earlier. Once life finally drained from my body and the god-awful pain ceased, I was back in the world beyond. I walked through the same colorful dimension that lay just on the edge of life.

I admired the shapes and colors as they passed. In the distance, I saw a tree with branches stretching endlessly far from its trunk. Each branch dangled a person, real, but not existing in our world. I wanted to visit them, but that wasn't my destination. Because just like before, I would wake up in my own bed, unharmed by the events from the previous night. My phone buzzed and I was filled with an unfathomable dread. I still couldn't quite believe it, but I started to understand that someone would take my place in death.

Hello? It's Dad. Dad. Your mother, she's... She passed away last night. A lump formed in my throat. I knew what was coming next, but I had to ask. How? What happened?

The police say it was a burglary gone wrong. I don't know. I was working late. I should have been there. The discussion trailed off from there. My dad was distraught and could barely form coherent sentences. He blamed himself for not being there. But I knew the truth.

It was my fault. During the next two months, he fell into deep depression. I couldn't blame him. He just lost the love of his life. I moved in with him just to help him pick up the pieces. He put on his strong face, trying his best to keep the ship afloat. But I could tell how close he was to just breaking down. If only I'd been there.

It wasn't your fault, Dad. Had you been there, you might be gone too. You don't know that. But I did know, because the burglars weren't ever supposed to visit my parents' house. They were supposed to kill me. I had to come clean. I had to let him know the truth, but how could I? Half a year passed and the secret ate at me.

After everything that had happened, I still didn't know how to explain it. Still, I decided it was time to share my curse. Dad, can we talk? Yeah, what's going on? He asked with a worried expression on his face. He knew me well, and he could tell a heavy burden was weighing me down. I started by telling him about my first death, down to the smallest detail. Of course, it matched everything that the people had witnessed in the pub that night, even

the location of the stab wound. I told him Danny had taken my place in death and that I felt guilty. Naturally, he was skeptical at first, but then I told him about my mother. I didn't spare him any details. I told him where I'd gotten shot, that the door had been broken down and that there were two robbers. Every detail matched perfectly down to the letter. I'm so sorry, Dad.

It was my fault. I killed her. He just sat there in silence, processing what I had just told him. It wasn't your fault. I was confused. There wasn't a single ounce of anger on his words. Only overwhelming empathy. How can you say that?

She didn't have to die. He mulled over his next words carefully before speaking. You didn't do anything wrong, Rick. You just went about your life. And these things happened to you. I don't know why you've been brought back. Or even how. But you're not to blame for what is done to you.

So you believe me? I asked. He nodded and embraced me in a hug. Suddenly I wasn't alone in the world anymore. Someone knew what was happening to me. What if it happens again? Then we'll get through it together. He stood by these words, even as my next birthday rolled around.

That death was more tame. I slipped in the shower and broke my neck. The last thought that went through my mind as I left the world for the third time was, How cliche. Once again, I awoke in my bed. I called out for my dad, making sure he was still alive, horrified that he might have taken my place. I couldn't even breathe until he came rushing to my side, asking what had happened. I broke my neck, but I'm fine, I think.

It took a while before I figured out who had taken my place that time. But once I heard that my boss had died, something broke inside of me. He was the kindest man I'd ever met. And just like myself, he'd slipped and broken his neck. That was the final straw. It wasn't some bizarre coincidence I could brush off, nor about it. premonition. I decided then and there that I couldn't live with the responsibility. I had to put a stop to it, even if it meant giving up my own life. I figured that if I took control over

my own fate and killed myself outside my own birthday, maybe I could prevent more people from dying. First, I left behind a long letter to my father, explaining why I'd chosen to leave. I couldn't face him in person. I knew he'd just tried to talk me out of it, but it was something I had to do. I couldn't allow any more people to die on my behalf. Alas, fate is a fickle bitch. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't end my own life. I tried hanging but the rope broke.

Then I tried to shoot myself but the gun jammed. When that failed, I tried to drive my car into a tree, but somehow I survived that as well. Any attempt was met with failure. All I could do was wait for my next birthday and let someone die. in my place. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn't die. I was a slave to destiny and it was destroying me. In 2009, I was hit by a drunk driver and my girlfriend took my place. In 2010, I drowned and my kind neighbor had to go through that death. In 2011, I died from a brain aneurysm, which ended up killing my aunt. And so on and so on. Each year I'd die

and a person close to me would take my place. I kept trying to find a way out, but fate wouldn't have it. Years went by, and on the 18th of August 2019, I would die for the 14th time. I'd already fallen sick a week earlier, much to the doctor's confusion. According to each and every laboratory value, I was fine, yet I kept getting sicker. My father and I both knew my time was near, but we also knew I'd be forcefully brought back. Then, at midnight on my birthday, my heart just gave out. I was jolted awake in my own bed, and the sickness was little more than a distant memory.

Dad? I called out. No response. I got out of bed and called his name again. I was met with silence. I didn't have to call a third time. I already knew what had happened. I carefully walked into his room, horrified at what I knew would come.

He was dead. just gone from a heart attack. He'd taken my place and I could do nothing to save him. The funeral came and went in a blur. The only noticeable thing was the missing seats from the people who had passed before him. Some of them had lived their own lives and died as nature intended, but a number of them were supposed to live on. Instead they'd just taken my place in death.

I inherited a number of things from my father. Among them I found a letter addressed to me. looked rather worn, so I could tell he'd written it a long time ago. Dear Richard, today is your birthday, and it has officially been a year since your mother passed. While I miss her greatly, I'm thankful to still have you around. I know that if she was given the choice, she would want you to live. I feel the same way. We both know that I might one day take your place in death. Never doubt that I would happily give my life if it means that you may live.

You didn't choose this curse, so never blame yourself. Just do what every person is supposed to. Appreciate the people around you because you never know what day might be there last. I love you. Dad. Since I read that letter, I've been looking for a way out. My father might want to stay behind, but how can I live on? knowing that I'm taking someone's place.

I've long since left town, living by myself in a cabin somewhere away from people. Hopefully, if I have no one left that cares about me, people will stop dying, at least until I can figure out not only how to die, but how to actually stay dead. I'm sorry.