The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S6E02

Episode Date: September 29, 2015

It's episode 2 of Season 6. On this week's show we have five tales about keeping your eyes on things both seen and unseen.The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first two tales."Why I Stopped Babysitting" written by Eleni Vassiliadis and read by Alexis Bristowe & Nikolle Doolin & David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:03:20)"One Bad Case of Pink-Eye" written by the team of Catriona Richards, María G, Matthew Shuck, and Ian Harmening and read by David Ault & Nikolle Doolin & Jessica McEvoy & David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:16:00)"Locking Himself In" written by Luke Hartwick and read by Peter Lewis & David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:46:55)"How Much?" written by Samuel J. Scolari and read by Jessica McEvoy & David Cummings. (Story starts at 01:02:50)"Mr. Pershing" written by T. G. Shippen and read by Nikolle Doolin & Mike DelGaudio & Rima Chaddha Mycenyk & David Cummings. (Story starts at 01:24:15)Click here to enter our Season 6 Sleepless ContestClick here for The NoSleep Podcast StoreClick here to learn more about Catriona RichardsClick here to learn more about Matthew ShuckClick here to learn more about Samuel J. ScolariClick here to learn more about Nikolle DoolinClick here to contact Alexis BristoweClick here to learn more about Peter LewisClick here to learn more about Mike DelGaudioPodcast produced by: David CummingsMusic & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings."One Bad Case of Pink-Eye" illustration courtesy of Jörn HeidrathAudio program ©2015 - Creative Reason Media - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a horror fiction podcast. By listening to our stories, you are choosing to be frightened and disturbed for your entertainment. You do so at your own risk. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's show, we have five tales about keeping

your eyes on things both seen and unseen. While things are starting to return to normal at the No Sleep Headquarters, I appreciate everyone's patience as our release schedule remains a little unsettled. Hopefully things will be getting back on track soon. That'll become important in the coming weeks because October is soon upon us, and you know what that means. That's right, it's October Fest, and, but Plenty of beer awaits. Oh, yes, of course, it also means Halloween is coming. We're working hard to get this year's Halloween shows ready.

We'll have our usual full-length free version of the show, along with our special Season Pass bonus episode. So if you and your friends and family members and coworkers and clergy haven't already got it, season past six is ready and waiting for your order. October is the perfect time of year to immerse yourself in all things horrifying. So make the No Sleep Podcast a big part of your frightful festivities. And just a reminder to visit our page at Contests.com to enter our sleeplessshirt contest,

where you can win a copy of Brandon Boone's great sleepless album and a No Sleep Podcast T-shirt. A big thanks to all of you who have decided not to win. wait and purchased some no-sleep clothing of your own. I hope you're wearing it with pride. Well, we're running late and it's getting late, so let's delay no further and start the show. In our first tale, we meet a young girl who is earning money as a babysitter. Nothing bad ever happens to babysitters, right? Well, in this tale from author Eleni Vasili Artis, the girl quickly realizes that the couple she's sitting for are unsettlingly strange, and perhaps she's at their house for reasons which have nothing to do with their child. Performing the tale are Alexis Bristow

and Nicole Doolin. So check the children before it's too late, or you'll have to explain why I stopped babysitting. This is a story for my babysitting days. Around five years ago, when I was 15 and desperate to save up for a car, despite not even having a learner's permit at this stage. I would babysit for family, and then family friends, and pretty soon word of mouth was getting me calls from people I'd never met before. People want to hire a babysitter they know won't just sip from the liquor bottles in the cupboard and invite their boyfriend or girlfriend over.

I was a very patient teenager, so good with kids, and far too chicken shit to ever properly snoop around people's houses, rifling through cowbirds or bedside drawers. And I had only ever been drunk once before and hated it so much, it put me off alcohol for a good while. I was the ideal babysitter, in other words. So anyway, one Friday I get this call from a couple who had heard about me from somebody they met someplace. I don't know. They asked me if I was available for Sunday night.

Now, it was the school holidays. I was available pretty much every night, every week. My most popular nights were Fridays and Saturdays, and even though I had been planning a sleepover with friends that Sunday, I canceled it in order to sit for this couple. My rate was $50 a night, but most parents were a bit drunk and very grateful when they got home from a night out and pressed extra tens and twenties into my hands insistently as I left.

Mostly they would drive me home, but sometimes my mom or dad had to pick me up if the parents were drunk or the house was really far away from mine. This couple that were asking about Sunday said that they would be out until very late and would pay upwards of $100 for my services. They also offered to pick me up from home to get to their place, which was a good 40 minutes away,

drive me back home afterwards. Now, my dad always insisted he'd drive me home to the house I was sitting at and come in to meet the couple if they weren't people we knew well. Sunday was no different, and so after telling the couple I would be dropped at their place by I got set for the night. I never brought homework because back then I was a good little nerd and always did it as soon as I got it. What I did bring was my book The Secret History, and a bag of Jaffas in case there wasn't any nice food there or they didn't say, eat what you want.

So we leave, and my dad drops me at the house, waits for me to knock on the door of the little flat with the nice roses in the front garden, and he drives off when it opens. This old lady is standing there, and she goes. goes, can I help you? And I told her who I was, and she looked totally baffled, when a man runs up to us. About 40 and sort of good looking. Kind of like Alec Baldwin, but thinner and sharper featured. Sorry, my wife gave you the wrong address. Oh, thank God I didn't miss you.

We used to live there. And my wife always forgets our new address. Now this looking back was suspiciously. as fuck, and if I hadn't been so naive, I would have called my dad and noped all the way back home, but he was sort of charming or something, and I was naive, so I got in the car. We drove for about 15 minutes, and he sort of asked about general stuff, school, and that sort of thing. When we got to the house, which was the nicest house I'd ever seen, the wife who was thin and really pretty was outside waving. She apologizes, same story, blah, blah, blah, and we go inside.

Our little angel is asleep upstairs. Please don't wake her up. Just stay down here unless she cries. She's a very light sleeper, you see, so we'll be very upset if you wake her. We'll be up till dawn, really, in that case. I was nervous because the house was nice and they looked all rich,

sort of well-groomed maybe, and here I was in my grubby runners with my messy hair in a ponytail. They were very dressed. up, and after showing me the living room where bowls of chips and lollies were sitting out, they left, after once again telling me not to wake their daughter. Now, I found it strange that they hadn't introduced me to their child. Mostly the kids were awake when I got there, and we played and watched television until way past their bedtime, and then they fell asleep full of pizza and asking me to tell them

another story. The only other proper baby I had sat for slept most of the time, but the parents my mom's cousin and her partner, told me to check on her a few times and change her nappy when needed. I just sort of sat there, feeling cold in the big sparsely furnished house, but they hadn't told me about heating and I hadn't thought to ask. The food they put out was stuff I didn't like. Salt and vinegar chips instead of plain, and the chocolate biscuits had an off smell to them. Lollies were something I only ate as a last resort, and I had my bag of Jaffas, so I didn't touch what was there. I decided to read because I could not work their ridiculously large television,

but something about the darkness and silence of the house left me feeling a little edgy. I decided to see if there was anything else to eat and went looking for the kitchen, which I eventually found. The shiny metal fridge was almost completely empty, aside from a carton of milk, and the cupboards were also very empty, and there were no bottles of milk or jars of baby food that I could see. freezing cold and seriously considering ordering takeaways, I began walking around the house in search of a heater.

The house was very dark and most of the doors were locked, which wasn't too uncommon, though most people just locked their bedroom door or maybe a messy storeroom or something. I decided the heater was probably upstairs. I hadn't heard a peep from upstairs, and I started to get anxious, because what if something was wrong with the baby?

I always checked up on whoever I was babysitting as a rule about every 20 minutes. So I made the decision to go upstairs. First weird thing was there was a fucking child gate, or whatever, it's called, blocking them off. So I had to climb over. I wondered why they'd need that if they had an infant. I walked up, and it was pitch black up there. I tried a door, locked. tried another door

locked all the fucking doors were locked now who locks an infant in a room like that I started to panic and sort of realized something was very wrong

with the whole thing I decided to call my dad to come and wait with me I went to call him when I realized the address he had was the one of the old lady their old address I realized that moment

and they didn't want my dad to know where they really lived. I started panicking and just sort of froze in the dark hallway. I walked slowly down the stairs and climbed over the gate as quietly as I could. My heart was pounding at this point, so I walked to the front door and tried it, but I had been deadlocked. I walked through the house to the back door, and again, deadlocked. I was trapped in this fucking house. I could have called the police, but I had no address to give them. And I was starting to feel like maybe I wasn't alone in the house.

With shaking hands, I went into the living room and packed my stuff into my backpack. I just sat on the edge of the couch wondering what to do. I decided to try a window or something, so I did. I tried every window, and all of them were locked. At this point, I swore I heard a noise from outside. I told myself I was just being paranoid I thought about how bad it would look if I left the baby and just ran off

but I didn't feel safe I felt like I was going to die so I was standing in the living room wondering what the fuck to do when I heard a faint clicking sound the sound of a door being unlocked the back door froze ringing in my ears

liquid stomach I heard footsteps walking slowly through the house, and I crept shakily into the dark kitchen, and then through to the laundry. I crawled into one of the big cupboards next to the washing machine and sat trying to control my breathing, trying not to be sick. I heard the footsteps walking through the house and muffled voices. When the footsteps reached the laundry and stopped, I thought my heart would pound through my chest, and I heard the footsteps. footsteps walk away. I was sure the wife would be waiting outside the cupboard with a kitchen knife, but I opened it anyway, and she wasn't. I heard them walking upstairs, and I crept quickly through the house. I opened the back door and ran, hearing it slammed behind me and knowing they would be after me.

I didn't even look back. I just ran through to the front garden and down the driveway, and I climbed over the gate so quickly I scraped all up my legs, but I didn't stop running. adrenaline works wonders even on me, the fairly unfit teenager. When I got to the nearest main road, I called my dad hysterical. Every time a car drove past, I ducked into a yard or under a tree because I was sure it was them. When my dad arrived, I told him the story. I have never seen him go so white. We went to the police and everything, but I hadn't even stopped to look at the street name when I was running away.

way, so I had nothing to give them other than a description of both of them and their very fake names. They didn't ever track down the couple either, even though they drove me around the suburb for hours, trying to help me remember the house. I couldn't. I had been too scared, and it had been too dark. What scared me the most was that they had my phone number, but, unsurprisingly, I never got a call from them again as I had changed my number the next day, and I had. I haven't babysat since. Well, I say I never heard from them, but now that I think about it, there was one call, a few months ago, actually.

An unknown number, of course. When I picked up the phone, all I heard was a baby crying on the other end. But not a real baby. A fake cry like one of those dolls you can buy. I guess I'm hoping it's just some prank caller messing with me. When it comes to minor problems, is there anything more annoying than an itchy eye? That little twinge that no amount of rubbing seems to cure. Then perhaps this story from the writing team of Katrina Richards,

Maria G., Matthew Shuck, and Ian Harmoning can help you out. Their tale is about a man whose eye problems lead to far more disturbing circumstances. Performing the tale are David Alt, Nicole Doolin and Jessica McAvoy. So keep your eyes open for this one, lest you come down with one bad case of pink eye. It started in my left eye, I think. Yes, itchy in the outside corner of the left, a few weeks after I moved into the new place. I just moved for a new job. Everything was still in boxes, dust everywhere.

previous owners didn't clean fuck. So I thought it was the dust at first. The place was a little out of the way from work, but it was real cheap. Well, as cheap as you can get this far south. 900 pounds a month for a three-bed house with drive, garage and gardens and all that fancy shit. I made a joke to the estate agent asking if there were any murders there. She made an awkward laugh. So I cleaned that place from top to bottom, hoovered, scrubbed and polish my ass off, trying not to rub damn cleaning fluid in my eye. Not the dust. Maybe I scratched it on something just a little.

If I just leave it alone, it'll heal up in no time. But God damn, it stung like crazy. Like I had white-hot iron filings rattling around in there. I coped for a week or two. work was hard trying to get through the day slipping my fingers under my safety goggles to get a few seconds of relief without also jamming them into the soft squishy ball and blinding myself by friday my whole left eye was bloodshot and saw 24-7 my supervisor pulled me off the line and told me to check in with occupational health oh h told me to go to a doctor i told myself i'm bloody

skint from moving and i can't afford to miss a shift to just have my GP tell me to take some painkillers and suck it up. I got home and looked up some eye stuff on the web. Dismissed all the fatal diagnoses and eye cancer bullshit. Come on, Google, at least try and be helpful. Found something about pink eye. I set my washing machine to surface of the sun and washed my bed sheets. It didn't help. My ice still poured like a forcet and couldn't blink fast enough to clear it. Worst of all is when I tried to sleep, I, started seeing things to my left. I blink with my left, I rubbed my right,

and whatever shadow was there is gone. I didn't get much sleep that night. Every time I felt like sliding into slumber, I jolted wide awake, afraid I'd miss the shadow. After much repositioning, I admitted defeat. Of course, that is when my alarm went off. I got out of bed and went about my morning routine, shower, teeth, breakfast, and off to work.

It was cold outside. Cold enough I feared my leaky eye would freeze. Weather and the partial lack of sight made the walk to the train station rough, but I got there eventually. Making my way through the platform, I noticed a bundle of cloths shaking. I stepped closer to it and realized that there was a minute old lady at the center of the assortment of fabrics. She made a pitiful sight with her runny nose and her grey and silver hair in disarray. Something moved me to ask her if she was cold. She nodded. Before I knew it, I was taking off my coat and pushing it into her hands.

Slowly, she looked me up and down, paying no mind to the coat between us. I felt I was being appraised. She stood up and put on the coat. After smiling appreciatively at the ill-fitting sleeves and the extra length of everything, the old lady caught my hand between her wrinkly ones and shook it three times. She was still smiling, this time at me. When I got my hand back, I noticed she had slipped something in it, a card. I turned it and read the pitch black type on old yellowy stock paper.

Panoptican Incorporated, for those willing to see. The woman then patted my face right next to my left eye and walked out of the platform and my life. I tried to get through that day as best I could, given the situation. Thinking about it only made things worse. But every time I thought about something else, those damned figures would appear in the corner of my eye. Finally, with only 15 minutes left in my shift, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the paper I'd been handed.

Panopticon Incorporated. What the hell, right? I mean, it couldn't hurt to contact them. At the very least, maybe they could lead me to some cheap drugs to dull the pain. I figured I'd Google them after work and thumbled to put the page back into my pocket. Then I felt it, a cold, wet drop on my hand. It was silent, of course, but the plop travelled up my nerves until it began ringing in my ears. The droplet had come from my other eye.

I needed answers. I needed that infernal itch to go. away and I needed it soon. I felt like I was going crazy and all of my co-workers seemed to silently think so too. They stared at me as I shook in place, finding my bearings and dart for the nearest exit. The tears in my eyes couldn't be blinked away fast enough. They cast a hazy glow on everything in front of me. I stumbled out and threw the doors to the outside to find relief in the cold wind, but there was none. The Panopticon Incorporated. We've been waiting for you.

I blinked. It felt as if I had been split vertically along the bridge of my nose. My right eye watered at the sight of the cold winter sun lulling low in the sky, and through the growing itch and ceaseless tears, vague shapes shambled across the grey pavement of the factory's parking lot. That was weird. However, the waterfall that my left eye became showed me something entirely different. In place of the sun, an incandescent light bulb glowed dully in a dark room.

It seemed almost to hum, filling the hushed and muted room. The walls were high, almost too high to see, and they were made of monolithic granite slabs seemingly stacked one on top of the other, sharing in similarity rough chiselmarks across them. What? I pinched out in an almost inaudible gasp as my voice. reacted before my brain. I see you can hear, but do you have the sight?

The voice crackled and vibrated slowly, enunciating every syllable like a snake hissing across a washing machine. My right eye saw a barely formed shadow twisted like a plume of smoke, growing out from the hood of a rusting forward escort. But my left witnessed a giant of a man standing over a heavy. wooden desk. He stood at least two feet above me until his face was obscured in the darkness beyond the reach of the light. I fixated on his massive and filthy hands. They were webbed with varicose veins like a map of the London underground. Thick purple arteries bulged from his emaciated

arms, pumping rivulets of blood away from his heart. And I could not help but remember thinking that if one were to be cut, he would flood the room with a wave of crimson. You did a good thing today. I blinked my eyes disynchronously to steady my thoughts. The more I blinked my left, the more the parking lot began to appear as an opaque filter over the cavernous room and a massive man. And the more I blinked my right eye, the less I saw of the shadows. Whatever the man was saying, I did not understand, as my mind was,

was wrapped up in the enigma of what I was seeing. You will go mad if you persist with that. He reached over toward my face and gestured to my right eye. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. What the fuck is wrong with my eyes? I began to panic, backing away from the horrible reach of the man. I could barely smell the parking lot anymore. The air was stale now like a shed in the summer,

and when I breathed in it felt like the, the breath would catch in the back of my throat. A piercing ring echoed through my head, and it felt as if my brain was ramming against my skull in an effort to escape. A hiss of a sigh echoed through my ears. You are only half willing to see. Your left sees what it needs to see, and what panopticon incorporates it will improve. Your right. eye is broken, and it will drive you to madness. His hand drew closer to my face, and as I stepped further back, the hand came closer. It caressed the bridge of my nose delicately and stroked my cheek.

I tried to turn away, but he did not let me. Listen, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I began panicking as I felt a hand that I could see with one eye. but not the other. After your first operation, I will explain. The man grabbed my face firmly between his skeletal fingers. I don't want a fucking operation, get off of me! I began swatting the air in front of me.

Two of my co-workers rushed out of the factory door and into the sight of my right eye. They had worried expressions on their faces, and when their lips moved, All that I heard was the endless echo of the dark room and the steady breathing of tall man. Close your left eye, or you'll go cross-eyed. I obeyed. Are you okay? What the hell are you yelling about? My co-worker reached out to touch my shoulder. I could hear the sounds of the factory again,

and with just my right eye I could see everything without the mind-numbing sensation of split-south. sight. I remember stuttering. I remember trying to explain to them what they already knew. I, I, I, um, my eyes are, there's something wrong with my eyes. One of them reached from my face, concerned, blossomed across his face as he stared at my eye. What the fuck, he mouthed, but I could not hear him. There was a low, pot, like a ball being blown through a narrow PVC pipe, and a pressure in the front of my face before red-hot agony shot down my neck and through the nerves of my body, down the inside of my arm, through my hips and down to my toes, as if I was seizing. The parking lot was gone.

I had fallen to my back, and all I could see was the tall, emaciated man looming over me. One hand was extended for me to take. The other hand was holding my fucking eye, what I mistook for my eye. It was white, squishy, with a grey-blue cornea like my eye, but instead of bloody tendrils out the back hung multicoloured wires with gold tips. I tried to look at anything but that eye, but my head was restrained. Rough leather scratched my forehead and wrists as I struggled against the chair. You're going to hurt yourself like that.

The man growled as he put the eye in a small black box and locked it with a silver key. He put the box in his inner coat pocket and the key he slipped onto a leather string around his neck. I took a deep breath in and let a small sob back out. What is this? Why? You need to calm down. I want you to be calm so you can understand what I'm explaining to you. Do you think you can calm down for me?

Those words were supposed to be reassuring, helpful, soothing. But to me it was like a roll of thunder through my body, and soon another flash would come. I sucked the muggy air into my lungs. barely feeling any benefit. I wanted to cry. I didn't know what would happen if I did. My left eye weeped for me. Good.

He came closer and began to stroke my forehead, running his hands into my hair. He smelled musty, like the flaky books in the library you only use when you have homework. I didn't even try to move away. Now, listen carefully. It's a lot to take in, and I want you to understand it all.

I had to take your eye out because it was broken. I had to. It to be cruel. He talked like a father who was forced to punish his kid as if he actually cared. However fucked up, that seems. Now you can see. You can see what's real. You see, you can start getting better.

The illusion of comfort rapidly disappeared. I took another breath to steady my shaky voice. I licked my lips, noticing for the first time how dry and sharp the skin felt. Can you take the straps off, please? I don't know about that. Do you promise to be good? He placed a hand on my shoulder. A sob wobbled in my chest, but settled down.

Yes, I'll be good. I suppose I can loosen them for a little while, but I have to do them back up before she gets back, okay? He shifted behind me and I felt my head move as the band around it was adjusted. Okay, my mind raced to be. a plan together, but how could I even start? He gave the binds on my wrists some slack, and the leather straps peeled from my skin. He smiled in a strange, affectionate way, a look that didn't seem to match his face. Behind me, a door slammed open, and I heard one pair

of work boots and a pair of high heels enter. The man in front of me scrabbled at my left restraint to tighten it, but it only got more slack before he gave up and stood with his back to the restraint. The heels clicked over to my left. Are we doing my little eagle? A woman's voice purged just out of my sight. The man bolted upright as if standing to attention. His demeanor changed entirely. No longer was he the insidious terrifying force of judgment. He was only a man following orders for a pat on the head and a biscuit. He burrowed into his pocket for the box and held it out to her. Good. The operation was successful.

A snap of fingers, and then Workboots came around to the left too. I can just about see a high-vis jacket and a black ponytail. Workboots takes the box and examines the eye. Yeah, the terminals are damaged. That'll be what caused the poor connection and why the feed was so patchy. My guess is that the infection in the left had something to do with it, But I'll need time to properly determine that. Workboots popped the eye back in the box and put it in her pocket.

Heel sighed and clicked around to just behind my head. Eagle couldn't take his eyes off her. Congratulations, James. You're being promoted to the new program. Her fingers squeezed my shoulders and began to circle into a shoulder rub. I tried to wriggle my shoulders away but without much luck. Thanks. The fingers slid away.

You're very welcome. Call it a reward for giving me your coat. Before I could ask what she meant, she barked an order at Eagle. Take the other eye, deliver it to the lab, and pick up replacements. Then take him to the third floor. Heels clicked away from me and snapped her fingers one last time. Work boots disappeared after. Eagle was still staring into space

when I yanked my left hand free and began to work the buckle on the right he snapped out of his days to realize what I was doing he bolted behind my vision and I heard a rattling of metal I got my right hand free and took a split second to wipe the liquid from my remaining eye before I could get to another restraint

he was in front of me he mounted the chair I was in grabbed my throat and all I could see was shiny metal heading for my eye I yelped and grabbed at it instinctively before it could do any damage. My palm turned red. Pain shot up through my hand and I flailed in my seat while yelling incoherently. Igor pushed forward with the tool, but my wrist gave and it went flying off

and pattered to the floor somewhere out of my sight, taking a fair bite of me as it went. You're bad. Oh, you're being bad. You promised. His free hand joined my throat and he clamped down hard. He straddled me and pushed with all his weight. I gasped and my eye filled with water again. I tried to buck beneath him and throw him off,

but the hulk of a man had me too well pinned. Black spots began to cloud my vision. I was going to die in this chair to some crazy fucking bastard in the middle of God knows where and never know why it happened. I couldn't accept that. I couldn't die here. I panicked and my hands been. became a flurry of nails and fury. I scratched at his face and rasped out a battle cry.

I kicked and fought and screamed inside. At one point my thumb caught his eyelid. I pushed it home. I pushed it as far as my arm could reach until I felt a pop and warm fluid run down my arm. He howled and it rang in my ears, my head and every bone in my body. He fell back and off the chair clutching.

his eye. He curled into a ball on the floor and his howls turned to sobs. You're a bad boy, a bad, bad boy. I scrabbled at the other restraints while trying not to cough my lungs out. I jumped over the chair, leapt over Igor, and was out the door without looking back, down corridors and slammed through doors, shoulder first without thinking. A flash of pain before adrenaline flooded it away, and I took a quick wipe of my eye before, going onto the next door. I only stopped running when I nearly fell ass over tits off a railing. I found myself staring over a factory floor.

Conveyor belts carried racks full of eyeballs along a row of workers. I stared in disbelief as people calmly screwed components in and let the eyes run off at the next station. I was mesmerized by the precision and speed they worked at, as if this was a normal day job and not a macabre sci-fi come reality nightmare. However, as I watched, it all dawned on me. Under the conveyors were tracks. The tracks didn't match the conveyor paths or appeared to serve any purpose whatsoever.

That's because they weren't for eyeballs or whatever the fuck else this company makes. They were for chassis frames. This was my fucking factoring. Where a woman was dropping corneers, into balls was my fucking station. And worst of all, right next to her were my fucking co-workers. I filled with rage and my hands curled into fists as I stormed the stairs down to the shop floor. I grabbed the first guy I recognised Dave by his fucking panoptican shirt and slammed him into the machine in front of him. You fucking knew. You knew what they did to me and you played along. He screamed, jerked away.

from me and fell to the floor. When he got his first real look at me, the angry one I'd bastard in a medical gown, his eyes widened. Ah, what happened to you? I growled and moved to grab him again, but he threw his hands up. He got himself up from the floor and waved another guy over.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just stop, mate. Tell me what happened, okay? Hey, hey, you know where Jimmy's supervisor is? The other guy stood there, mouth open for a few seconds before answering. That engine soba, I think. Go get him, will you? I felt the rage would start to bubble away as I took short breaths.

Engine sub? Dave nodded. He was still wide-eyed and clearly scared of him. Yeah, Jim, don't worry. He'll be here in a sec and we can get you some help, okay? You can tell him what happened. But I got to get back to my station and get these hydraulics in, or I'm going to get dinged. You know how they are, mate.

Engines up. Hydraulics. They weren't seeing rows of eyeballs parading past. They still saw the old factory. They didn't know anything. I bolted. Dave shouted after me, but didn't chase. I ran past a line of injection molded white bulbs, past my old supervisor.

are clamping leads to the back of them, past a quality control officer popping eyes into plastic skulls to test the fit. I ran for the back exit, wiping away fluid to keep my vision clear. My route formed in my mind out the doors, past the paint plant through the test yard. It wasn't long until security joined me. Through the lines of workers weaved a man in black clothing after me. As I shot between what used to be an isle of hose storage, now a packaging station for fresh eyes. A box flew off the shelf and landed in front of me and eyes rolled out into my path. I hesitated, and two more holes appeared, the box bouncing off the floor with each one. I turned and saw a man approaching me, face hidden by a blacked-out helmet and a rifle trained on me.

Jesus! I found my feet again. I ducked down and ran to the right with the sound of bullets on metal hitting the shelves where I previously stood. Getting out of the factory was the least of my worries. As I slipped through the door, a bullet ricocheted off the door and hit me in the side. I yelped and fell through the door but managed to stay on my feet. The paint plant was gone. Between me and my escape lay the shipping yard. There were rows of lorries loaded with pallets of panoptican boxes by forklift trucks.

I ran behind the first lorry to catch. my breath. I took a second to examine myself. My left hand looked a mess at first, but the cut wasn't as deep as I feared. I could still move my hand around relatively easily with some pain. I put my other hand to my side, but barely any blood came away. The bullet only grazed me. Considering everything else, I almost felt lucky. The door of the factory slammed open, and a few sets of footsteps came out. I ran, darting between lorries and forklifts as I went, with a few choice hand gestures from the operators. They shut up when they saw the security come by, though. Every few steps I heard a bullet bounce off the frames of the forklifts or pierce through the canvas of the lorries.

I just hope the chain-link fence still had that hole in it we always knew about, but maintenance never got round to fixing. I crashed into it when I ran at full pelt. clearly I've been taking depth perception for granted. I bounced off but managed to keep my feet as I began to search for the hole. I rattled at the fence and looked for where it gave way, but it seemed to hold solid. Fuck! The security was only 100 or so feet away now, surrounding me, but holding their fire. I saw it then.

The loosely wrapped wire at the corner of one fence panel holding the gap shut. I dropped to my knees and yanked at it. I dropped to my belly The hole now opened just enough for me to slip through I pushed myself through the fence Oh shit, he's going through the fence Stay right there Don't fucking move

A hand grabbed my ankle and I kicked back at it With my other foot Unable to stop myself from letting out a whine of desperation My foot connects with his wrists And he lets go Oh, my little bastard I managed to pull myself through and get to my feet, each breath coming out as a sob and waiting for the volley of bullets to tear my back to shreds.

Hold your fire. A woman's voice. Heels spared me. I didn't look back. I just ran across field and hedgerows until I found a road. A BMW screeched to a halt as I collapsed on the tarmac and bled its horn at me. I don't remember the following. events well. I was picked up by the police who rushed me to the hospital. I was asked questions

and they didn't believe the answers. The doctor examined both my eyes, put a patch on my right, and gave me some antibiotics from my left. Another officer identified me from a missing person's case my family raised. Suddenly, the police were very interested with what I had to say. I had been missing a year. I have no idea when my life stopped being real and when the illusion started. The transition was absolutely seamless. That factory was producing hundreds of those eyes a day, for what could have been a whole year. I was a happy, mindless, penoptican employee for a whole year.

It's been a few years since I escaped and I've been reading news stories, but I haven't heard of Panoptican ink since. Maybe they were shut down. Maybe they weren't. Who knows where they were being shipped to and how many people have been upgraded. We thank you for being with us for our devilishly

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