Entry Seven: The Great Awakening

I’m sitting on this sofa in the lounge. It’s irritating because the cushion is flat, and I can’t make myself comfortable. The aftermath of yesterday’s events is clearly still rippling through this place. Everyone here is narrowly recovering from the shock. I had hoped this morning the doctors were going to tell us that the experiment is cancelled and hand us our checks, but they did not. They did, however, officially release Beth from the trial. Apparently, they took her out last night while everyone was asleep. Another one bites the dust, and the fucking dust is piling up high in this place.
          
Now it’s just me, Jeff, Lynette, Emily, Walter, Rudy, Kyle, Amanda, Frank, Chester and Ben.

Poor Ben. He’s dwindling into the pits of madness faster and faster by the hours that pass. He talks to himself often and worse, he uses different accents. He’s ten feet away from me right now talking some crazy shit. He’s got this lost look in his eyes and he’s asking himself questions using a crappy British accent and then answering himself in an even shittier Asian accent. I can’t believe that he’s doing it right at this moment, here in the common room, with all of us just hanging around. I imagine the doctors are sitting in the video room taking notes and saying stupid shit like, “interesting… very interesting indeed.” I can’t record audio, but I’ll type what I hear as best I can, and you tell me what you think…

“Is you not happy ‘ere you bloody little bahstid?” he says with one hand clasping his chin and the other pointing in front of him.

“Many, many tings, no goo hee-yah, make me wondah-wondah-wondah!” he replies to himself  now with both hands clenched in balls down by his hips.

“Well ya bettah wake up and whiff the coffee love. Ya stuck ‘ere like it or not”

“No time to dwink coffee, oh-nee pain, oh-nee past, oh-nee pain, oh-nee past, oh-nee pain, oh-nee-”

“YOU LOST YOUR BLOODY FUCKIN MIND! HASN’T YOU, YA LITTLE FUCKAH?”

“Many tings lost, many, many tings. Wakey wakey wakey, you no fo-sake me”

I don’t know what the fuck to make of this and I don't want to keep listening, but you get the idea. When he’s not doing that, he’s fondling the wall, or he’s cackling at the ceiling. This man has clearly misplaced his marbles, and it is time to take him off Formula 35C. I can’t bear to watch another one of us go down like Randy. Please keep in mind that Ben was perfectly normal just a few days ago. It is fucking terrifying to watch someone lose their mind in front of you. The mere display of someone going bat-shit crazy is contagious. Have you ever seen someone act crazy and then felt a little crazy yourself? That’s how it is man, everyone here has started to doubt their own reality, including myself. Thank God for Jeffrey…  He’s just completely oblivious to the viral psychosis and someone I can keep my proper bearing with.

The once overly obnoxious bitch known as Emily, sits alone on the couch like a fragile porcelain statue and hasn’t spoken a word since yesterday. She just stares. It’s as if all the fight in her has left. I can only imagine what she must be thinking about life right now. She comes from this envious world of superiority and wealth that enclosed her into a sheltered life. A life that must have shattered yesterday when she witnessed a grown man, her only friend here, murder himself with such savagery. I don’t think she is built for this sort of grittiness and truthfully, I pity her and almost kind of miss her bitchy fast-talk. At least when she paraded around and acted like a bitch it gave us all the familiarity of something “normal.” As of right fucking now as I listen to Ben clucking like a chicken, I know that nothing about this place is normal anymore.

Jeff has been asking me what we should do, “what are we going to do bro? What are we going to doooo?” As if I have any fucking clue at this point! I just keep telling him we have to let it ride; we’re all in, in any case. There are only a few people on the actual drug, so the experiment can’t last much longer. Like I said before… what is great about Jeff, is that he’s unaffected and remains a stable point of communication for me. It sucks that he’s kind of burnt out and sometimes I feel like I’m talking to an ashtray, but it’s light years better than Ben, Emily and now, even Lynette.

Lynette, God help her, is on the brink of an emotional breakdown. I’ve discovered that her favorite saying is, “I’m too old for this damn shit man.” She’s been saying this nonsense since yesterday and I keep having to remind her that she’s only a few years older than me. I am trying to talk to her and calm her down some, but she is in this weird mode now where she doesn’t want anyone to get close to her. I asked her if she felt any effects from the Formula 35C and she reports there have been none that she’s aware of other than the heartache of not being able to reach her children. I suppose that it’s good that she isn’t on the 35C chemicals, but I’m a little bummed out that she’s starting to distance herself. I guess that’s what some people do to survive. In this place, anybody could be a sudden loss. We’re all figuring that out really quick.

Walter, Kyle, Amanda, Frank and Chester are their own identifiable clique. I call them the “asshole squad” because they don’t talk to anyone but themselves. Of course, I haven’t tried talking with them, but they’re not exactly an inviting bunch to begin with. They all sit at the card table and apparently bitch about the rest of us. I’ve seen them glancing around the room with weird suspicious looks on their faces, probably to see if anyone is paying them any attention. There’s this one slick looking guy in particular who just rubs me the wrong way. He’s always the one talking to the group, and usually in very hushed tones. I find myself wondering what they’re up to though because if they’re plotting some sort of an escape plan, I want in, that’s for sure. I’ll have to figure them out soon enough and if anything, I can at least find out what they know and which of them is on the drug. It seems doubtful that any of them are on Formula 35C based on their plain gestures and attitudes, but I know that Frank is for sure after that little shower incident. This means there’s at least 1 or 2 other people who are also on it, the question is, who? Rudy maybe? Probably, it’s fucking hard to tell since he’s been oozing crazy-juice from the day he got here.

All in all, it’s pretty damn depressing in here, but I’m becoming more vigilant each day, I have to be, there’s too much mental illness going around, and the doctors don’t tell us shit…

Dr. Nelson seems very troubled when I see him lately. He’s obviously getting heat from someone. That much is clear. I don’t think experiments like this are ever run by just the scientists. I have nothing to back that idea up, but it seems there would be another higher party with a vested interest in the results, like big Pharma or a crazy billionaire. One thing is for sure, I can tell based on nervous Nelson alone, that there is some higher up who is not happy with the way the experiment is going. Whoever he or she is, they’re screaming violent murder at Dr. Nelson. It makes me question the whole thing now, like, who the fuck is running this experiment and why?  What for? Better yet, why would it be allowed to continue after Randy’s suicide? They must have told Randy’s wife what happened…  Wouldn’t she be barking up a storm to get answers? Oh, wait a minute, I forgot, we all signed papers that said nobody can sue in the event of our deaths. You see how fucked we are now? 

Oh, man, I just had this heart-crushing feeling for Randy’s kids. They don’t have a dad anymore. Who’s going to take care of them? This makes me sick to my stomach. Dr. Nelson, I know you read this, and I think you should tell me what’s happening. It’s okay to do the right thing! Please help me understand what is happening here and if we can stop it. 

He probably won’t tell me. Nobody tells us anything. 

One thing that I know for sure… is that Ben is going to be the next to go down, and I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but it will happen. Now that I really think about it… there is one other person I’m almost certain is on the 35C and its gas passing, ass-hat Rudy. I can’t explain how I know, but it’s just come to me as a certainty as I’m typing this out. I just know he’s on it… he sits in that fucking chair and doesn’t ever shower. I hate his face. I want to spray his rancid skin with a firehose. I also hate his greasy, puke stench hair. It’s so fucking filthy I bet even cockroaches could get sick. I know this may sound crazy Dr. Nelson, but I have this screaming premonition that Rudy is going to do something horrible, and I think he’s going to do it to Emily. I know you are reading this Dr. Nelson, and I am advising you to get rid of Rudy. He’s dangerous, and he’s going to hurt Emily if we don’t stop him NOW. 

I’m typing here and I’m getting strong images of Rudy sneaking into Emily’s room tonight to strangle her in her sleep, if not tonight then soon. You can’t let that happen Dr. Nelson…

You know, that’s the other sad thing about this place. There is all of this utterly erratic behavior going on, and there isn’t any form of security stationed in here with us to keep the peace. We now know, based on Randy’s events yesterday, that in a split second, any of these people could unexpectedly lose their shit and start murdering the rest of us. That’s a scary thought; even scarier is to think that these little black cameras that surround us, might only be here to capture the massacre if it happens, for the scientists to study. To say it clearly, the doctors will NOT attempt to stop it, but instead, will record it as data pertinent to the experiment. Which truly opens my eyes at this moment to the truth; we are LAB RATS. They do not give a fuck about us.

So, to me, it means one thing only, that we are on our own. If the fucking doctors will not do anything to save us, then I will take the responsibility for all of us. As a matter of fact, I am going to grab a chair and sleep outside of Emily’s room every night until Rudy is gone. If he comes near her, I’ll kill him without hesitation. Snoozing in an uncomfortable chair will suck for my sleep, but it must be done. I don’t know where this sudden courage of mine is coming from, but I’m going to go with it. It’s probably the most heroic thing I’ve ever done in my life, especially for a whiney, pain in the ass like Emily no less. 

Man, having a bad faint spell right now. Need a minute, brb

I just had to get some water.

Okay... WOW. I do not know what is going on. I started thinking about being a knight in shining armor for Emily and my body started tingling. Then I was hit with the dizziness. Now, right at this moment and very surprisingly, my body is vibrating, and my head is tingling. Really, I am having a weird feeling. I can see large goosebumps on my arms as I type this. I am feeling something foreign to me here. The room is glowing brighter, and I am seeing a full rainbow of colors shining pleasantly sharp as if I’m five years old again watching Saturday Morning Cartoons. It reminds me of when my mom was being nice to me, the way she used to call me “love-bug” and brought me snacks. I also can truly hear this music now. This delightful music. Wow. I have never heard it like this before. It is amplified in volume, and it’s caressing my senses with a velvety richness that I am powerlessly entwined in. Mozart! Yes, the sugary harmony of Mozart sings to me from bygone times, beckoning me to understand some primordial secret yet to be revealed. I do not know how I can possibly identify its Mozart, but somehow my wits have become sharper and my thinking stronger. 

It’s occurring to me right this instant…

I’m feeling that I might be on Formula 35C. Holy fuck! I AM on the 35C, there is no other explanation that makes any sense. I may have been all along because something is happening to me right now, I feel it! It is like the lights just went on and I am WIDE awake. Oh shit, I see a black thought surfacing in my mind and it’s cancerous with doubt. This could be LSD it mocks. I hope this isn’t LSD. I have an uncle who lost his mind on LSD back in the eighties, and to this day I believe he’s in McLean Hospital where he thinks he is safe, because the British werewolves can’t get in.

I need to think this over in seclusion. I need to get away from crazy Ben and lie down to mull this over. Then I need to station outside of Emily’s. Luckily, I’ll have plenty of time sitting in front of her room all night to truly get a grip on this illuminating surprise.

I’m not exactly sure what Rudy is going to do if he sees me planted in front of Emily’s room, but there’s only one way to find out. I also do not know if Emily isn't going to be freaked out that I’m out there, but something tells me, she’ll appreciate it.

We shall see.
​
-Jack

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