Entry Six: Despair

It is eerily quiet in here tonight. Everyone retired early because of what happened today. This may have been one of the worst days of my life. I’m sitting in my small room, with bloated nerves and painful thoughts. My head is drowning in a hot lake of sizzling denial; like an abandoned soldier awakening to the sight of his blown-off legs. The scared little kid in me wants nothing more than to hide under the bed and cry myself to sleep. It is now glaringly obvious to me that I have hit rock bottom. I put myself into this shit, part of this experiment, and onto the dark winding road to hell. 
             
Fucking Randy killed himself today.

That was not an easy thing to write. I have been staring at it for an hour before continuing to type. I should probably just get on with this and get it out of my head. I’ve been thinking about it all day and it’s driving me nuts. I’ve never seen anyone kill themselves before, and I’ll tell you, it’s evil. I barely even knew Randy, but it fucking hurt.  

It happened in the testing room this morning right after the daily dose. Doctor Waters moved over to Randy’s chair to unstrap him before everyone else. I was watching the two because Randy had been scaring me with some of the shit he was saying earlier out in the courtyard, and I wanted to see how he took to the latest dose. The doctor got his hand straps undone and suddenly, lightning-quick, like a fucking cobra, Randy swiped a pen from Dr. Water’s lab coat and speared his own throat at least a dozen times.

​My mind can’t bend to this… that he stabbed his own throat, and that fucking monster, Rudy, was giggling while he did it. When Randy’s blood started to pool all over the floor, it caused Dr. Waters to slip and fall in it. It was a scene that caused Rudy’s emotional glee to elevate loudly into the room. The horrible shriek of that fuckers’ hysterics was so shrill sounding that it sliced into all our skulls like jagged shards of glass. If I had not been so disoriented, I would have ripped through my straps and gouged that pig’s throat with the same pen Randy used on his own. 

The sharp image of Randy’s suicide and Rudy’s howling face is making me sick to my stomach right now. I cannot stop thinking about the blood, oh my god, the blood. And we all sat there, completely befuddled, strapped into our chairs, and forced to watch the horror unfold to the soundtrack of Rudy’s motherfucking joy. 

I’ve never felt so hopeless and weak. 

As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, one of the girls, Beth, went completely comatose. I don’t know if it’s because of Randy’s morbid show or if it was the 35C? She now just stares at nothing, completely lifeless, as if lost inside a black and boundless void. The doctors performed all manner of tricks to snap her out of it, but she didn’t respond. Now she is gone. Gone… like everyone’s sanity. 

Most of us are completely messed up right now. At least I know I am completely messed up right now. I don’t know how to express any of this with any calming form of articulation. My mind is racing at tremendous speeds, and I can’t fix a stable thought, other than the image of Randy impaling his throat and that lifeless look in his eyes. I knew something was off about him in the courtyard. We were outside this morning after breakfast, and he kept staring at the sun. I told him to stop that shit and warned him that he could go blind. He turned to me and said, “We’re all blind” and, “it’s all a big lie anyway.” 

“Randy what the fuck are you talking about?” 

“Don’t you see it? Don’t you understand what they’re doing to us?” he asked in this strangely ominous tone.

“Stop staring at the fucking sun you asshole. Tell the doctors what’s going on man,” I pleaded.

He just turned his back to me and resumed his sun gazing as if completely unaware that I was there.

I have no fucking idea what he was getting on about, but when we got back inside the common room, I could hear him whimpering as he rubbed his head in obvious pain. Now he’s dead. I should have said something to the doctors right away. I can’t believe he is dead.

What the fuck am I doing here?

As far as I know, I am not affected by the 35C we’ve been taking, but in only five days; two people have gone nuts; one is in a coma, and Randy is dead. What is this shit? Furthermore, if my calculations are correct, doesn’t that mean there are only around 3 or 4 people left taking the actual drug at this point if you minus the half of us on placebos? Or was Asian Frank right, we are all on it???

I don’t know what’s going on, and apparently none of us are even allowed to leave. I asked to get my $1500 today after the shit went down, and Dr. Nelson advised me of the fact that I signed paperwork and that I couldn’t leave until the experiment was final. What’s bothering me is the look in his eyes, he seems troubled like he knows this is bad. For a split second, I feel like he wanted to tell me something… like he needed to unload some guilt or frustration or something. I sense that he is just a puppet in this like we all are and it’s eating him alive. Meanwhile, I am fucking stuck here!!!! 

There’s 11 of us now. I can see some of the others are estranged. Ben seemed pretty normal when we started this, and now he’s prone to repeating himself. Simple things. Like an hour ago, he and I were the only ones in the common room, and he stated that the lights looked dimmer than usual in here. Then a few minutes later he said it again as if he’d not just said it only a few minutes before. Then he did it again and again and again. I told him to shut the fuck up. My mind was already in the gutters and my heart was mournful for Randy. Ben just stared at me for a few seconds and smiled. The worst part about it is that the lights are not dimmer by any means. To me, they seem brighter if anything. I hope it’s just the fact that Randy murdered himself today and maybe Ben is just shaken up? I don’t know, I don’t know anything anymore. 

You fucking doctors better know what you’re doing! 

I’m also getting nervous around Rudy. I don’t know what’s with the guy, but he’s creeping me out. Despite his evil antics this morning with Randy’s suicide, he also just sits in that chair and says nothing to anyone. Instead, he watches us. The space that surrounds him is murkier by the day as if the light is revolted by his skin. I can almost see these dense shadows forming around him like black clouds over a pissed off ocean. All the while he stares, with his dead, unfeeling eyes, plotting some sickening demise to those he glances upon. I observed him this afternoon, sitting in his chair staring at Emily. He’s been especially attentive towards the girl since we got here. I suppose we all have, but his gaze is different, and I tell you this doctor, he is up to no good. 

I might have to rethink my stance on Emily. Randy’s death seems to have affected her greatly, which tells me underneath her shallow façade, there is some soul there. Today she just about assaulted Dr. Nelson and demanded he let her out of the program. When the doctor told her that it was impossible and too dangerous to release anyone until further testing was done, she started crying. I almost feel sorry for her now. No, I do feel sorry for her, and I also fear for her safety. 

I know that what I write in this laptop is being read, but fuck it, I am not afraid to say that I am very close to planning an escape from this place. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a good way out of here. The facility is locked up pretty tight, and I don’t see any clear way to break from it. There are two doors leading out of the common room; one door goes into the testing room, and the other door leads out into the hallway. Both are impenetrable. The locking system on each door is protected by a code and thumbprint system that is simply too complicated to plan for. So, you basically have us all trapped in here like inmates in a prison. This is insane if you think about it. What the fuck are we supposed to do in case of a fire??? You haven’t even drilled us on what to do if there ever was a fire. 

I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE I didn’t see all these red flags. I would have been better off working for Carlos Rizetto. I regret everything now. Instead of gambling, I should have been looking for a fucking job dammit! Why did I have to gamble? I know the truth now. The truth is, this trap I’m in, is all my fault. I alone am responsible for this mess. How much longer are they going to keep us here? How much longer are we going to be drinking the fucking bland protein shakes? How many more people are going to die?

I need to go think this over. 

And I need to keep my eye on Rudy. 
​
-Jack

​NEXT ENTRY