The Facility

Trevor works at a facility to house the criminally insane under complete sensory deprivation. What is the purpose of this facility? What of the rumors of other nurses losing their minds?

Hi my name is TREVOR his name tag read. He swiped it through a card reader unlocking the door. Trevor understood that this facility housed the criminally insane, but even the worst patients he had to deal with at his previous job would not have justified even one quarter of the security measures he had to deal with in this facility. And besides, they couldn't all be that bad.

There were three staff members for every patient at the facility and each patient was under a medically induced coma, which he assumed was an added security measure. 

Today was an important day for Trevor, because today was the day he was going to observe his first patient waking up. "You see this IV?" Asked the attending nurse Jacob. Trevor nodded his head. "It is not filled with a sedative. This is actually something we refer to only as the substance, it removes all sensory inputs to the brain, don't make the mistake of getting any on you. It can cause numbness for hours to any place on the body it touches. It takes about five seconds for it to get out of your system," said Jacob "Our patient should be waking up any second now." 

"Oh and one more thing." Jacob said with a pause. "In case of emergency press this small red button by the bed, or you can press the large red circle button outside in the hallway by the door. It stops the flow of substance into all patients."

"That doesn't make sense it stops the flow of substance? You would think that in case of emergency the last thing we would need is to have criminally insane patients walking around," said Trevor.

Jacob paused "You have to remember that these patients are not just patients in a mental facility, they are test subjects They are the world's leading case studies on the effects of long term complete sensory deprivation. Each one of them is valuable to the corporation. In case of a fire or something we have to escort them out of the building to safety. In my six years no one has ever had to press that button."

"How long has the patient been under?" asked Trevor.

"This one has been under since I have been here." Trevor gave a look of pity as Jacob spoke, "don't worry he deserves it."

"Hey," Jacob whispered as the patient began to moan "Did you hear about Clive?".

"No," said Trevor.

"He went crazy a few days ago and murdered his wife and kids." whispered Jacob.

"I thought we were supposed to leave our family when we took up the job," responded Trevor.

"Yeah but he tracked them down, and then he killed them," whispered Jacob.

"What the hell?" said Trevor.

"He's not the first nurse here to do something like that. They all say they want to become one with the universe or something." said Jacob.

"Yeah right, I bet he'll be admitted here after his trial's over." dismissed Trevor.

"That's really what happens, only they don't go to trial, they come right to this facility. We've had two nurses to be admitted to this facility as patients, they make sure the new people are assigned to them so no one finds out." said Jacob.

Trevor muttered to himself, "My god Trevor, what have you gotten yourself into?"

A loud racket could be heard from the hall. A male voice shouted "It's too late the reckoning is upon us! I wish to become one with the universe and carry out its will! Give me the substance, I need the substance!" The nurse could be heard calming him.

The patient rolled over his bed laughing.

"What's so funny?" asked Jacob.

"Oh nothing just that patient out in the hall" he said.

The patient looked Jacob dead in the eye and gave Cheshire grin. "Oh nothing really." he paused. "How long have I been under?"

"We don't know exactly more than six years less than eight," said Jacob.

"Alright patient sixteen," Jacob walked the patient to a table in the room. We're going to give you a pencil and paper and this recorder, please say write down your thoughts, or draw anything that comes to mind.

He began drawing in a laid back way, while talking "I feel vulnerable in this state doc. I can't use my powers with all this sensory information. I would much rather be under if you don't mind. I had thought I would like to have been able to see my powers and use them at the same time. The others told me I couldn't and they were right. To be frank I am dissapointed. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too." in a few short moments he finished. Jacob took a look at it. On the front was a diagram, some kind of map, or a blueprint of some sort, and on the back the patient had written a capitol "H". 

"That's funny," said Jacob.

"What?" asked Trevor.

"The last patient I woke up wrote something similar" Jacob said.

"Oh? said the patient,

Jacob seemed perturbed by this. "Alright" said Jacob. "That's enough. We're going to put him back under."

"Trevor help me put him back to sleep." Jacob said.

"I don't want to get near him, he might be contagious," Trevor said,

"Fine, then just keep an eye on the patient, make sure he doesn't do anything funny," said Jacob.

Jacob walked out with patient sixteen's drawing in hand. He walked into the hall and on the trolly cart where all the other patient's drawings had been.

"They all look similar" noted Jacob. They all drew some kind of blueprint. He then lined each one up to match the lines, and taped them with surgical tape, and the thing was some grand blueprint. He held it up and Trevor looked shaken.

"It's like they all worked together on this, what could it be a map of?" asked Jacob

"Flip it over." suggested Trevor, shaken.

The words "You shall perish." was written on the back.

Trevor opened his mouth. "That looks like a map of this facility."

"Oh," said Jacob. "We should probably tell someone about this," 

"Are you keeping an eye on the patient?" asked Jacob.

The patient was on his bed with the IV of the substance in his arm. "S**t! he put himself under while we were looking at the diagram. Should I press the emergency button?"

"No I'll be damned if that button gets pressed on my watch," said Jacob.

The patient began levitating in the air, and then Jacob was lifted his arms spread as the patient made a grin with his eyes closed floating in the air. HIs arms began to be pulled apart. Jacob groaned and made out an audible instruction. "Trevor! sound the alarm!"

Trevor pressed the button and a door lock of one inch thick steel dropped in the doorway to patient sixteen's room and the hallway outside. A loud high pitch siren began to ring throughout the whole facility. Trevor could peer through the window and see Jacob had been dropped to the ground.

He could hear a voice yelling through the siren. It was Jacob. "Trevor!, they can't use their power when their senses distract them, Keep the siren going."

Clive from down the hall could be heard yelling "No, no, no, The reckoning is upon us! It's all over it's over, we're all going to die!"

Then screams could be heard from patient sixteen's room. Was it Jacob or the patient? The question was soon answered. The steel door blew open and he could see the patient hovering towards him with blood dripping down his ears. Bloodied holes where his eyes were.

Clever. He gouged out his eyes and ears, and used the substance to numb the pain. Trevor might have been alarmed by this. It didn't matter. It didn't that other doors were bursting open throughout the hall. It didn't matter that other nurses were giving out shrill cries midst the blaring siren. It didn't matter when their heads exploded. It didn't matter that he knew what was happening to him. It all just seemed like a good time to take a nap. So he sat back against the wall and thought of seeing his wife and daughter as he drifted off to sleep.

Reviews

[Vic]

Great story! It was very creative. I didn't understand the end though, did the substance fall on Trevor so he fell asleep?

[pianotm]

This was really quite creepy. There's many, many ideas in this story to expound upon if you want to go into detail in later stories.

[Andrew Leister-Frazier]

Thank you for taking the time to read and review my work. I see what you mean by the expounding of ideas, better yet I feel like it would be better to revise this story so that there aren't so many of them in so few words. Thinking and reading it over, my initial objective was just to write a story about sensory deprivation being a means for ESP and having a powerful revelation that the patients gouge out their sensory organs in order to regain their powers. The story has been muddled with too many new concepts like contagious insanity or being one with universal consciousness. It took away from the experience I envisioned when I thought this story up in the first place.