S.M.A.R.T. (The Subject of Mind Altering Research and Testing)

Chapter Twenty

Michael was getting worse and worse by the day. Jim had stopped bringing his food, and it was another cook, who wouldn't talk to him, or tell why Jim had stopped coming or where he was. Michael knew he was rude to Jim the last time he was there, and he regretted it. He wanted to apologize, but Jim hadn't come the next day. The guilt of that weighed in on everything else. He knew he was becoming something he never wanted to be. He was addicted to this knowledge. He craved it, so much that he the thoughts of his old life, and his family were rare in his head. He knew he was losing focus and decided to focus his writings to devising an escape plan. He tried and tried to think of one, but his cell was simply too tightly locked down.

The whole while, on top of everything else, the thought of the General having the pill all he wanted, ate him away. Who is he to start taking it, when it was me who was chosen for the testing. Michael felt usurped, seeming to forget that he had never wanted to be there from the start. I'm the test subject. I'm the one in this cell, locked away. I'm the only one who should have it. He was losing grip of who Corporal Michael Thomas was. The name seemed foreign to him. Now his name was Michael, the lab rat.

Michael stopped exercising, and showering, and eating. He couldn't bring himself to finish books, or play chess. It wasn't the same. The more he thought about it, the more he realized the effects had certainly been lingering while he wasn't on it. They weren't in full effect as when he got to take it, but they were there, and would get stronger each time he taken it. Now, he felt them fading. He would look at Blanco, and wonder how a simple rodent could stay smart, but he, a human could not. He wished he could have seen Blanco in his prime, and wondered if the little white rat felt the same hole inside him, without having the drug. He didn't seem to, as he chewed away on his food and ran around the cage, and the exercise room, and everywhere else in the corridor, exploring and frolicking. Michael even started to find less humour in Blanco's playing, which once it had elated him.

His food tasted more bland, coffee didn't wake him up, books were no longer entertaining, and worst of all, there were starting to be things he couldn't comprehend. The effects were wearing off too quickly, and it was showing on his face. I was so far along. I had made so much progress. He kept thinking. It enraged him to know that the progress was only half him.

Another week went by. Michael stopped sleeping, and his mind felt like it had a rotten pit inside of it. He hated his brain. He knew so much, but he couldn't get to it. He stopped eating altogether, and kept writing in a frenzy, but they were mainly senseless scribblings. He wrote about what was happening to him, and how everything was dull, and how he knew he needed a way to get the pill back, but he couldn't figure out how for the life of him. It was all redundant.

Michael was writing away to himself again one day when missed the sound of the door opening to his corridor. It was almost two months since Jim, or the General had come. He had been shut off from everything, including social interaction. He didn't want to believe Jim could abandon him so easily, or that it was even his choice not to come. He hoped that he wasn't hurt, or worse.

Michael panicked as he heard the steps coming, and threw his journal into the closest drawer of his bed, clumsily.

The General was standing in the door when Michael looked up. The General didn't seem to notice his panic, and Michael's mind eased. He's already searched everything, maybe he won't bother to do it again. His mind realized why the General was likely there, and forgot about the journal. It is finally time, time to go back. Michael could already feel the relief sinking through him. It was the first time he had been glad to see the General since the man had rescued him from a cave, a lifetime ago.

"I didn't even hear you come in." Michael said, with bags in his eyes and his hair everywhere. He had grown out his hair since he had stopped getting the pill, and it was touching his ears now. He would have looked younger, if not for his face showing the exhaustion and wear.