A Horror Story *READERS BEWARE*

The Experiment

  In the summer of 2003, a pharmaceutical company created a new product in their line of sleep aid; it was an altered form of Melatonin, a natural hormone found in animals and plants that helps regulate circadian rhythms and promotes sleep. The scientists chemically altered this compound to produce faster, more efficient results, the first phase of testing of this product was done with fourteen volunteers, the first seven were given normal Melatonin, and the other seven patents were given the experimental altered version. They were to report the results every day after waking up. During the first week of results showed that the patients using the experimental Melatonin fell asleep 45% faster then the other patients, but their state of sleep was slightly different, they were entering REM sleep much faster and experiencing it much longer, and had much more vivid dreams then the other patents.

During the next week of testing two patents using the experimental drug experienced sleep walking, one reported awakening in their outside shed on a chair, disoriented but unharmed, and the other reported waking up on their couch after walking down a flight of stairs in their sleep. The next few nights, three more patients experienced sleepwalking, and the next night all patients reported sleepwalking.

The next week similar results continued, the patients with the experimental drug were sleeping longer, and much deeper; two of the patients lost their bottle and requested a new one. The next week all seven including the two from last week reported losing their bottles, they also appeared quite anguished; two large bags sunk under the patients eyes. Fearing the drug might cause memory loss or even addiction, the researchers asked the patients to set up video cameras in their houses if they wanted to continue with the testing process. Strangely, all patients agreed immediately then proceeded asking for more of the drug.

The next week the patents lost seven bottles again of the experimental melatonin. Fearing for the worst the researchers asked to view the videos. All declined except one who was absent from the group, the seventh patient was also absent from reporting the details of the drug over the last few days, any and all contact was cut off as the patents phone line was dead. An investigator was assigned to find out what happened.

When he got to the house the door was ajar, he peered in and yelled hello into the home, no reply. He took a step in and heard his shoe hit liquid. A closer examination showed it to be blood, he looked down, and a severed hand was next to an envelope. Inside was a tape. The tape contained the following message:
"No one expected me to fly, is this a lucid dream or reality? I just don't know anymore. Such fragile times when you look into the face, when you go up to a baby and rip off its head in front of its mother just to see what happens, just to see the look on her face, and the look on my face, when I pinch myself, and pinch my hand, pinch again and again, the screaming only getting louder, the pain feeling more tangible, why wont I wake up? I can't rip off a babies head in real life, I'm not allowed to pick up a baby, holding it so it faces down, I can't feel the soft neck in between my hands as I twist it like a corkscrew, a cry of pain followed by swallows, followed by the gag reflex, then the crunching of the babies neck, the babies eyes look at me without expression as they fill with blood, then as I twist more the sounds of ripping and blood emanate from the babies mouth and neck, eventually the spinal chord breaks away and the baby becomes two entities, then I look up at her face, I run run run, back to my house, and wake up in my bed, was it all a dream? It was so real.."
The tape stops.

The investigator looked down again, more blood, a different trail this time, it lead to the kitchen where a severed leg and arm, or what remained of an arm, lay on top of a stool. More blood trails, leading into the bedroom, a smashed video camera on a tripod, another severed leg, and a two empty bottles, each with of a months worth of medication, were near the entrance.

The bed was in a veil of darkness, and the investigator took out a flashlight and shined it on the bed, looked a moment, and vomited. What the investigator saw haunted him for the rest of his life, no one can explain what happened or how it happened – there was the last severed arm on the ground, in it clenched tight with rigor mortis and super glue was a large sharp butchers knife. On the bed, backed up against the wall, was a body with all limbs missing, a large smile forced onto his face with needles and safety pins, eye lids forcefully opened with super glue, and around his neck through an ice pick, string wrapping around, was a babies head.

The pills were recalled and the testing stopped. The patients, after months of rehab, managed to recover from the drug.

Though in the tape, he detailed the screams of a woman after murdering her baby, no such woman ever reported her baby murdered. After DNA testing, the babies head had no matches on record.