That's what they say

We are not crazy.

But we are not people.

At least, that's what they say.

We are their theories.

Their projects.

Lab rats.

None of the other experiments here really know how this happened. Or why we were chosen for this sick existence they call a life.

There's a few things I could tell you. A few names and things I've figured out. Most of the names are meaningless to me now. But the later will be keeping me alive for, I really can't say.

But here's what I used to know.

I used to know my mother.

I used to know her face.

Her eyes.

Fear.

That's what I remember most about my mother. The fear.

Because the monsters were just as real for her too.

Because they weren't just illusions like very one said they were.

They were real.

They could see us.

They did touch us.

And hurt us.

But father didn't believe us. Even when we came to him with proof.

Mother would have unearthly claw marks etched deeply into her skin from when the monster tried to take us. We confirmed it, but father claimed that she did it to herself for attention.

He had her locked away. And tied up.

But nobody was more shocked than papa when her poor corpse was found hewn in piece. The ropes still restraining her.

Her heart was gone.

And the nightmare we lived through with papa were somehow worse.

Because the last thing he knew in his life, was that he was wrong.

And then it killed him.

Conrad and I woke up to screaming. At first, we thought it was mama. Then, we realized that it was us.

But not jut us. The chorus of fear was on everyone's lips.

Maybe we preached the loudest. And maybe that's why we were chosen for what came next.

Beings very alien to me and my brother came, separated us.

And asked us about the monster

The monster that killed papa.

That killed mama.

Wanted to kill Conrad.

And me.

And then they told me something that shocked my being to the core.

The monster was me.

And then I was restrained.

Ana they tried to evoke the monster within myself.

When that didn't work, they took a knife and cut into my pleading forehead.

As they drew blood, I panicked, and flinched.

The knife deepened into my scalp.

And then I felt it.

Just like how I knew about mama before I saw her.

Like papas realization was his last.

Like this realization.

The scientist chose the wrong brother.

And that was the last thing they knew.

The monster was Conrad.

The monster was always Conrad.

We are not crazy.

But we are not people.

At least, that's what they say.