The Experiment With No Name

I Am Not Insane

Fifteen years later E sleeps under the natural roof of tree leaves. Rain trickles around her and eventually wakes her up. E rubs her sleep-heavy eyes and looks up. The sky is dark with no light from the moon or stars or anything. The oddity only holds E's attention for a moment before she realized that the rain has just started pooling in the hole that she had slept.

At first, she ignores the water and only steps up one of the sides before laying back down to sleep. Within moments the Experiment is lulled into a deep comfort that will soon lead to dreamy night. But before she can fully fall into sleep E is awoken once again but the pooling water. Now the rain is much high though as it has quickly begun to fall faster.

With a sigh, E starts to climb the hill but can't. The dirt walls have turned into slick mud that her hands and feet fall through as she tries to escape. The girl starts to breathe heavily and think irrationally as panic seizes her mind. The walls are unclimbable and the water only rising.

E tries to remember how to swim but her mind is consumed by the idea drowning. 'Andria!' She screams to her only friend but there is nothing. Her mind is empty of the girl and of thought and reason until she sees a small boy standing at the edge of the every growing ravine.

Without thought, E pushes herself through the water. Gasping at the effort to keep her head above water she reaches out wildly, grasping for the boy. Finally, as her lips are submerged she feels the cloth of his shirt. She pulls hard, ignoring his scream of panic and surprise. With a loud splash, she sees the boy swimming next to her. Still holding his shirt she pulls again until his head is underwater, staring at her with terrified eyes. She doesn't care though, all that matters is her survival and she knows that the child must die for that.

With impossibly fast motions E pulls the boy towards her. His is slow as he fights, screaming with a stream of bubbles. E watches this as she pushes his body under hers and standing on his back.

Her head emerges from the water and gasps for air. She sees a frail old man standing on the edge this time but once again she grabs his feet and pulls him into the pool and under feet. She can feel the bones of his back breaking where she stands but her only response is a sinister smile as she captures another victim.

Now she stands on the edge and looks down at inky water that she has defeated. An overwhelming sense of joy and satisfaction falls over her as she watches hundreds of bodies rising to the surface. Some are old, some young, some women, some men, some with the swollen bellies of unborn children and others so skinny you can count their ribs. The ones that lay face-up share a look of terror and fear and it only adds to E's happiness. She brings her hand to her mouth and tastes the metallic blood that covered it. Her killings had become more than a need to survive, they had become a private hobby that always brought a smile to her face.

E screams as she returns to reality. She finds herself standing at the edge of a lake, similar to the one of her nightmare but it is no longer filled with the corpses of victims. Now it was only a pale blue filled with silver stars and the faint light of the thin moon.

E took shaky breaths trying to calm herself as she watched the water ripple and move with the chilled air. Her mind was still empty, Andria still wasn't there but E knew that she hadn't left. The girl quickly forgot about this anomaly though as she watched the water change. She didn't know what had changed until she realized there was a small mass in the middle of the lake. It was crying and E recognized the voice as Andria's. Without thinking, she threw herself into the freezing pond and swam.

Too quickly she reached Andria's childish body and tried to drag her to the rocky shore that was further than she had remembered. E couldn't stay afloat much longer holding her friend so with deep regret she let her go and swam away. She swam as fast as she could but just when she thought she was safe a smell of rotting meat hit her. E didn't have any time to react before her foot was grabbed a bloated, wrinkled hand. She fought with her dying strength but to no avail as her head was pulled beneath of churning water.

E kicked at the body holding her but it suddenly gone, falling into the blue abyss. Or at least she assumed it was, she didn't stay under the water long enough to watch. The young woman gulped the crisp air with relief as her lips broke the surface of the lake. Her lungs burned and she was lightheaded with dark spots clouding her vision from the lack oxygen.  A loud screaming started in her mind and quickly realized Andria was there. Her body wasn't sinking because it was her body. How could she have forgotten.

E was pulled out of her trance by the yelling girl. 'E, get a hold of yourself!' She screamed what a thick voice that would have been found with tears if she could cry. She sighed and laughed as she noticed that E was back into her own sensible mind. 'I thought we were going to drown.' She sobbed. 'I tried to fight, to swim, but I couldn't move us so I just started talking and then yelling because you just weren't there. You just...you just...I don't know, your mind just slipped away and I just thought that we would sink to the bottom.' The girl was unconsolable.

'I don't know what happened.' E responded with shock as she began swimming towards her campsite. She had moved around a bit over the years but now she had finally settled deep in the woods in a state she wasn't sure of but now she felt like she was losing her mind. Over the last year she'd experienced halusanations but they were far from this.

'I can't live like this. We'll spend our life with a crazed mind or blood soaked hands and I know it's difficult but you have to decide for not just yourself, for me too. I will not choke on your insanity so please just do what you know you need to.' The disembodied girl pleaded.

'I can't.' E said flatly.

'You have to.' She continued to insist.

The two sat on the rocky shore while Andria whispered and begged, finally breaking E's resistance.

'Okay.'