Happy Pills - The Story of Kevin Free

A Vision of White

  The walls are white. So horribly, horribly white, reflecting the light from above. The room is small, but not too small to pace, yet Kevin does not pace. He sits, curled in the corner, breathing heavily. His body shakes with need, which overcomes him like a rising tide.
  Yes, the tide is rising, and Kevin is drowning.
  His teeth feel unnatural in his mouth. Too sharp, and too smooth. His vision is blurred, and black around the edges. He pays no mind to it. The need is more important, and his shakes become spasms.
  That's when Kevin realizes that he's restrained. His arms are crossed in front of his chest, and strapped to himself. Looking down, he discovers he's in a straitjacket. He leans against the padded wall, and feels the leather strap of the muzzle strapped over his mouth.
  The need only gets stronger. He's screaming now, shaking violently and struggling against his restraints, desperate to feel something.
  Anything.
  I need blood.
  The vision of Desert Bluffs burning, and image from what feels like so very long ago, flashes through his mind.
  My fault. My fault. My fault.
  A centipede, impossibly large, emerges from the acrid smoke, and coils around Kevin's once beautiful city. It smiles with hateful eyes, revealing row on row of sharp teeth.
  Strexcorp's fault.

  Kevin wakes with a start, gasping for breath. His hands tremble as the horrible nightmare fades only slightly.
  No, he thinks, not just any nightmare.
  His throat feels tight, and he realizes that tears are running down his face, not only from his normal eyes but also from his third eye. The vision has cleared his mind of Strexcorp's brainwashing, and clarity chokes him with the horrible realization.
  I failed Desert Bluffs... and this new vision... will that be my fate? I can't let it happen! Maybe there's still time to change things!
  His hands close around something that encircles his neck. He frowns as he realizes that he can't remember what it is. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he can't remember anything after being taken for training. He doesn't even know what day it is.
  The growing number of gaps in his own memories make Kevin uneasy, and a slow-burning anger begins to take hold of him. How dare they do this to him?! To his town?!
  A low growl rises in his throat as he forces his mind into submission, and drags the memories out against their will. The faint glow of his open third eye illuminated the dark room as the lost memories flashed across his mind. The fall of Desert Bluffs, and the nightmarish things he'd been through since. The centipede room, which still made him shiver, even in memory, and the horrible training procedure, and how hollow and happy he'd felt afterwards.
  He remembered operating the radio station, so different from his own and yet, so heartachingly familiar... and he remembered that the device strapped to his neck happened to be a shock collar. He remembered how it burned like a lightning strike the first time he'd gone off script, though he seemed to recall that being accidental.
  Feeling sick to his stomach, Kevin rose to his feet as his third eye closed again.
  "No... they can't get away with this any longer," he said to himself. "I... I have to fight back."
  The dark thought rose in the back of his mind that he shouldn't fight, that the situation was hopeless, but he shook it off.
  "If I don't... who will?"

  That morning was the first time Kevin was really aware of his surroundings, without any effects of Strexcorp's drugs. His room was small, with cold grey walls and floors. His bed was bolted to the ground, and all he really had on it was a thin mattress and a soft blanket. Despite himself, he smiled at the memory of being given the blanket. Diego may have seemed sinister, but he was the only one in this place who had showed Kevin any kindness at all.
  At the front of the room was a metal door, which was locked. It seemed it could only be opened or closed from the outside. Above it is the end of a stripe of lights in the ceiling that cross the room and fill it with a harsh white light.
  Kevin sat down on the bed, silently planning. The shock collar would be problematic, but he resolved to suffer through it. If a dream could shake him out of whatever brainwashing he'd received, then maybe he could find a way to get everyone else out of it too.
  Kevin keeps that dim spark of hope in his mind as his room is unlocked, and he's escorted to the radio station. For a moment, he wonders who controls the shock collar, as it seems to be operated remotely, but he soon decides that it doesn't matter. All that matters is trying to get through to whatever remains of the minds of his people. Desert Bluffs' people.
  Is there even a Desert Bluffs anymore? He wonders silently. In his heart he knows that somewhere, outside this massive complex, is his home. His town. A ghost town now.
  He shakes his head at the thought. There's still hope! I am The Voice of Desert Bluffs, and I will not be silenced!
  For the first time without the influence of Strexcorp's drugs, Kevin sees the radio station. It's uncomfortably empty. And yet, he has the feeling that he wouldn't like it any more if it had been decorated in some way.
  Focus, Kevin.
  The radio station, if it can even be called that, because it's still a part of the same building Kevin's been in since being taken-
  How long has it been since I've gone outside at all?
  -has plain black walls, with a yellow stripe circling the center of the room. The carpet is flat and grey, and reminds Kevin of perhaps a steamrolled sheep. At the far side of the room is broadcasting equipment, a microphone, and a desk. Kevin feels uncomfortable as he sits down.
  This isn't my desk. This isn't my microphone. This isn't home.
  But the equipment still works the same, and Kevin knows how to run it better than he knows anything else in the world. He smiles at a familiar static hum as he puts on the headphones. He picks up the microphone, and he begins to speak, completely ignoring the script set in front of him.
  "The future is what you make of it. Let's make something worthwhile. Welcome to Desert Bluffs."
  The shock is immediate.