Deep in the earth there was a concrete tunnel underneath a parking lot. There was a little room with many people crowding inside the cramped space. The space also held machines and equipment that most modern people and foreign countries didn't know of.
There were many tubes, wires, laptops, and papers along with monotremes and chairs and books. But the unseen element that filled the room and permeated the air was fear.
Fear pulsed through the people's veins; it gave the room an uncomfortable level of anxiety.
No one knew what was happening to Mae as she screamed and pointed at the air. All they knew was that it had something to do with Technasma. The slit eyes, the compulsive fear, and the unnatural behavior were all obvious signs of an extreme case of Technasma.
Even though Eric who paced near the farthest wall didn't know what harm Mae could come to from the disease while she was tied up. The doctors knew. They wanted to observe her functions and monitor her heart rate while she was in the fourth stage of the disease.
They needed a way to recognize Technasma before it reached the extreme stages. That's what they'd been working on in recent years, but most people's symptoms weren't nearly as pronounced as Mae's. This was the opportunity they needed.
Technasma was supposed to reverse behavior and leave the affected individual feeling different and wrong and that didn't fade away. For an outgoing individual, it would push them to become quiet and empty-minded. For a quiet person, such as Mae, it would make them louder than ever.
There was an unproven theory certain members of the team of scientists believed and that was that hallucinations were part of stage four of Technasma. They believed that those hallucinations were usually little things like hate text messages or false perceptions of other people's emotions. They were the things that over time, the brain would blow over proportion and cause the individual to lose their mind. Knowing it mustn't think of those dark and dangerous things, it cannot help but do so because of reverse psychology. Their fragile mental state pushes them into stage five, and that was the end.
Stage five was the only one people have known of for centuries. It was the only one that was impossible to miss; it was suicide. The other stages were steps in the staircase to a self-inflicted death caused by a brain paralysis on the frontal lobe.
No one knew what Mae saw. They only wished they could keep her restrained long enough to study her, calm her down, and then interview her.
Until she could ride out the hallucinations, she'd be a feral animal. People would just have to deal with her screams and thrashing about. The hardest part was letting her suffer without interference. They desperately wanted to help her rather than study her.
The heart-tearing blade of her voice was so ear-piercing that several doctors had to sit down to endure them. It's simply human instinct to aid someone in that much pain and distress as Mae was in. They ran about her, none of them quite able to look at her in the eyes.
Eventually, the doctors finished their tests. They took her samples to the lab a few doors down. Eric, watching her writhe about on the table, reluctantly headed for an exit. Just before he escaped, Mae screamed after him.
"No! Eric don't go! Please we need you! Please! Help them! Please!" The woman screamed her first intelligible words as she continued to fight her restraints.
At the sound of his name, Eric froze. The doctors pushed him closer to Mae in their curiosity. "Mae, I'm here. How can I help you?" Eric spoke softly as she flailed about.
"Eric! Let me out! They're killing them! They're going to die! Er- Eric," her voice sobbed in cracks and piteous moans that bore into every part of his soul. He had to restrain himself from freeing her then and there.
"Mae." Eric's voice broke as a tear began to roll down his cheek in his distress at seeing her so distraught, "Who's hurting them?"
"Can you not see?" Mae wailed in her hoarse voice. "Him!" She pointed.
Looking over to the door where Mae had gestured to a spot where no one was standing, Eric nodded for her sake. "Okay, Mae, I will save them. Please, just rest here and these nice men will take care of you. I trust them and you should as well. Please, try to rest. I'll be back with your children in a bit."
"Okay, okay," Mae spoke. She took several deep breaths to slow her racing pulse
Following the signal of a doctor who beckoned him away from Mae, Eric walked out of the room, looking over his shoulder at the woman he secretly loved. Continuing to look back, a doctor urged him to get sleep while they waited for Mae's hallucinations to subside.
As the gentle tap of his footsteps echoed throughout the halls, Eric's emotions were everywhere. Swirling with different colors, his mind wished more than anything for her condition to improve. Mae deserved happiness for once. After all that had happened to her in these past two years, he just wanted to be with her. He vowed that once this was over, he'd make that dream a reality.
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The Post Sunday Experiment | COMPLETED 2020
ПриключенияAfter his parent's divorce, Ody Winter moves to New York City with his mother, leaving behind the rolling hills he and his sister grew up on. Two years later, they learn that Ody's father, scientist Devlin Jax Winter, died from a peculiar suicide...
