A/N: Be easy on me. This is my first Psychonauts fic and the first time I've tried my hand at writing for quite awhile. Constructive criticism is welcome.
Disclaimer: Look, I live in Kansas and write fanfics in my spare time.
Psychonauts: Corruption of the Mind
Within the confines of one of the most advanced laboratories in the world, bathed in the dim lighting provided by computer monitors and what little light Sheegor had left on. Down here, within the cold confines beneath the Geodesic Psycho Isolation Chamber, two beings stood. One was munching happily on a piece of cake, his little turtle legs carrying him in his search for any crumbs he may have dropped. The other, a tall, pale man with dark glasses covering his eyes and a carefully neutral expression on his face, hunched over a monitor.
He was a renowned scientist, one of the best researchers employed in the Psychonauts, and matched only in his psychic prowess by the Mental Minx. He had fought psychic terrorists, delved into the most twisted of minds with little hesitation, lived through nightmares that would drive lesser men insane…
…And through all of that, he had noticed a pattern. It was faint at first, but it was becoming more and more apparent by the day.
It was the blackest of thoughts. The darkest desires of the human mind. The kind most people have during moments of extreme frustration and anger--"I wish that bastard would rot from the inside out!" "That asshole needs to burn." "I'll kill him one of these days. Make him suffer."--and immediately discard, locking them up in a forgotten part of their mind along with their shame at thinking such thoughts.
It is in that corner where it begins. An entrance is made, a door opened. Those thoughts, left untended, are often shackled down with shame, cellmates with a furious rage kept silent. They give birth to nightmares, hallucinations, manias... Things that eat away at a person's sanity, overpower their censors, and splinter their personality. These inner demons often created a doorway leading to other twisted minds.
The Black Spiral. The Shadowed Labyrinth.
They had many names for it, but it was a rare Psychonaut would speak of it, even if they knew it. Those who stumbled into the dark recesses of another's mind inadvertently peered too long into the Shadowed Labyrinth; most were doomed to fall to insanity. Some of the best minds the Psychonauts had ever seen were lost to this strange occurrence. It was found in every mind, young or old. In some minds it could barely be seen; in others, its presence is so obvious that some of the bravest Psychonauts grow pale with fear and refuse to set foot inside the mind. Studies suggested that it was part of the reason why Ford Cruller's psyche couldn't be healed. It was one of the largest mysteries in Psychonauts history--and one of Sasha Nein's obsessions.
For the past five years, he studied it closely. Going so far as to create a machine that allowed psychics to traverse through their own mind. Seeking it out in the minds of his students and colleagues who shared his interest in tracking it and, God willing, finding a way to reverse its effects on Cruller's mind. He was careful, though, to keep others from wandering into it and stayed cleared of it himself. It was a fascinating mystery, yes--but it was also dangerous. Over the course of his studies he had learned several things about it. It was the mirror of the Collective Unconsciousness and, theoretically, could be used to visit the minds of those a Psychonaut had never met before.
Recently, that theory was put into practice and proven.
Morceau Oleander's treason. Ford Cruller's shattered psyche. Lili's nightmares. The strange visions Rasputin witnessed within his own mind. Sasha understood now that these were all connected, and all came from the same source.
Somehow, someone has found a way to use the Black Spiral. And they were using it to destroy the Psychonauts from the inside out.
And they just succeeded in kidnapping the Grand Head of the Psychonauts.
Spitting out a harsh curse in his native language, Sasha Nein whirled away from the console and sprinted out of his lab in a flurry of motion that left the only other inhabitant of the lab spinning in his shell.
The door has opened.
