Committed to Survival

Rather fix the camera in its hoister now, I'd wait until I wasn't around the water. The path out of this place felt long and oppressive, the sharp smell of mildew at this point drilling a painful ache in my head. I shut the mesh door behind me and trudged up the stairs to the first landing, where a tolerable light source awaited.

MKULTRA program, CIA document no. 190691, p. 1, excerpt

To: File

Subject: Hypnotic Experimentation and Research,

Febuary 10, 1954

On Wednesday, 10 Febuary, 1954, hypnotic experimentation and research work was continued in Building 13 of the Mount Massive Preserve in Colorado using the following subjects.

material abridged

1. A posthypnotic of the night before (pointed finger, you will sleep) was enacted. Misses Jackson and Pierce immediately progressed to a deep hypnotic state with no further suggestion. Miss Pierce was then instructed (having previously expressed a fear of firearms in any fashion) that she would use every method at her disposal to awaken miss Jackson (now in a deep hypnotic sleep), and failing this, she would pick up a nearby pistol and fire it at Miss Jackson. She was instructed that her rage would be so great that she would not hesitate to "kill" Jackson for failing to awaken.

2. Miss Pierce carried out these suggestions to the letter including firing the (unloaded

pneumatic pistol) gun at Jackson and then proceeding to fall into a deep sleep. After proper suggestions were made, both were awakened and expressed complete amnesia for the entire sequence. Miss Pierce was again handed the gun, which she refused (in an awakened state) to pick up or accept from the operator. She expressed absolute denial that the foregoing sequence had happened.

In the least my little souvenir was interesting. Hypnoses to cure fears, or force a person to perform a desired function. I read files on this but the fancy didn't strike me, people liked to read those sorts of articles but I wasn't prime on reporting them.

I left the file on the landing and made the ground floor. I exhaled a breath of relief to see my surroundings unchanged, whether good or bad. At least the big fucker had left most of the building intact. I made my uneventful trek back to the Security room, I didn't like the idea of a gaping hole behind me at this point, but I wasn't about to prop that heavy metal door up with that little rolling chair.

Call me lazy, I just wanted to get the doors open and put a fuck lot of distance between here, and the remnants of my healthy psyche. I wasn't going to be normal after this, alright?

The terminal looked like it would still function, some of the monitors seemed to be spazing out from the abrupt shut down. The main root, system controls, was up and ready to go.

I managed to type in the first half of Security before someone crashed into me from behind, I didn't even hear them enter. I tried to push back and throw them off but they had braced a knee into the back of my leg, the edge of the terminal bit into my bruised thigh. I already knew who it was even before he braced his arms over my chest, pain rippled up my side as he wrenched my head up. Something metal flashed across my vision. A needle!

It was jammed into the base of my neck, my vision flashed as whatever the hypodermic was filled with drowned my senses. He released me and I collapsed against the desk, my forehead started to tingle and I immediately worried over what was in that needle. I leaned against my arms struggling to drag my failing strength back, but it was impossible. The blue chair rolled over the clean portion of the floor as he nudged it aside, and moved close beside me. I turned my head to watch his movement, his foul black robe swelled along my peripheral vision. Getting hard to focus. Felt like my legs were turning into jello.

"I'm sorry, my son, I didn't want to have to do this to you." He revealed the needle and grasped my hand. "But you can't leave, not yet." I jerked my hand away from his clammy grasp and brushed him off. I tried to turn, push him away. I want nothing to do with you. Nothing! Just let me Leave!

Without the support of the desk my legs gave out. The Priest caught me under the arms and lowered me to my knees. My shoulder pressed into the side of the metal desk as I stared up into his face. He was bald, with wild eyes that frightened me. "There is so much yet for you to witness."

Oh god.

"Will you see it? Can you?" With one arm latched to my side, he used the other hand to turn my head towards a gray video feed. My thoughts were muddled, it was a room. Camera looking down in a room, with a desk, wall with windows. Bright windows. Everything in that room was bright. A symbol. Rings on the floor. Sharp ovals. People in the room. Holding guns. Looked like MHS cops. The guy I watched die. I tried to get out….

"Our lord the Walrider, tearing His truth into the unbelievers." They were dying. My eyes drooped but I fought to keep focus, what was killing them? Dragging them off, throttling them, blood everywhere. This place was turning red, full of blood. Blood up to my knees, I was running from my shadow. What did they see? What was killing them? What did he put into me?

"The only way out of this place is the truth." My head rolled back to him. The drugs made me weak and heavy, and I couldn't care less for what he was saying. The lights dimmed and I sank to my side. His last words rang through my mind.

"Accept the gospel and all doors will open before you."

The dark.

There was safety in the dark. There was comfort in the dark. The dark was the unknown. The dark was all encompassing. The dark was unmovable.

Unless there was light. That terrible light.

I awoke once, enveloped in white, everything was bright and painful to bear. By my side was a dark shape, the Priest. I blinked and he was outside the door, it looked like he was speaking to a man with ants crawling on his face.

Maybe it was a dream. The road was very long, and it was already night. It didn't matter what time visiting hours ended, I planned to snoop around the grounds anyway and pick up whatever looked incriminating. But I had to film something concrete, or my contacts would just scoff.

When I arrived, the patients were wandering the front lawn in white shrouds. Something without form was tearing through them, tossing their bodies like broken toys against the walls, muscle and lungs were tangled in the barbed wire. Amidst them was Chris Walker, the other patients had bowed before him. It didn't look like he cared. His face was splint back in a cruel grin, but his eyes were milky and dead.

Once I had gotten away from the Asylum, I collapsed in the woods. Everything hurt, my body was broken. Death wasn't the punishment anymore. I didn't have to worry about paying the bills, a girlfriend, my next job - nothing mattered. The fight was over. I curled up in the wet leaves and sank into a deep sleep, the dead of winter closed in, but not even the cold could reach me. There was just the indiscriminate black that awaited at the end of it all.

A soft groan escaped me as I roused, clearing the short rest from my stiff lungs. I opened my eyes to view murky shapes, odd lines in the white walls. The damn light was too bright, I turned my head and felt the dull pain in my neck reminding me of the previous events. Everything felt muggy and pointless to my mind, but at least I was alone.

It felt like I had slept on the world's hardest substance, the material crinkled nastily as I shifted. Smelt like a retirement homes bad day, but at this point I didn't give a damn. Same scenario if you were drunk off your ass, you didn't give a damn where you passed out. I put a hand to my collar and brought it back. No blood. Probably bruised like hell, but otherwise fine. My brain was still working out the crap that guy injected me with, should probably be the least of my worries.

For a while I lay on that stiff cot, staring at the walls until they came into focus. Crosses and words scrawled everywhere. Some of it in blood. I took it this was His cell.

I didn't feel ready to resume my personal vendetta for freedom, but options were a luxury I feared I was now banned from. Time was my worst enemy, and my chances of walking out alive dwindled the longer I wavered. Either way, I didn't want to be here when He returned.

Slowly I sat up, making mental note of the injuries that had set into my body. I coughed a bit of blood onto my sleeve, but that didn't alarm me. But I would check in to the hospital first chance I had. A real hospital.

Very considerate of the Priest to leave the camera, but he had reinforced his desires into me that I was to be his Apostle. I flipped the visor open and raised it to the walls.

"The priest, FATHER MARTIN brought me here to show me something. Thinks I'm going to be a witness for whatever batshit crazy he's trying to sell me. This DR. WERNICKE is at the center of whatever went wrong here. But he died more than ten years ago. 'Rest in Peace,' says the blood on the wall."

Fuck the story, when I get out of here I was going to write a New York Times best seller. "How I Survived the Worst Tip in my Career." By Miles Upshur. In your face, Oprah.

The door had no visible lock or latch mechanism. How did I get out? Maybe if I pushed.

That didn't seem to work, but as I peered out of the small window a face shot into the lens of my camera startling me. A click echoed, and the figure darted off. Though the door was now wide open, I waited. I had no idea what was out there, let alone where the hell I was NOW. I hadn't seen much before he unlocked the cell. But the question I needed answered immediately, where was I in this god awful place? Far from the safest exit, of course!

Tentatively, I crept forward, but what was I going to do if someone decided to come in next? I wasn't hiding in here.

This was better than Disney land. I think every ghost hunter in the world would donate a kidney, just to spend a night in this place. It was the main ward of the asylum, its heart, where all the crazies hung out.

Below, I saw a few of the frequents. One man patrolling, smashing his skull into blood stained concrete with bone cracking force. I winced with each impact.

"Back! Get back!" To my right a man lunged at a segregation gate rattling at the bars, shrieking his lungs out. "Get the fuck away from me! Rrah! Huh…don't look at me. Don't you dare…."

I whirled away from him, relying fully on the doors capacity to withstand his violence, even if fate did not favor me this hour. I walked along the bland and gray wall, glancing down to the people on the lower floor. Had they been this messed up before Murkoff got ahold of them? They were using dream therapy to alter their higher cognitive functions of the mind, didn't look like these people had that treatment. Even if they had, I still wouldn't be able to distinguish them from your typical lunatic.

I shuddered to think if Murkoff had been trying to cure their mental deficiency in order to use them for further experimentation later on.

The smell. Like all the filthy alley ways and slums in every city in the world. I could hardly breathe without gaging, filth was everywhere. It was a miracle these people weren't dead from contamination. Or maybe it was some sort of curse. This was no sort of life for a human.

The window parallel to my face burst open and a hand shot out, grabbing for my head as I ducked. I smashed against the rail and stared up as the arm continued to grope blindly for nothing, then withdrew. The shock wore off quickly and I stood up to gaze on the face that met mine.

Skin had been cut and moved, tacked down in cruel areas. It looked like his right eyelid had been removed, the eye now a shriveled sack in the socket. Despite his earlier 'attack,' I think I felt sorry for him.

I was still glad his door was locked.

The next door was open, but I could change that.

"Said he shouldn't hurt you," a voiced hummed from within.

Inside, opposite to a blood splashed corner, stood a man pawing at his face. He too had been mutualized by some form of surgery, one eye stitched shut and his face scarred by malpractice. "Is what he said."

I glanced around, then turned back to him and raised the camera. "Father Martin?"

"Our Father," he corrected. "Told him not to hurt you. But when the cat's away….Hmmmm….Mmmmm."

Everything in me screamed, slam that door now. But I didn't. Quietly, I backed away and left him as he was. If he was a danger, he was the least of my concerns. Shutting the door might agitate him, and there were people on the floor below that seemed to not have noticed my presence yet.

I slipped around the pillar of the next corner and walked towards the metal door on this side of the level.

"Who's this?"

I stopped in my tracks and stared at the speaker, cloaked by shadow. That was all they were cloaked by.

"Maybe…Farther Martin's man."

"Maybe." The first seemed excited by my presence. My hair stood on end and I knew without a doubt, I should not be near them.

The thick metal gate stood between us and presumably was locked, but I couldn't make that gamble. Even without the NV I could distinguish their lack of apparel, their shapes were tall and sinewy, and they appeared to be identical twins. Splattered with blood.

"He looks nervous."

"I would like to kill him."

I hid behind the pillar a little more.

"As would I…" His voice made the task sound tedious. I really didn't want to be here at this particular moment.

"The preacher asked us not to."

"It would be impolite."

"Not here."

They paused.

"We give him a running start?"

"There's an idea."

"And when we kill him, we kill him slow."

"Such patience."

I was done. I was gone. I was staggering down the steps searching for a way out of this mad house. "I want his tongue. And liver."

"They are yours."

Was there a way out? Not from down here, the only route I could see had the camera shy freak and my new fan club. They were giving me a running start. What the FUCK did that mean?!

"You look like you've seen a ghost." Said the man staring at a pillar. I decided from this point on, for the safety of my psyche and my body parts I did NOT need to speak with ANYONE. They could talk to me, I was not going to converse back.

Someone darted from the group into an open door, and slammed it. One less to worry over. Two men still roamed, there was a third sitting in a wheelchair. I didn't trust anyone in a wheelchair anymore.

The two rooms on either side of the stairs had nothing to offer, no tools or messages, or items of interest. I had a fear of standing in the doorways, unless someone opened the door from the outside I could be locked in. The man staring at his pillar, he had been the one to let me out in the first place. I didn't want to ask if there was a way out of this area.

The Priest had brought me here, how the hell did he get out? Unless, he was still here….

"Don't trust them." I jerked away from the man in the wheelchair, I had given him his distance though it was doubtful he could do much. His mutilation went beyond the laws of humanity, scars and broken flesh healed over.

I raised my camera and knelt down, but I refused to get too close. "They'll tell you it's science but it's not. They were…waiting for us. In this place. Billy understood. They've always been here."

I wanted to ask him about Billy. About the experiments and the Walrider, and what he meant by 'they.' But I was frightened by what he might say. If he said any more. Uttering this information had seemed to exhaust him, and his head wilted to his shoulder. Briefly, I wondered if he had fallen asleep or had he finally escaped this place.

I shivered and stood. A way out that involved my body and I escaping together, and in one piece. That seemed like a naive dream.

I didn't bother with the door behind him, or the one after that. Though, as I passed by a face appeared in the glass. I stared, and 'he' stared back. My mind was attempting to fathom how someone without a mouth could survive, unless there was a tube in his nose, but even his nostrils were compromised. It looked like there was an opening in his throat, reminiscent to smokers that suffered cancer and had their larynx removed.

This place was god awful. I had to keep reminding myself that, the more I looked around, the more I felt. Even for a clutch of crazy people, murderers, whatever. I think the worst ones were the men and women that consciously decided they were going to mangle the part of them that wasn't broken beyond function. Then, crack their minds open and figure out to what extent they could fuck their thoughts up even more.

I was between feeling terrible and feeling like bitter justice was served. Everything was a whirling mess of gray with globs of black.

One room I entered on the far side had a patient curled up on his cot, trembling. I knelt down to film him through the nightvision feed, taking in the details of his misshapen face. Many of the patients I had encountered thus far had scars or wounds of unknown origin, from experiments Murkoff was performing on them. It was briefly mentioned in Chris Walker's file, many of his injuries were self-inflicted, but the report indicated not all. Were the patient's the one mutilating their bodies, prior to Murkoff's fall? Not all of them shared these injuries, some appeared almost normal or unharmed.

It must have been a part of the process Murkoff was putting them through. But what sort of process I couldn't begin to imagine. Some of the scars appeared almost like chemical burns in theory. What sort of monster would give an order to maim humans?

"Too many voices. They followed me back." He stumbled into me as I swayed to get out of his way. "No more sleep." He grabbed my collar and forced me aside, and then continued on toward a bloody spot on the wall without pause.

Wack.

Smack!

Crack!

Clack!

"They're in my blood and they want to get out. Can feel…."

I continued to back away until I was a safe distance, concealed in shadows. My back pressed against the cold wall and I slid down to sit.

"We angered Him with our science. He only wanted faith."

The voice sounded very close, but when I turned my camera to find him, he was a few feet away curled up tightly in a corner. I sat there for what felt like a long time observing the habits of these people, lost in madness. Eventually the man whom stared at pillar did move, at first leaning on his subject matter, then slipping down until he was on his side facing the cold concrete structure. I turned my attention back to the man in wheelchair, but he had not yet moved since he spoke. I wondered if he did indeed die. It made no difference to me, not at this time, but I did feel a unique chill in my veins at the thought. How many people have I watched die today?

"Voices in my head follow me back!" When the head banger made his third round, I decided it was time to find a way out.

Without a word of farewell to the squatter, I crossed to the other side of the wall to doors that had not been examined. I was beginning to despair, surrendering resolve to the idea of returning to the upper level, to the twins.

It was very likely they would open the door only to murder me. There was no place for me to run, or hide. Especially with the two of them, they'd corner me with little effort if I tried. My heart thudded against the stress, and that persistent pain in my chest. I needed a doctor.

A door I opened finally offered some promise, the back of the room was shattered revealing a crack into an open work space. A shred of concern did remain in me to enter a room in which I could not open from the inside, but I didn't give a damn at this point. I squeezed through the gap and pulled up the nightvision, it sounded like someone was struggling.

I wasn't confident in facing the source, if I had someplace to run I might felt more assured. Truth was safety was an illusion in Mount Massive, my only hope for survival was my capacity to elude danger.

There wasn't much to see in the work hall, pipes for water, pipes for gas, I couldn't tell which from the static green NV feed. The noises were muffled but grew louder as I moved through the work space. I didn't like the sound of them. Overhead the cement had been torn out, where the debris was removed to remained a mystery but it was a direction to take.

I climbed onto a crate and made sure it was sturdy before leaping up to an overhead ledge. For a span I was completely blind in the dark, the camera strap I stuck in my mouth rather the case so I could reach it quicker. Once I had pulled myself onto the floor I knelt and took it up, looking immediately into the visor.

A face covered in ants stared back.

I gave a sharp yelp and toppled sideways, catching the jagged edge with my elbows before I fell through, my legs swung beneath me and I struggled not to drop the camera in my hand. Groaning, I pulled myself back up and crawled away before checking once more.

"Agh! God damnit! What the fuck is the matter with you?" One of the patients had plastered himself against a wall and was fixing his shirt. He wasn't wearing pants. On the floor across from him was a bloodied and decapitated body, nude, in a…suggestive position. "You weren't invited to this, you god damned sicko."

Just….This place needed to go to hell. Some of the people here did deserve what they got.

"What, you like to watch?" He pointed directly at me and reaffirmed his diagnosis. "It's sick. You're sick."

And thus my pledge, not to speak to any of these people, was solidified. You couldn't stage better propaganda.

"Fuck this place. Seriously, just fuck this place. Dying keeps moving lower on the list of the worst things that could happen to me here."

I jogged down the hall, an otherwise good mood literally—No, no. I needed to forget. Positive thoughts, healthy thoughts. I was terribly fucking lost, had no map, two naked men were admitted into my fan club, and dying was no longer top of the list of shitty ways to ruin this day.

Or night. I had no fucking idea.

"Hey! Hey!" I stopped in an intersecting hall when someone called for me, and rattled a gate. He was on the other side, which made me happy. "You… Oh. I…." By the time I had my camera zoomed in he had already spun about and was running away. The small event had me smirking despite everything, who did he think I was? A friend?

Lord give me strength, I was just mistaken for a loony. And I thought it was funny.