Empath: Into the Shadow, Chapter 5

October 1st 2016 (Day 1 of study)

Will had never been to Massachusetts. He had drove the entire way there from Pennsylvania but any mode of transportation was completely covered and taken out of the check once the paid study was over, so he didn’t mind much plus he liked to drive. He had made it there in a day’s time after spending the night at his grandmother’s in New Jersey. She was getting old and Will knew he was probably still alive because of her prayers and also not to mention the prayers of his other grandparents and the rest of his family. Will had always been the black sheep. On his father’s side of the family, he was the oldest of the grandchildren but on his mother’s he was the youngest. Although being the black sheep, he kept his family close and talked to them from time to time, especially his grandparents because he knew they wouldn’t be around his entire lifetime. What most people don’t know about the black sheep is that they are usually the most successful and special. Will’s destiny was not yet written but in it he would do things no other person could do. He just needed to believe in himself first.

As he got closer to Cambridge and watched the orange, red, and brown colors of the autumn leaves, he was reminded of the decay of the cold that chilled him to the bone and left in him a sadness that came every fall only to be brightened by Halloween. He dreaded winter as it always brought him back to the night of his grandfather’s death and his first premonition. The holidays had always been hard for Will after that experience which happened two weeks before Christmas but he always looked forward to Halloween. It was the one-day a year you could be someone else. It was truly his favorite holiday and the only one he loved celebrating. This Halloween is gonna be different, Will thought. He just knew it had something to do with the experiments or study but he could sense the story was just beginning.

All patients in the study were supposed to be there at exactly 2pm and were given directions once they got to the campus to where the study would be held. Will parked his car and walked to one of the buildings on the outskirts of the campus. The study was being held in the basement and he followed the stairs down. Like it said on the directions, he took a left and came to a door with a note on a piece of paper taped to the inside that said "common room" and entered. There were a few other people in the room and as soon as Will registered the faces he recognized them all. A chill went down his spine and a feeling of déjà vu came over him but it wasn’t the faces, the room was familiar too. Will knew many of the names of the people in the room as he had spent time with them in the hospital. There were four people and they were seated in a circle of about a dozen chairs in the center of the rectangular room with a long probably one-way mirror on the other wall. They were already being observed.

“Will?” Bravo, his roommate from the last time he was at the hospital, said. “Holy shit man they called you too? No way!” Bravo said. Will sat down next to him with goosebumps on his skin. The group sat in silence and all were wondering why exactly the others were there. Jeffrey’s leg tapped and so did a few others from anxiety. Within fifteen minutes, the other patients came in and sat down all who had been admitted to Muhlenberg hospital in the Lehigh Valley. Once all the seats were taken the silence turned to babble as some chatted about how weird it was they were all there.

“What do you think it means that we all know each other?” Cody, a teenager barely nineteen, asked. There were an even number of five females and five males and the women let the men do most of the talking.

“I think that’s what they’re trying to find out. The connection between us,” Will spoke up, trying not to give much away. He knew more about the study then the others. Will had been the only one briefed by Justin before hand in person. They had met to talk a week after Kelly’s escape. Justin broke the vow of secrecy and told Will their suspicions but not all the details. He did this without permission from his superiors in the NSA and he could get in serious trouble if the information leaked. Will would keep his lips sealed but apparently they believed the psychic phenomena to be generated by a powerful telepath who was admitted to Muhlenberg maybe. Will had already surmised it was the one person who wasn’t in the room. Marcus.

* * *

Earlier that day, the halls of Muhlenberg hospital were deathly quiet in the early morning hours. Most patients slept, some tossed and turned, the few nurses and techs were awake but in a daze doing their routines and duties. A man in his late sixties with thinning grey hair wandered the psych ward a bible in his hands, dressed in a hospital gown and rubber lined socks. His teeth were rotted from years of neglect. Wrinkles lined his face with big heavy bags under his bloodshot eyes that seemed to be staring not at you but through you. He paced the hallways while everyone was asleep, a tech following him around as he went just a few paces behind. The man would stop sometimes and read the bible sitting cross-legged on the floor; sometimes he sat and rocked back and forth muttering obscenities in between prayers. He never slept, his mind always racing even with the multitude of tranquilizers and mood stabilizers he was on. His name was Marcus, and he had been in the psych ward for seven months. He had been completely awake most of the time only sleeping every few days for a few hours at a time. Marcus disturbed many of the patients, how he would sometimes scream obscenities and racist remarks at the minority hospital employees and other patients.

Abused as a child and very little family, Marcus turned to the bible but despite its words he turned into the man he hated, his father. Marcus remembered how his father would beat him in a drunken stupor, taking his anger out on his own children. Those beatings left a mark on Marcus; he vowed to never touch alcohol or indulge in any drugs. He had never even known the touch of a woman as he closed himself off listening only to the words of the good book, believing whole heartedly that all the love he needed was from God. Marcus had never sinned or so he believed but what he didn’t know was that his greatest sin was that he could not see past the color of your skin. The hatred he held for minorities plagued his every conscious thought. Today it was a black tech named Jasmine that followed him through the halls. She was beautiful, a knockout, but even Marcus couldn’t see that because of the color of her skin.

Marcus paced the hallways hungry, waiting for breakfast. Jasmine tried to keep up, happy that her shift was ending soon. Some of the other patients were beginning to wake, their grumbling stomachs waking them from their slumber. One named Abigail was the first to emerge from her room. She had been there almost as long as Marcus and was the only other patient that tried to engage him in conversation. She was in love with Anderson Cooper, the journalist for CNN, and believed they were in an affair despite him being gay.

“Hi Marcus,” Abigail said coming out of her room.

“Sinner,” he mumbled.

Abigail followed them. She followed Marcus for some reason unbeknownst to her despite his distaste for her. Abigail was attracted to his energy, she was addicted to it, and she fed off of it and would always seem to be in the same room. Even though the hatred didn’t reach her heart, the heavy feeling Abigail got from being around Marcus thrilled her in a sexual way. Her loins stirred in his presence sensing the chastity he still held despite his age. They all waited outside the cafeteria, the patients on the ground, Jasmine leaning against the wall until the trolleys of food rolled around the corner and the door of the cafeteria was unlocked. The other patients flowed into the room, each one giving their room number to get their meal. Things went about as usual as they all ate in silence mostly, a few talking here or there.

Marcus could feel all the thoughts passing through their minds. After he was done eating his meal, he began rocking back and forth, sucking all the energy in the room inward. Everyone’s hair began to stand on end like there was a chill. Some people began to shiver. It felt like the temperature dropped twenty degrees in seconds. Marcus’s mind touched a white man across the room. Through closed eyelids, Marcus saw the man’s hands clenched around his fork and knife as a young black man with cornrows sat down across from him. Marcus pushed, forming his thoughts like a spike, words formed silently on his lips.

“Fucking porch monkey,” the patient muttered under his breath.

“What did you just say?” asked the young black male, he heard clearly, the anger was his now.

“I said you’re a fucking porch monkey. Don’t sit next to me.” The words were not his own, it was Marcus having his fun as he rocked back and forth whispering the words in his mind.

“Fuck you honkie,” the black patient said and picked up his orange juice and splashed it in the other man’s face. The white patient stood up and wiped his face and starting screaming at the top of his lungs threatening black man’s life, saying he’ll string him up from a tree. The techs and nurses got between them before there was a physical brawl. They had to hold both men back and all the other patients left the room, scared, except for Marcus and Abigail who thrived in the chaos. Anger and fear swirled together like in a bitter cocktail, a drug they both enjoyed.

One of the techs was punched and security was called; by the end of the struggle, the white man laid pinned to the ground by two security guards. Later on the overweight white male would say he didn’t know what came over him, crying confessing he didn’t have a racist bone in his body. Marcus smiled silently to himself as he left the room, Abigail and Jasmine close behind like a parade down the hallway, as Abigail danced to the shouts from behind them. Marcus had enjoyed the entertainment, the thrill of the fight; he knew he was getting stronger. Marcus thought to himself, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me. And inwardly he laughed.

* * *

Kelly listened to the men talk she knew most of their faces but none of their names except for one of the other girls whose name was Kaitlin. In the back of her mind she heard Revelation 3:20 echo like it sometimes did. She pushed the negative voice away. She knew now that she was hearing scripture from the Bible, more specifically the book of Revelation. After her escape, she told Justin the phrases she sometimes heard. She trusted him wholly after the experience in the field of blue flowers. She knew now he meant no harm and was just trying to help her but maybe knew more then he let on. When they had spoke and she said, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.” The blood ran from Justin’s face and he became cold. Kelly felt the fear waft off of him almost in a smell and then a chill went up her spine feeling his fright. He told her it was from the book of Revelation. Later in another meeting he asked if she would be interested in the study. He had pulled strings with his superiors despite her recent suicide attempt.

Those days he had not had his computer in front of him. In the back of his mind, he knew it was orders to take notes at all times. He decided to be more personable and ditch the computer from now on and keep some things secret. He had not yet told any of his superiors he himself had heard a voice in his head driving him further into the woods. He had simply said he got lost from the search party. Justin decided to keep his personal emotions and beliefs away from the narrative he gave his superiors. But he did tell them about the phrase from the bible he heard not only from Kelly but was being written on walls all across America and heard by thousands of patients suffering from schizophrenia since about the seventies. The patterns had all aligned. That what brought all these people together again was something that may have been foretold not only by Christians but also in ancient Hindu texts that predates the bible. A prophecy as old as human history the great battle between light and dark forces over the earth.

Kelly could not see Justin as he was behind the one-way mirror. But both Kelly and Will knew he was one of the people in that room. They not only had their suspicions but they could sense him now in the back of their mind. In the room behind the glass was a multitude of monitors. There was a thermal camera and a regular one. Inside the room were a several sensitive microphones. They were so sensitive because not only were they there to record the conversation but also measure the room’s vibrational frequency. There were also sensors in the room to measure all electro magnetic activity, air pressure and even radiation. Most of these things were also hidden in the subject’s rooms in the ceilings or walls. There was not one place in the entire basement that wasn’t being monitored in some way except the room behind the glass where all the information was being sent to and stored on the securest servers the government could buy. Through this room there was a direct connection to NSA headquarters where all the data was part of a secret operation that predated the cold war the sole purpose of the No Such Agency. It was a very large room and in all there was only one NSA analyst and that was Justin. The rest were scientists who were the top in fringe science from all over America. They were all sworn to a vow of secrecy and none knew but pieces of the puzzle. A jigsaw they were determined to put together with this study.

The main scientist of the operation was a man named Dr. Lovecraft. He listened intently to the subjects talk waiting for when to make his entrance. He was somewhat overweight had thick glasses with large frames and a long white beard. He paced the room looking at the monitors somewhat nervous. This was the biggest and most important work he might ever do and he knew very little of it would be made public if at all. He stroked his beard in thought as he listened to the subjects reminisce about their time in the hospital and what they’ve been up to since then. When the subjects in the common room got quiet again he cleared his throat.

“Looks about time for me to head in…” Lovecraft said aloud. “Wish me luck.”

The man in his late fifties walked out of the secure room behind the glass the hallway connecting to the common room with the subjects. Another scientist followed him. As Lovecraft walked, a cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he wiped it away absently. He felt like he was going into the wolves’ den. He knew these people could possibly have heightened senses and could maybe detect lies. He had to be careful what he told them and keep his thoughts and emotions to himself if he could. I’ve never been one for giving lectures, might as well keep it as short as possible. The door opened and all eyes were on Dr. Lovecraft and the other scientist. Instantly some of the subjects thought of Santa Clause because of the white beard and gut if it wasn’t for the thick glasses Lovecraft wore. Most liked him immediately because of this fact. Lovecraft sat down in one of the few empty seats and put on a smile, the other scientist sat in another empty seat and seemed nervous.

“Hello, I’m sure many of you are wondering why you’re here and why you know all each other. I am Dr. Lovecraft and the lead scientist of this study. Now some of you maybe wondering what exactly we are studying, first off it is a new medication, completely holistic. An herbal remedy you might say, more importantly incorporating something into your diet. Some of you may be familiar with it and when introduced into the study, the new form of medication will be revealed. Now this is a two-week study. If it were completely up to me, I’d make it months but it took almost a year of preparation at that.

"The first week, you will be studied detoxing from your medication, which we’ve told you not to take three days prior or indulge in any substances. If you have, there is no problem there; we are studying the symptoms of detox as well. After the first week the new treatment will be administered into your diet. You will be secluded in your rooms most of the time except when performing tests and in the mornings for group to discuss symptoms and also to just get out of your rooms to socialize. This is a study looking to understand isolation and mental illness symptoms and the incorporation of this new potential treatment. You will have all the accommodations of a mental hospital except you will be kept mostly in your rooms. If symptoms become too severe, there are trained mental health professionals on duty and you have the option to take yourself out of the study at anytime. But if you opt out then you will not be paid the full amount of money that was agreed upon.

"During the study there will be tests but also to keep you occupied during your time in isolation, you will all be given sketchpads and notebooks which will be kept for study and not made public if you choose so. You may write or draw anything you like but we encourage you to journal and or ruminate on your mental illness symptoms and where exactly they might have began. These things will be given back to you once they are no longer needed for study.” Lovecraft paused and cleared his throat. Is that all? He wondered to himself. He was the one who came up with many of the different tests and the overall experiment. He knew he had told them all they should need to know and continued.

“Ummm… are there any questions?” There was a second of silence and Cody raised his hand. “There’s no need for that, just ask.” Dr. Lovecraft said.

“Why exactly did you pick us? I mean we all know each other and have met at Muhlenberg hospital.” Cody asked the obvious question,

“Yes I knew the first question would address the elephant in the room. Muhlenberg was the hospital that agreed to release your medical records to us to select participants of the study. We felt if you all knew each other on some level then it would be easier for you to open up in group sessions.” Lovecraft lied and almost all of the subjects knew it subconsciously. A few in the room said yeah right sarcastically in their heads to his explanation. A shared thought none realized but Will who hadn’t thought it because he knew why they were here and believed it should be kept secret. He didn’t exactly hear the sarcastic comment; he felt it, and knew they weren’t satisfied with Dr. Lovecraft’s answer but some of them blatantly showed in their demeanor.

A few more questions were asked. Kaitlin asked why the same number of males and females. Lovecraft explained they wanted to also study the differences in symptom severity based on sex as well, a half-truth but no one noticed. Another asked about meals and bathrooms. Meals would be served in their room and everyone got a menu for the next meal and had to circle what they wanted or put it in writing if it wasn’t on the menu. Any allergies were taken into account with selecting the menu. Lovecraft assured them the food would be better than the hospital and being cooked in the cafeteria of the university. There were also snacks and water available at any time. There was only one bathroom. To use the bathroom they had to use the intercom in their room, which is the way of contacting the study team for any reason. Some asked about the experiments, which Lovecraft simply said they were there to simply understand brain function of someone mentally ill and the tests would be explained to them when administered. That was the relevant data that would be released to the public eventually but the true purpose of these tests were to pinpoint who in fact was the most psychic. Once all the questions had been asked and there was silence Dr. Lovecraft cleared his throat again.

“Okay is that all the questions?” Lovecraft asked and was answered with nods even though many still had questions in their mind, for now they would remain unanswered. “Alright. If you’ll all follow me to your rooms where we will take a sample of your blood. This is one of the usual tests that will be performed regularly.”

The subjects followed the two scientists to the door they had entered from. They went down a hallway, which came to an intersection and made a right. They followed that short hallway to a door and entered. Inside there were doors to the subjects’ rooms on both sides. Each was marked with a roman numeral up to ten or X. At the end was a desk where there were two mental health professionals. One was a male and the other female. As the scientists and subjects entered, the two in scrubs stood up clipboards in hands.

They were shown to their rooms where the subjects were told to change into hospital gowns. In order by number of their rooms, their blood was taken. They were also given paperwork to sign, many not taking enough time to read the fine print. Will and a few others did and apparently they would always remain anonymous when things were released to the public. Will wondered if anything would. By signing the documents, they weren’t allowed to disclose to anyone information about the tests conducted in the study or else it would in fact be breaking the law. Will had to reread that part a few times. He wondered if that was actually true. What if they are the ones who break laws? But it did confirm what he had already known there was more going on here than met the eye. They were signing a vow of secrecy and he wondered if this vow was broken if their lives would be in danger.

Will pushed those paranoid thoughts away; Barack Obama was still president but how much did he know about this operation? Was he involved in some way? For years these thought’s had plagued Will. In 2013 when the patterns aligned his first hospitalization and he felt doom on the horizon then. He had believed he was in some way connected to Barack Obama. That’s the first time he met some of the people here including Justin who never flat out said he worked for the NSA, he had simply told him about the theory certain mental illness symptoms like hallucinations and delusions aligning with reality somehow. They thought it went back to one person who showed up sometime before the Cold War. That this person was in fact the opposite of Will but somewhat the same and had some of the same capabilities. Not an empath but a telepath. They even suspected a war of some kind and thought there were multiple. He even briefly mentioned that they could be powered by something greater. When Will had inquired what Justin said, “We don’t know exactly. Something ancient. Everything is connected somehow.”

Justin was vague but Will knew the NSA only had pieces of the puzzle. They were trying to keep this whole operation hushed from the public eye unless there was something they could use for political gain most likely. Will knew the timing just before the election wasn’t a coincidence. His paranoid supposedly delusional mind swam with thoughts and many were reflected in the thoughts of the other patients. They all seemed to know there was something going on deeper then what the study was about. After the blood was taken from each subject some of them started writing or drawing in the notebooks, others just laid or sat on their beds. In what was called the Hub of the basement the scientists watched the monitors and took notes as to changes in measurements or the subjects’ behavior. Dr. Lovecraft paced the Hub looking at each monitor. Justin sat on a stool in the corner and watched the older lead professor walk back and forth as he watched the subjects from his laptop. Justin took a sip from his coffee cup and decided to break the silence in the room. He closed his computer and walked over to Lovecraft.

“I would like to talk about who we should put in the tank,” Justin said.

“I think it’s a bit early in the study to decide on that. It’s not until a few days before we even think about using the tank,” Dr. Lovecraft said.

“You don’t know the patients as well as I do,” Justin said and continued, “I believe Will Brown is the most obvious choice to go in the tank first. Hopefully you’ve read my reports on him, he is the most trustworthy and in my opinion shows the signs of being truly psychic. But my second choice would be Kelly Marshall as she is one of the patients that has heard Revelation 3:20 in her hallucinations. However I believe if we introduce subject #1 Aya Tawnee, it might be a risk as her psychosis is that she is a pyrokinetic. I think we should keep her away from the tank despite being one of the first choices for the study.” Justin looked for a reply from Lovecraft. The old professor stroked his long white beard and walked into the middle of the large room away from monitors and Justin followed. Lovecraft put his hand on the sensory deprivation tank deep in thought. The tank was directly in the center of the circular room.

“Ahhh yes subject numero uno. The only one admitted to Muhlenberg once during the three years we noticed the pattern. I concur that we should be wary of putting her in. As it says in her file a diagnosed pyromaniac linked to several arson cases but like she claims there was no accelerant found at the crime scenes in official reports. She can’t seem to manifest fire but can control it but only when alone for some reason or so she claims. You think putting her in she would be able to further evolve her powers maybe create fire,” Dr. Lovecraft said and Justin thought for a moment before he responded.

“Yes and no. Subject #1 may be what we are calling elementals but it is my fear and the fears of my superiors that she is working for the other side. We believe she might be indeed one of these so-called Dark Workers.” Justin spoke almost in a whisper so the other scientists hopefully didn’t over hear. Dr. Lovecraft stroked his beard and turned to the young NSA analyst.

“So you believe this is a war like most of us do? That there is something with these patterns, more then meets the eye,” Dr. Lovecraft said and Justin looked over his shoulder making sure the conversation wasn’t being overheard; none of the other scientists were close enough to hear but Justin just nodded anyway in case. Lovecraft put his hand on Justin’s shoulder and patted him. “We will figure something out even if it’s just another clue, we will be closer to the answer before the president is out of office. I promise you that,” the old professor said and they both walked back over to the monitors. Justin sat back down at his desk and opened his laptop. They looked into the monitors at the subjects and Justin enlarged Subject #1 Aya Tawnee. From the angle he couldn’t see the burn scars on the side of her face but he could make out that she was drawing a flaming eye in the sketchpad.

As she drew the eye she always saw in her dreams, Aya became bored because she didn’t have color of some kind to put in the flames. What the scientists knew and she didn’t was that some of the subjects drew the same eye. Will was one of them, they had all described a flaming eye where the pupil was in a figure eight. It had been found all over the world but no one could trace the origin or who first drew it. The flaming figure eight eye was just another piece of the puzzle they were trying to put together. Aya decided to write about her experiences like they had suggested and traded the sketchpad for the notepad. She decided to start as many had from the beginning of her memory. As she wrote Justin watched intently, wondering just what was in the contents as it would only be available to him at the end of the study. As Aya recounted her tale, as many of the subjects were now doing, the scientists watched the monitors and measurements. All seemed normal at the moment as their blood was analyzed on campus in a separate laboratory. Soon though, patterns would align and the whole experiment would bring them closer to the battle that had been going on since the dawn of time.