Crimson Reality

Part One: "I Didn't Kill Them"

The white coats only ever let me out of my cell for sessions with the psychiatrist. They all know it's as much of a waste of time as I do, but they still do it. There are very particular procedures and protocols in a loony bin, and no “patient” is an exception to the rule.

Early on I tried futilely to fight off the white coats when they entered my cell to escort me to the Drug Master's office. I quickly learned that all my protesting was little more than a waste of energy on my part. Either I could go along with them quietly, or get a big fat needle stabbed in my ass and be dragged there half-paralyzed and slobbering stupidly like a dog.

It only took five dances with the needle for me to decide I was better off simply accepting my place as their psychiatric prisoner. Some poor idiots have been here for years and still haven't figured it out yet. I doubt they ever will.

They think not putting up a fight means relinquishing control and giving into their bleak realities. Maybe they are right. Even if they are, I know pissing off the white coats isn't going to change anything. Besides invoking the wrath of the giant needle, all resisting does is inspire our captors to come up with new, even more twisted ways of torturing us when the boss isn't looking.

After all I've been through it would seem like I'd be numb to the brutal inhumanity I witness on a daily basis in this place, but most of it still sends a chill down my spine.

I suppose that means I am still human after all in some sense. Somewhere deep within my broken psyche remains some withering shred of dignity and morale. I know it's there because it wakes me at night, screaming through my own vocal chords.

I choose to keep it hidden from fear that someone else will notice it and try to incinerate it with more mentally debilitating drugs, or endless hours of brutal verbal harassment. It's best to avoid any extra abuse if possible.

I have watched too many people die in this place, even though their hearts were still beating when they succumb. Even those who didn't come here gripped by madness have been heartlessly driven to it.

I understand now. That thing I always took for granted, always thought was something only pansy tree-hugging morons loved to whine about when things didn't go their way.

Human suffering. The very thing I once trafficked in, foolishly believing I was so far removed from all those random victims' pain that I didn't play a real part in it at all.

Hell, I'm willing to admit that I made a nice profit off of the suffering and misery of others. I never thought twice about it, not even before I activated my website. For me it was all entertainment, a hobby I enjoyed sharing with countless other members who joined my site. The blood, the guts, the psychotic perversity of the atrocities people committed against one another. I didn't see any of the content I regularly posted online as anything any more sadistic, depraved or dangerous than some cheap horror flick no one but bored online pirates would bother watching for free.

Sure I knew the videos and images I was posting were real, but they weren't real to me. At least they weren't until someone out there made them real.

“Do you remember how you killed your mother?”

Dr. Anderson's robotic voice penetrates my thoughts, forcing my consciousness back into the confines of his tiny, overstuffed office.

As usual he sits across from me behind a modernly minimalist steel desk that's too big for the room. Given that the rest of his office looks like a cluttered library full of old wooden shelves, and ratty brown carpet, the desk looks as out of place as I always feel in here.

Today he has some noise machine alternating between rain forest and thunderstorm sounds which I assume are intended to soothe the frazzled mind. If anything the noise just makes me edgier.