The Institute

I've gotten used to the screams every night, that blast through the paper thin walls of this place. Let me start over.

Sometime last year, I think, I was kidnapped from my house. I went to bed peacefully. When I woke up, I saw a man in black aiming a gun at me. The gun had a red laser pointer, that much I do remember. I remember it going up and down my body. Then, I blacked out.

When I woke up, I was in a 12x12 cell. Even death row inmates aren't confined to that small of a space. After about a week, I was taken from my cell, and escorted to the warden's office. He told me that I was now a test subject for "The Institute's" new treatments. He wouldn't tell me what kind of treatments. He said it would ruin the treatment if he did.

After our discussion of treatments and sports, I was escorted to a new cell. To my joy, this cell was much much bigger. It was empty though, white floor-to-ceiling walls. White wall-to-wall floors. No furniture. No anything. Just a giant mirror. I could see that they had shaved my head, and dressed me completely in white. Wait, let me rewind just a second.

I had heard some rumors of exactly what was being done in here, a few days before my meeting with the warden. I had heard it was a new Auschwitz. Maybe we were going to be repeatedly dipped in hot and cold water. I guess nobody really knew why we were here.

After wandering around my blank room for what seemed like hours, a man entered. He had all white clothes on. Except his white shirt had a giant letter “F” on it. And so everyone else did too. He said his name was Hans, and that I was to be taken for a test on the fifteenth floor. We walked through the colorless hallways, and rode the colorless elevator, until we reached our colorless destination. We walked together through the doors marked “PBJ Room.” It too, of course, was completely white, with a clear glass table in the center. Hans instructed me to wait next to the table for the first test. A few minutes later, two men entered with a rolling table, with a covered dish on top of it. They rolled the table through the room and up to my table. He set the dish on my table, and left the room. A few minutes later, a tall man in a long white coat entered the room. He was wearing a name tag that stated that his name was Marshall.

“Patient number one suffers from Arachibutyrophobia,” he monotonously uttered into his tape recorder.
“Excuse me?”
“Please sir, I insist that you not speak. Patient number one is the first of our test subjects, and we are all interested in what will become of him.”

How could he know about my fear? I’ve never told anyone about it. Have they been spying on me? Hundreds of thoughts flew through my brain as he uttered into his recorder. I thought about running, but I could never get past everyone with these heavy shoes on. He finished his recording and placed the machine in his pocket. As he lifted the cover off of the dish, the lights above us reflected off the pan, onto the walls, and into my eyes, blinding me for a few seconds. When I regained my composure, I saw my greatest fear on a table in front of me. Let me go back further.

Ever since I was a young boy, I had always had a horrible fear of Peanut Butter sandwiches. They killed my brother. He would dig the butter out of the jar, and eat it off his fingers. One time, the butter stuck to the roof of his mouth and suffocated him. Fast-forward back to where we were.

I looked down on the sandwich and began quivering with fear. The doctor, well I guess he was a doctor, hit me and commanded me to eat the sandwich. I screamed for help, but it appeared that the walls were sound-proofed.

“If you don’t eat, then you will be here for the rest of your life. NOW EAT!!!”
“No,” I said, fighting through the tears.
He tapped a button on his coat and yelled, “Hans, please come here, patient number one needs some assistance.”

Within seconds, Hans walked through the doors with white gloves on, and pried my mouth open. The doctor picked up the sandwich, cackling like a madman, and began to lower it to my mouth. I couldn’t help but urinate on myself out of terror.

“Before I do this, I need you to do me a favor.”
“(Crying).”
“I need to look over to that small black spot on the wall, and smile. You’re on Scare Tactics. Your friend Jeremy set you up man.”

Jeremy ran into the room laughing, and I collapsed.