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Post by debralee on Aug 12, 2012 11:08:59 GMT -6
Thanks for more chapters. Must be a better paying job this time. Hope he dosn't "grow a 3rd leg" from this one.
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Post by rvm45 on Aug 12, 2012 19:50:22 GMT -6
Steve, I started your story a couple days ago, then got side-tracked. What I've read so far is great. .....RVM45 Got all the way to the end this time. Reminds me of the Summer that I worked on the Carnie... Though I was working for a ten dollar a day draw, which meant $40 cash on payday. Like to have starved to death.
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Post by steve on Aug 13, 2012 18:35:11 GMT -6
PART #0016
"$100 bucks?!!"
"Alright," I remembered Victor Harrelson say, "Calm down. Let me tell you the whole story first."
He told the whole story or, at least, as much as he knew.
The tests that Scientific Research Analysis ran, in the realm of scientific progress, were insignificant. None of the tests were cures for cancer or anti-aging miracle drugs or anything like that. The bulk of the tests, as I had figured out through my own experience, were psychological in nature - How much would you pay for this statue? How about this one? Look at this person's face and tell me how you feel about it. Now look at this other person's face. Even the limited medical tests were merely confirmational studies of other studies - Do overweight Hispanic males aged 50-65 with a history of alcoholism react negatively when consuming this pill for headaches? Which sleeping pill design appeals most to women, age 18-29, who are taking contraceptives and make less then $15,000 dollars per year?
As a hypothetical example, suppose a research firm figured out that, for them to conduct a test, it would cost $100 dollars. That research firm then hires SRA to conduct the test for $80 dollars, saving the research firm $20 dollars. The SRA then figures out how to conduct the test for $50 dollars, making $30 dollars in gross profit. Oversimplification? Yup, but that's how SRA kept it's doors open and busy all year round.
In order for SRA to be profitable, though, the tests had to be simple and fast. No fancy equipment was needed, no specialized training required. Most of the tests were performed inside of an hour or two. Anything more complicated or time consuming was beyond SRA's budget.
"Occasionally, though, we allow other research facilities to use our network of test subjects, though," Victor continued explaining.
And there was the crucial point - SRA's most valuable asset wasn't the building it occupied or the test conductors or even the paltry equipment and resources that it possessed. The SRA's most valuable asset was us... The guinea pigs. Do you need 10 white males, age 50-62 with a history of violence-related convictions? How about 40 women who have conceived more then 3 children within the past 10 years? Would you like Hispanic female cigarette smokers between the ages of 29-40 who also have a history of knee problems? Retired plumbers with chronic high blood pressure? When you're a pharmaceutical company and you need 15 people aged 80-99 with a history of cataracts to test a new drug, the SRA is your toy catalog.
"Word is that it's NASA," Victor explained, "But who really knows. It's the government, though, and they need five test subjects and they need them now."
The test, naturally, wouldn't be conducted by SRA. Victor didn't even know what it was, just that I fit the requirements that they were looking for. I had been a good guinea pig so far and, as Victor bluntly put it, "I'd rather give this to someone like you then some pothead who'll blow it on weed the first chance they get."
How could I say 'No'? It was $100 bucks. $100 bucks that could pay off the rent, pay for groceries, put a little cushion into the bank... I hadn't even made $300 bucks off of SRA yet and I was fairly consistent in taking as many tests as were offered.
Of course I said 'Yes.' It was $100 bucks. The test was being run by the government. Besides, what could possibly go wrong?
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Post by steve on Aug 14, 2012 14:57:33 GMT -6
PART #0017
In a room just barely large enough for ten people, five people sat at a long table across from a man who looked like he had walked straight out of an executive boardroom meeting. I was one of those five people, each like myself - Young, male, physically fit for our age but none of us were bodybuilders or professional athletes.
"I thank you all for volunteering on such short notice," the man said in a soft, smooth voice you'd expect to hear on a television advertisement for a luxury automobile. He pushed forward to us five stapled booklets that we passed out amongst ourselves.
"The booklet is comprehensive but let me briefly summarize the experiment: The experiment involves using a method for preserving the physical condition of a human being. The experiment involves placing a subject, mainly yourselves, into a chamber of gel for approximately one day," the man continued to speak.
"There will be physiological tests both before and after your time in the chamber to measure your physical condition. The tests will be mainly those that you are already familiar with - Push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups... Those sorts of tests," the man stated.
"I want to be clear to all of you that, like all experiments, there is some risk. Prior test cases have resulted in individual incidents of rashes, headaches, diarrhea, constipation, erectile dysfunction, muscle spasms, tooth aches and joint soreness. However, we feel that these adverse symptoms are below the normal incident rate, meaning that we do not feel that there is a causal effect concerning the experiment at this time," the man clarified.
"All of you are free to ask questions and are equally free to decline any further involvement in this experiment. So, are there any questions?" The man asked.
"Yeah," I said, "I've got a question: Where do I sign up?" I meant it.
Pointing at me, the man smiled and said, "I like your spirit."
Turning to the others, he asked, "Any other questions?"
Silence.
Five minutes later, the man had five signatures in hand. Tomorrow, the experiment would begin.
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Post by steve on Aug 15, 2012 18:46:22 GMT -6
PART #0018
Bring a set of gym clothes.
Bring showering gear and toiletries (like a toothbrush).
Bring a set of regular clothes, complete with regular shoes and socks.
The place - A series of rooms in some basement in a building I had never been in before. The whole area was one big industrial park full of nondescript buildings. Each building looked like the other.
It was strongly recommended that we shave off our body hair for the experiment. The reason was simple - The gel smelled. The smell could be washed off of the skin but, apparently, hair was a nastier prospect to clean. Hair was simply easier to cut. Obviously, we were allowed to keep our head hair (which would be put into some sort of swimmer's cap), eyebrows and eyelashes. Everything else, though, and I do mean EVERYTHING ELSE, was recommended to be shaved off. So, I took an electric razor and went to work. The results weren't perfect but it would do.
The instructor leading the physiological beat down was a man twice as broad as myself, a few inches taller and eighty pounds heavier. The man looked like he had just stepped off the stage of a bodybuilding competition.
Jumping jacks, push-ups, chin-ups, sit-ups... Every exercise you could imagine. We went onto some treadmills for some cardio and ran on them at sprinting speeds for what felt like forever. We hopped onto some exercise bikes and biked as though our lives depended on it. We lifted weights of every type for every muscle group imaginable.
I have to be honest - I almost gave up. I know that one guy was absolutely gassed about two hours in. He went to sit down and they led him into another room. I never saw him again.
We got breaks. Ten minutes here. Five minutes there. Nothing long enough to catch our breath, just give us enough time to walk from one series of exercises to the other. They even gave us a snack break of some store-made cookies. Was something in the cookies we ate? Who knows. We also drank from the water fountains nearby and drink we did. Water had never tasted so good in my entire life.
By the time the exercises stopped, my knees were dead. Literally, I could not get my legs straightened to save my life. I hobbled around like a little old man. I remember taking huge, heaping gasps of air. Sweat was pouring off of my body. My vision was hazy. For a few moments, I honestly felt as though my heart was going to explode out of my chest.
Staggering to the nearest water fountain, I drank what had to have been a gallon of water before the instructor gently pulled me away and walked me over to the showers.
My legs wobbled while I stood to take a shower. My arms trembled as they struggled to lift a normal bar of soap. Everything hurt. Everything was sore. I looked over to see only two other people showering with me, both of them as oblivious as I. Where the other two were, I have no idea.
After drying off, we were told to put on what could only be described as a large, bulky, plastic-feeling adult diaper. I remember giggling to myself at the sight of this garment and another one of the volunteers blurted out, "It's the underwear of the future!" To which the rest of us briefly burst out laughing as uncontrollably as our bodies would allow. Yeah, we were punch drunk at that point but we felt that we had earned it.
The adult diapers were snug and featured two prominent holes - One in front and one in the rear. Plastic tubes were inserted into the holes and even though we had figured it out fairly quick, we were told the tubes were for our bodily wastes. Yum.
Clear plastic goggles went over our eyes, fastened snug to our face. Our noses were pinched shut and a breathing mask fitted with a tube was placed over our mouth. Obviously, it was for breathing air while we were inside the chamber.
The gel was cold. "Oh my gosh" cold. The gel was a bright, pinkish, watery sludge. I was instructed as to where the emergency release lever was in case I panicked and had to escape the chamber. Trust me, you couldn't miss it - It was the only freakishly huge lever inside the chamber.
My memory became hazy as soon as my body went vertical, the cold gel filling the chamber. People were talking but I wasn't paying attention. My body wanted to sleep. I wanted to sleep. Lord, put me under because if I have to stay awake another two minutes, I might die.
"Hey," a heard a distant voice say, "Come outside and see this, it's kind of weird."
"Yeah," another voice said as the chamber filled up with gel, "Let me just put this guy under first."
Those were the last words I can remember hearing. As soon as the gel reached my neck, I was out like a light. The End.
March 14, 1984.
The last normal day in history.
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Post by steve on Aug 16, 2012 14:03:10 GMT -6
PART #0019
What was my first memory? Floating. Floating in warm oatmeal. Floating in warm oatmeal in total darkness.
How long had I been out? It felt like forever.
I was thirsty. Very thirsty. Something smelled nasty. Not as in "feces nasty" but just... Spoiled. Lukewarm. Something cold that's not meant to be lukewarm, like milk.
Moving my arms and legs felt... Odd. It felt slow and labored. Moving my arms and legs shattered the illusion of floating in nothingness and I could definitely feel the gel or the oatmeal or the... Whatever it was.
Something was on my hands. Gloves? What kind of gloves were they? Weird gloves with long fingertips. Curved fingertips. That couldn't be right. I couldn't ball up my hands without those fingertips brushing up against themselves. They felt hard. Weird.
I wiggled my toes. I flexed at my ankles. Rolled my wrists. Moved my shoulders and elbows with as much range as I could.
OK, how long was I supposed to wait until they let me out of this thing? Time stood still when there were no clocks around.
I began patting myself down. I tried putting my hands up to my goggles in an attempt to determine if I could see anything. Nothing. My swimmer's cap felt... Hard. Smooth and hard.
What ultimately motivated me into action was the sensation that I had a tube stuck up my butt. Don't laugh because it really was as gross as it sounded. It wasn't even stuck a little up my butt; The thing felt as though it was all the way up my intestines. It was gross. Every time I swished around inside the chamber, I could feel that d**n tube. Gross. Ugh.
Even if I wasn't done with the experiment, I was done. I reached for the lever inside the chamber that was supposed to be the "emergency exit." Grabbing it, I gave it a yank in the only direction that it would yield. The lever was impossible to pull; I resorted to a spirited series of yank that began to have some results. Slowly, the lever began to move with each successive yank.
Than, suddenly, I heard a soft metallic "TOONK!" followed by a hissing sound that progressively got louder until it suddenly stopped in mid-hiss.
I felt the oatmeal, gel, whatever it was begin to recede. Soon, I was going to be free, collect my $100 dollars and never again volunteer for something so crazy and stupid. My mind already began to think about getting back to work and all the other mundane routines that I had developed in my new role as "Night Stock Clerk."
If only it would have been so easy...
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Post by kaijafon on Aug 16, 2012 16:35:38 GMT -6
really good story but I need MORE!!! lol!
Sorry I didn't comment earlier, I just "found" my password. lol!
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Post by steve on Aug 17, 2012 12:57:13 GMT -6
PART #0020
Splish.
'Splish' was the sound I heard when my bare foot hit the floor.
'Splish' was the sound of shallow water, lower than my ankle but not by much. My foot also felt something granular, like sand or sediment, on the floor.
Off came the nose clip. Splish.
Off came the goggles. Splish.
Out came the tube from my mouth. Plbaugh! The hose didn't fall onto the floor but smacked onto the side of the gel chamber, making a soft, slowing metallic tapping sound.
'The f**k...?' I thought to myself as I was greeted only by silence, by water, and by...
Darkness. Nearly as dark as the pitch blackness that had greeted me inside the gel chamber. The air felt stale, warm, musty and thick. I heaved a few breaths, attempting to wipe my mouth before...
"Ow," I reacted to the sharpness of my glove...
Wait a minute... Even in the darkness... I felt my hands for a moment. They weren't gloves. They were my hands. I wasn't wearing gloves which meant... Those were... Fingernails? The f**k?! I could feel that my fingernails were longer then my own f**king fingers! The f**k!!
I crossed my feet and felt the ends of my toes from one foot with the heel of my other foot. I could definitely feel long toenails. How long were the toenails? I couldn't tell but long enough. Far longer then I would ever allow them to grow.
"Hey!" I shouted out to the silence, "Hey, is there anyone here?"
Silence.
"Anyone?"
Just then, I realized I was still wearing the 'underwear' with the tubes attached.
A slow, careful but sturdy yank was all that was necessary to dislodge the tube that was stuck up my butt. The underwear dropped to the floor. Splish.
'The f**k...' I just kept thinking over and over in my mind, each time becoming more nervous as the darkness, the water, the gel covering my body and musty air all converged their unsettling properties onto me all at once.
$100 dollars... No, not even $10,000 dollars, was worth this s**t.
"F**k," I just muttered to myself as I began to slowly, blindly, make my way over to a wall... Any wall.
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Post by patience on Aug 17, 2012 18:56:48 GMT -6
Get him the heck outa there! You're making me nervous...
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Post by steve on Aug 18, 2012 4:59:01 GMT -6
PART #0021
Of course the light switch didn't work. F**k.
The d**n gel was beginning to sting my eyes, not like I could see anyway.
"This isn't funny!" I yelled out, feeling my way along the wall, making splishing sounds the entire way. I found that I had to walk slow with my feet slightly splayed outward from each other in order for my toenails from each foot colliding with one another.
I felt a counter-top after a moment. Paper. Something... Wet and icky. A faucet? A faucet. It felt like a faucet. It felt like one of those "lab" faucets, the one with high arching necks and steamboat "paddle wheel" knobs on either side.
"Turn, you f**ker!" I growled, frustrated that it was taking all of my strength attempting to turn one of the knobs. Of course it didn't turn, no matter how hard I tried turning it. I tried turning the other one which snapped off in my hand, the sudden breakage causing me to lose my balance, sending me careening towards the ground.
Splash.
"F**K!" I yelled out in frustration, quickly getting back up.
Then I realized it - If all I wanted was to wash this 'gel' off of my body (and that was just one of MANY things I wanted at this point), I could simply use the watery... Whatever it was (I was hoping it was just water) that I was splishing around in on the floor.
I spent the next couple of minutes trying to rub the gel off of my body in the almost-ankle deep water as best I could. Personally, I'm not sure if it made all that much difference - I went from being sticky-wet to being merely wet and still sticky at some parts. And who knows what was in this "water." For all I knew, the lights would turn on and the "water" on the floor would be blood or puce or urine or something else entirely horrible. Sewage, maybe.
One of my discoveries upon trying to get the 'gel' off of my body was my head hair: I was a hippie now. My hair was so freakin' long it almost went down to the middle of my shoulder blades. Great.
I finally got the idea to get out from the ankle-deep water by sitting on the counter-top that I had found in the darkness. It would give my feet a rest.
As I sat upon the counter, slightly shivering from the cold, slightly shivering in fright, slightly shivering in shame (Hey, I'm buck NAKED throughout all of this, remember?), I began to start thinking tactically. You had to think tactically - You had no choice.
Had there been an earthquake? A hurricane? Tornado? Tsunami? Were we at war with the f**king Soviets?
"If this is some sort of test," I yelled out, jabbing one of my fingers into the darkness, "You guys are all f**ked! I am going to sue your a**es into f**king bankruptcy! This was not in the f**king contract! I'm giving you ten f**king seconds to come out of hiding and end this s**t NOW!"
Silence.
Silence for ten seconds.
Silence for a minute.
Silence for... For a lot longer then that.
What the heck was I going to do?
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Post by kaijafon on Aug 18, 2012 17:47:13 GMT -6
this is getting so good!!! I'll be happy to read as much as you can post
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Post by kaijafon on Aug 18, 2012 22:13:51 GMT -6
ok, it's been 5 and 1/2 hours..... is there any moar yet? ? cause I'd love to read it ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!! lol! Please and thank you
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Post by steve on Aug 19, 2012 4:53:23 GMT -6
PART #0022
Sitting on the counter, I made a mental map of where I was. I wasn't an amnesiac; I knew why I was here and where. I just had to focus and figure out what was the most important.
Food? Water? Warmth? Clothing? Sanitation? Protection? Communication? "Yes" to all of them and to all the ones I couldn't think of at the moment.
I figured that I wasn't going to get anywhere sitting buck naked on a counter top in complete darkness, so I hopped off of it back down into the almost ankle-high water. Splish.
Given that the emergency handle inside the chamber and the faucet handles of the sink had both been difficult almost beyond my abilities, I was shocked when the door to the room opened with only a cosmetic but horrific creak. If ever there was a moment where I felt like I was in a haunted house, that was it.
KKKKccccrrrreeeaaaakkkkk.
All that was needed now was some creepy organ music and a vampire popping out of nowhere.
The hallway was just as dark, just as musty, just as... Everything as the room I had exited. My biggest concern, wading through the water in the darkness, though, wasn't a masked man with a machete bent on killing me just for killing but something worse - Some rusty nail on the floor that I couldn't see.
If my mental map was accurate, there was a changing room just down the hallway from the room with the test chambers. A changing room with my clothes in it. A changing room with some towels.
In the near pitch darkness, inches felt like feet, feet felt like yards and yards felt like miles. Shuffling through the water both to avoid cutting myself on the toenails that I knew about and any possible sharp objects on the floor that I didn't wasn't making progress any faster.
By now, a part of me knew that this was real. My predicament wasn't part of any contrived test. A room could be dressed up to resemble anything but an entire hallway as well? And how would they be able to see in the dark?
I had to concentrate on how many doors there were between the changing room and the test chamber. The changing room was near a corner of the hallway, on the same side of the test chamber. The plan was to waddle through the water until I reached the corner, then work backwards.
First door... Second door... Third door... Fourth do... Wait a minute.
Now I remembered... The changing room didn't have a door knob, it was like one of those typical gym doors - Blank on one side and a handle on the other. This was the door. Pushing it open made the same creaky sound effect as the other door.
Here was to hoping I'd find something useful, hopefully my clothes and maybe, if I was real lucky, a pair of nail clippers.
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Post by kaijafon on Aug 19, 2012 13:27:58 GMT -6
Thank YOU!!! I have to wonder if he is going to EVER find some clippers....but I'm thinking garden pruner may have to be used! lol. and will he go back and see about the OTHERS!!!! ?? thank you thank you thank you!!! (see how demanding encouraging I can be when I find my password? LOL!)
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Post by debralee on Aug 19, 2012 19:09:30 GMT -6
That "test" must have taken a long time. Wonder what he will discover when he gets out of that building...Thank you.
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Post by patience on Aug 20, 2012 6:42:19 GMT -6
Sounds to me like he has been in there for YEARS! Well preserved, though so the "experiment" was a success? Heckuva situation....
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Post by steve on Aug 20, 2012 17:57:42 GMT -6
PART #0023
I needed light. I needed warmth. I needed clothes. I needed nail clippers (badly, I might add).
After stumbling around the changing room and rifling through my duffel bag, I got... Moldy clothes that crumbled upon unfolding. A tube of toothpaste that had liquified at the top half of the tube and solidified at the bottom. A toothbrush with bristles that were as flaccid as hair. Stick deodorant that had evaporated. Strangely, my small, plastic hair comb felt like it was bought from the store yesterday.
The changing room wasn't large but felt larger in the darkness. It wasn't a locker room - Only a few lockers adorned one wall next to a changing bench and a sink mirror at face height. A partial wall divider led to a lone open shower and two toilets. Beside one of the toilets was a plunger which felt surprisingly intact. Each toilet had a roll of toilet paper in their dispenser that felt crumbly to a degree.
The other lockers held the other volunteers' clothes and belongings but, in the darkness, I only felt three sets and not five. I can only guess that the other two guys cashed out before sleeping in the gel.
Their stuff was no better than my own - Shoes that began to fall apart upon light handling; An open soda can that now housed a colony of ants (a fact that I discovered about one moment too late); A light jacket with a sleeve falling off; A hairbrush that, surprisingly, was mostly intact; A dead electric razor.
Feeling around inside the lockers, I found a pack of cigarettes long consumed to dust and decay, only the filters left truly intact. My pulse quickened slightly - Cigarettes. Not that I was a smoker and I needed my fix but cigarettes meant one thing - A cigarette lighter or matches were nearby. Either one led to one of the many things I needed at the moment - Fire. Light. Warmth.
I felt through the entire locker... No dice. The fingernails weren't helping - Ladies, how the H**l do you live with those things? Seriously. I know that most women don't have fingernails as long as their own fingers, but still... Man, that was a pain in the a**. Cautiously, I began to feel along the floor in the shallow water. Splish. Splish. Splish. Maybe my toenails had knocked into it and pushed it away. Maybe the guy didn't bring a light or someone borrowed it or... Maybe it was in his jacket pocket, which it was. A book of matches. Genius. F**king genius. I remember smiling for the first time since I had emerged from that goop.
Carefully holding the book of matches, I formulated a plan. I was about to get light.
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Post by debralee on Aug 20, 2012 21:10:25 GMT -6
Hope he burns something to keep his light going for more than a few seconds. If there are three sets of clothes where are those other people "hibernating" at? I need more of this and the sooner the better. Thank you.
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Post by steve on Aug 21, 2012 14:29:20 GMT -6
PART #0024
Long fingernails, I found out, were good for something after all.
The toilet paper dispensers near the toilets in the changing room were "locked" at the top by the cheapest key lock in the history of key locks. As it turned out, all you needed was a long, slender object... Like a really long fingernail.
The top of the toilet paper dispenser popped open and I took out not one but two rolls of toilet paper. The top roll of toilet paper seemed especially frail compared to the mushiness of the lower roll of toilet paper that had been exposed to the elements.
Taking the plunger with me, I exited the changing room with the toilet paper and the book of matches. After shuffling my way back to the chamber room, I placed everything down onto the counter top. I was surprised of the durability of the drier roll of toilet paper - It felt like actual toilet paper. Unspooling a little bit of the toilet paper, I wiped out the lab sink as much as I could. It felt dry, it felt metal and that's all that I needed.
Unspooling quite a bit of the other roll of toilet paper, I threw a bunch of toilet paper into the sink.
I fumbled with the book of matches. D**n fingernails. I swear, I'd settle for a pair of scissors just to pare these f**king things down to a reasonable length. Finally, though, I managed to rip a match out of the book of matches. Feeling for the abrasive strip on the book of matches and finding it, I braced myself for the result.
My pulse quickened a little bit. Judgement time.
Scritch. Scw-fwitch. Skitch.
Fire. G***amn motherf**king fire. I had never been so happy lighting a single match in all my life.
Quickly but carefully, I lowered the match onto the toilet paper in the sink.
"Come on, come on," I muttered as I waved the lit match to various parts of the toilet paper.
The toilet paper slowly began to burn. A brighter light began to blossom from the sink.
For the first time since I had emerged from the gel chamber, there was light. And it was good.
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Post by kaijafon on Aug 21, 2012 19:51:10 GMT -6
oh it was SO good!!!! you're killing me with these little bits and pieces and I'm dying so delectably.
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Post by debralee on Aug 21, 2012 23:13:56 GMT -6
And there is light..but what is the plunger for? A weapon? who or what does he think is there? Can hardly wait for more.
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Post by kaijafon on Aug 22, 2012 13:42:13 GMT -6
I'm dying here !!!!!! MOAR of this awesome story please and thank you!!!
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Post by steve on Aug 22, 2012 14:40:00 GMT -6
PART #0025
Did anyone need a clipboard made out of press board? No? Into the fire it went.
Did anyone need paper, so weathered, frail and yellowed that all the writing had faded into illegibility? No? Most of that went into the fire (I saved some in case I needed to start more fires).
In fact, if it looked both useless and burnable, it became a part of the fire.
The dull yellow-orange glow of the fire both shrank and expanded the chamber room. For the first time, I could see... Everything. Anything. I could the yellowish-green crud line on the walls, indicating that prior flooding had been as high as my knees. I could see lines of mold streaking up towards the ceiling along the walls like two-dimension stalagmites.
I could see my own body for the first time, parts of it now completely dry. I felt dry but still slightly sticky. I looked at the color of my hair and, in spite of myself, was partially relieved that my hair color hadn't changed. A quick body inspection didn't reveal anything out of the usual - No mysterious lesions, bumps under the skin or sores. My skin color looked good enough, at least as far as I was concerned.
I could also see the gel chambers themselves; Five cylindrical chambers in a row, horizontally placed. A large red handle adorned the long side of each of them, presumably the same type that I had used to escape my own chamber. Two of the chambers were open and looked completely dry. One of the chambers, my own, was also open but still wet from recent use with a bit of gel residue inside. The remaining two chambers looked closed. Were they occupied? Were they empty? Were the open ones the one that the other two people used and they had already escaped? Were they all empty?
It was difficult to grip the handles of the gel chambers while I still had these freakishly-long fingernails. Any amount of strength I could muster was rendered useless trying to avoid any one of my fingernails tearing through my flesh. How I ever managed to escape my own chamber was a testament to my own determination. Now, I needed to be determined to get rid of these d**n fingernails.
Time was of the essence; I searched through every drawer I could in the chamber room. Paper... Miscellaneous lab equipment... Oh! One of those bunsen burner starters that makes the little sparks... I placed that near the sink.
The chamber room held an office desk off to a corner near the doorway. Two drawers were on each side of the desk followed by a middle drawer where the person would sit; A standard desk. The lower two of the drawers had been affected by prior flooding; Paper that looked as though they had been reduced down to an inseparable mash, file hangers reduced to their metal hanging parts.
The upper two drawers held more paper, some office supplies like a stapler (which, to my complete surprise, could still staple), various inkpad stamps and some blank envelopes.
The middle drawer, though... It contained something better than gold. I knew I should have opened that one first. Scissors. A nail clipper. Sweet Lord in Heaven. I remembered laughing as I gingerly held the nail clippers in my hand. No one needed to twist my arm as to what I needed to do next.
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Post by kaijafon on Aug 22, 2012 21:06:28 GMT -6
ok, it's YOUR fault I'm becoming greedy!!! I am just loving this story! thank you for being as quick as you are! I know I ask for WAS too much MOAR!!! but I do really want MOAR!!! lol!!!! thanks!!!!
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Post by steve on Aug 23, 2012 14:47:34 GMT -6
PART #0026
Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip. Clip.
Like most people, I started clipping my fingernails with my dominant hand clipping the other hand. In hindsight, I suppose I should have started clipping my nails the opposite way - Less dominant hand first doing the clipping so that my dominant hand would be freed of the long fingernails first.
I guess, in the end, it didn't matter.
It was such a liberating feeling to be finally free of those d**n fingernails. I felt like I had actual hands again. Actual, usable hands that could grasp objects without an extra moment or two of thought as to how to grip an object without slicing myself on my own fingernails.
The hair could wait. The toenails could wait.
If there were people inside the last two gel chambers, they deserved to be freed sooner than later. As I gripped the lever to one of the gel chambers, I suddenly became self-conscious of my own nudity. As I had seen from the changing room, I couldn't put on my own clothes as they as had aged to rot and ruin. No one else's clothes, for that matter, had been any better.
I looked around at my gel chamber and found that "adult diaper" that I had removed. There it was, just lying there in the shallow water. Did I really feel like putting that thing on again? After a moment's thought, I figured I could put up with the double takes and dick jokes. We had bigger issues to deal with - No pun intended.
Gripping the lever on one of the last two gel chambers, I yanked it upwards as hard as I could. To my utter surprise, it really wasn't all that difficult to pull all the way up.
Sckree-schunk. Hisssss.
Some... gel or something sprayed out of the chamber, like a shaken soda can spewing out soda when it's finally opened. As icky as I already felt, I stepped back and watched the... Whatever it was spray out for a moment before finally subsiding. Maybe that was what happened when I got out of my chamber.
Carefully, I went back and gripped the lever again, this time, pulling on it to open up the canister.
The f**k? The... Oh, f**k! Oh...! Oh, jeez! He was... Oh!
I stumbled backwards, slamming my back into the countertop behind me and only an inch or so away from the sink fire I had built. I couldn't contain myself, scrambling out of the room as quickly as my feet could carry me, toenails be d**ned.
I rested myself by leaning against the opposite wall outside the chamber room, coughing and dry heaving the entire time. The smell had been as nauseating as the visuals and against my better judgment do I even begin to describe what I saw.
The man was... Well, he was dead. Not just dead but... Partially dissolved? How do I describe it? You know those stupid high school biology posters they've got in science class? The one that strips away the skin and shows you all the major muscle groups of the human body? Those posters? Yeah, well, that was him except he still had chunks of skin still attached and some of him was dissolved beyond the muscle to what had to be... Organs or something. Heart. Liver. Intestines. That kind of thing.
F**k, it was gross! I had never seen a dead body before. I mean, an up close, "really for real" dead body. I had seen horror movies, I had been inside haunted houses... But nothing like this. Not anything like this. G*d, that was so f**king gross. I just remember standing there, leaning against the wall in the darkened hallway as the sink fire from the chamber room slowly began to fade to dark.
In any other circumstances, I would be running like mad down the hallway to find my way out of this haunted house of horrors. Instead, though, I knew I had to go back in there... Back in there with... "It." I had no choice.
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