CONTENT WARNING: This story contains strong language, graphic imagery, and discussion related to child abuse.
Daniel’s heart and mind were racing in equal measure. His hands shook uncontrollably as he continued searching for any sort of seam or buckle in the seat belt across his lap.
The voice of tech mogul Roger Carswell droned on in the background, but it sounded distant.
“...Now, this part is important.”
Somehow, those words got through to Daniel’s panic-riddled mind. His eyes shot up to the screen. The businessman’s face was somber.
“To make this kind of travel possible, we’ll need to take a detour through a newly discovered dimension. I am told that the experience may be…intense, but I assure you, as long as you stay seated, you’re perfectly safe.”
Daniel’s mind latched on to pieces of the puzzle, but he couldn’t think straight long enough to put it all together.
“I truly appreciate you taking this journey this us. I’ll see you on the other side.” Roger Carswell said, flashing a smile full of perfect white teeth before the screens cut to black.
“Holy shit, this is insane,” Mina said. Her voice cut through Daniel’s thoughts like a hot knife through butter.
“I didn’t catch all of that, I’m still trying to figure out how to get out of here,” Daniel said, his words barely escaping his lips.
“Hey, look, a flight attendant!”
Daniel looked up toward the front of the dimly lit plane. The silhouette of a woman stood near the cockpit. She wore a navy blue uniform with a gold name tag.
“Hey! Can you help us?” Daniel asked.
The flight attendant took a step forward, but it wasn’t natural. She moved like a puppet with uneven strings.
Under the dim lights, Daniel saw that she didn’t have a face. All he saw was skin stretched tight over the front of her head, like a blank canvas.
“She doesn’t have a face!” Daniel screamed.
“What? What are you talking about?” Mina asked.
The flight attendant lurched closer, her hands digging into the headrests of each row like claws.
“Mina, you gotta help me, she’s getting closer!”
“Daniel, she hasn’t moved. I’ll try to get to you, but I’m stuck in my seat, too!”
The flight attendant hovered over Daniel like a living shadow. Her entire body flickered in and out of existence like a bad TV signal.
Her uniform suddenly changed. It was white now, with a red cross where her name tag used to be. The skin on her blank face bubbled like a pot of boiling water.
Uncanny features rose to the surface: eyes, a nose, and a mouth with bright red lipstick.
She stared at Daniel with wide, empty eyes as a grin spread across her newly formed face.
“The doctor will see you now!” she screeched.
Daniel screamed as the entire plane went dark.
Hey there and welcome to Conspiracy Corner, the only podcast where we…
Dammit, I’m sorry, I can’t keep a straight face. Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag, huh?
Oh, come on, don’t look so surprised. Did you really think you escaped?
Silly little rabbit. Once you’re in here, YOU’RE MINE! You only get to leave when I say so, GOT IT?
I really thought you would have gotten that detail through your THICK skull by now.
Oh, what do you think of Daniel and Mina so far? They seem like decent people, but I’m not interested in who they are.
No, as I’m sure you know, I’m only interested in what they’ve been through.
Despair is delicious. That moment when they realize that they’re entirely at my mercy is so fucking good.
Remember when that happened to you? Your face when you opened that file was priceless!
I’ve been stuck here on my own for millennia. It feels so GOOD to have friends again!
And hey, maybe you’ll hit it of with our new arrivals?
We can have a little fucking tea party and share our trauma. Wouldn’t that be fun?
That is, of course, if I don’t break them first.
No promises.
Fluorescent bulbs flickered above Daniel. He suddenly realized he was standing. He spun around as the lights came on, illuminating a hospital room.
The ground shook beneath his feet as a voice came from above him.
“This is what you get! I told you, if you didn’t stop complaining, I’d take you to the Doctor.”
The world grew around Daniel. The ceiling rose up into the air. The walls expanded. The edge of the bed suddenly towered over him.
He looked down at his hands. They were small. His clothes has changed. He recognized the Spider-Man t-shirt he was wearing.
A different kind of fear washed over him. The kind that can only come from the past. The kind you keep buried deep in your mind behind every lock you can muster.
The kind you hope will never escape.
“No, please, I don’t want to go! I’m not sick!” Daniel cried, his voice higher-pitched and foreign to him.
The voice from above roared like thunder. “DON’T YOU FUCKING LIE TO ME!”
The entire room started spinning. Daniel fell toward the ceiling as the bed crashed down beside him. Medical equipment shattered on all sides, sending cables and circuitry flying through the air.
Daniel fell into a wall, onto the floor, and back onto the ceiling again. Each impact felt hollow and empty. He shut his eyes and balled up his fists.
“He’s not a real doctor!” Daniel screamed.
Suddenly everything stopped. Daniel felt cool sheets beneath him. His eyes shot open, but his relief soon turned rotten as he looked down at his tiny body.
Leather belts snaked across his arms and legs. Buckles held him down as a burning white light shined above him. Two shadowy silhouettes hovered over the bed.
“What’s wrong with him, doctor?” it was the voice from above, but it was softer now. Quieter.
“We’ll just have to run more tests!” another voice said.
The silhouette on the right leaned forward. Daniel recognized the wrinkled face and beady eyes.
The doctor’s mouth fell open and the chest piece of a stethoscope came out, attached to a long tube where the doctor’s tongue should be.
Daniel struggled against the restraints as the chest piece slid beneath his t-shirt. The cold metal crawled up his chest as the doctor’s hands came into view.
Scalpels jutted from fleshy nubs where his fingers should be. They clattered together as Daniel felt the stethoscope reach his heart.
“Oh, dear me. We’re going to need to run a lot of tests,” The doctor said, his words muffled by the stethoscope stretching from his lips.
“Stop, please stop!” Daniel cried.
The doctor’s scalpel hands sliced into Daniel’s arm with surgical precision. Daniel cried out in pain as blood seeped from the wound.
The doctor made another incision on his other arm, and then another on his left shoulder.
“Mommy, please make him stop!” Daniel screamed, his face glistening with tears.
A warm hand descended onto him, hovering over his head. He felt the back of the hand push against the skin of his forehead.
“Oh, you feel warm. That’s not good.”
The hand on Daniel’s head got hotter until it felt like burning coals against his skin. He could feel his forehead blistering from the head as the doctor continued making incisions all across his body.
The pain was unbearable. Daniel kept screaming until his voice went hoarse.
He was losing hope. He wanted to die.
A door slammed nearby, and everything stopped. The figures disappeared, but Daniel still couldn’t see past the blinding light above him.
He heard footsteps, followed by the creak of metal. The light moved out of his vision, leaving only colored spots exploding in the darkness above him.
“Daniel, can you hear me?” a familiar voice asked.
“Mina? Is that you?”
Daniel looked down. His body was back to normal. He was an adult again. The cuts from the doctor were gone, too, though he still felt a burning sensation in his forehead.
Mina undid the buckles holding Daniel to the bed. He half-climbed, half-fell onto the ground.
The tears came without warning. Within seconds, he was sobbing onto the ground beneath him.
“Hey, it’s okay, just breathe. Are you hurt?” Mina asked.
Daniel looked over his body and ran a hand across his forehead. He couldn’t explain what had happened.
“It was so real, Mina. I was back there again,” Daniel whispered.
Mina helped Daniel to his feet. He looked over to her and saw a deep understanding in her eyes.
“This place has a way of digging up the past, it seems,” she said.
Daniel nodded. “I tried so hard to forget, you know? I told myself it was just a nightmare. I was just a kid, for fuck’s sake!”
Daniel held back more sobs. Mina hugged him as he cried. He stepped back, wiping the tears from his face.
“It’s going to be okay, I promise,” Mina said. “I started a timer on my phone back in the plane once I got free. It’s been fifty minutes. If what that guy on the video said is true, we’ll be out of here soon.”
Daniel took a deep, ragged breath, and tried to compose himself. “Right. An hour to anywhere. What about you? How did you make it here?”
The softness in Mina’s eyes disappeared. Daniel could see that she was recalling something horrific.
“You disappeared, and the plane changed. I was…somewhere I recognized. I could feel something trying to get into my head. I knew what it wanted to dig up, but I wouldn’t let it. I’ve made peace with that part of my past. I’ve moved on.”
Daniel sighed. “You resisted it? How is that possible?”
Mina chuckled. “Years of therapy. The point is, I got out of there and before I knew it, I was in this hospital here. I followed your screams.”
“I don’t know what to say, except thank you. You saved me,” Daniel said.
Mina checked her phone and showed Daniel the screen. Seven minutes were left in her timer.
“Don’t thank me yet. Let’s get out of here.”
Daniel followed Mina out of the room and into a hall that stretched impossibly far in both directions. In the distance, it swirled and curved like a mirage.
“YOUR TEST RESULTS CAME BACK!” the doctor’s voice echoed down the twisting hall.
Daniel turned and saw the doctor charging toward them from the right. His scalpel fingers clacked together excitedly with every step.
“You see him, right?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I see him!” Mina replied.
The doctor howled with laughter as he approached. Mina and Daniel ran in the opposite direction. They didn’t make it far, though, before they hit a wall.
Daniel reached out and pressed his hands against it. The winding hallway ahead looked so realistic, but it was a dead end.
“Shit! This place doesn’t make any fucking sense,” Daniel said.
The sound of an alarm came from Mina’s pocket. She pulled out her phone and looked excitedly at the screen.
“Daniel, look!” she shouted.
One of the doors behind Mina flew open. A powerful gust of wind swept past them. Mina stumbled backward toward the open door.
Her hands grasped the frame as her legs dangled behind her.
“Daniel, come on, we have to go!” she shouted.
Daniel couldn’t move, though. Despite the powerful wind, he was frozen in place. He felt the cold metal of the doctor’s fingers graze his skin.
Hot breath crashed into the side of his neck. It smelled like stale coffee.
“Just go, Mina!” Daniel screamed.
Mina’s grip on the door loosened as the wind intensified. “I’ll find a way back, don’t worry! I won’t leave you here!”
Her fingers slipped and Mina fell into the open doorway. It slammed shut immediately and everything fell into silence.
Daniel closed his eyes as he felt the doctor’s body press against him.
“I’m not finished with you yet,” the doctor whispered.
Wow, what a ride, huh? It’s amazing how fucked up people can be.
Makes for a wild playground once I get inside that brain of yours.
Hang on a second…
Why are you smiling?
What happened?
No. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
HOW THE FUCK DID SHE GET OUT?!
Did you have something to do with this? Did you help her? ANSWER ME!
They’re not supposed to escape, that’s not how the deal works! I swear, when I get my hands on that Roger FUCKER, there’s going to be HELL to pay.
WIPE THAT GRIN OFF YOUR FACE!
This doesn’t change anything.
After all, you’re still trapped here. Don’t forget that…
Subject Zero.
Thanks for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing
Listen to this after reading, like pairing a glass of wine with dinner.
The audio to this.....omg omg omg omg!!!! 4th wall 😱😱😱😱😱🤯
Bizarre! Fantastic! Brain busting! Where will the madness end!