/nosleep: I was in a study for fear.

[Related.]

“We study fear,” she said.

You have to understand that I was pretty broke at the time. Going to school will do that pretty quick. So when I saw an ad on our campus bulletin looking for people to partake in a paid study, I applied. My friend had applied to some studies before, and though they didn’t always pay that great my friend always walked away with a story to tell at the very least.

I now have a story to tell.

The tests were not on campus, in fact I had to get to the outskirts of the city to partake in them. That part of the city is mostly abandoned. Most businesses have moved to better parts of town and aside from the industrial smell it is nothing but warehouses, graffiti, and overpasses. It is the oldest part of the city, and in some places you can still see unwashed soot on hundred year old brick buildings from the coal driven steam engines that used to dominate the area. If it wasn’t late morning by the time I got there, I likely would have turned back.

The building was squat and narrow, almost like it was built in a larger alleyway between two warehouses. The surrounding brick buildings, all with layers of graffiti meshed oddly with the stark white, modern looking office I had come to. The inside was just as sterile. Black and white floor tile repeated outward from beneath me like an endless, manic chessboard. The ceiling was low, almost claustrophobic. The white walls were spotless and nearly blinding from the cold fluorescents they reflected.

I was greeted by a woman in a suit with a clammy handshake. “Welcome to Dentitril,” she said with a smile as clean as the walls, “We study fear.”

I laughed uncomfortably and avoided eye contact. I thought then that her smile was supposed to be reassuring. After giving me some paperwork to fill out she led me to a waiting room and offered me some coffee, I took it with two sugars. I was pretty jittery by then, but I assured myself that was probably what they wanted me to feel. This study was on fear after all, they probably designed the building to be unnerving and even chose the neighborhood to be ominous. I was freaking out because I was supposed to. Nothing more.

I only realized later that the waiting room was odd because I met no other person but that woman. There were no other students, no attendee, just her. I don’t even know what I was waiting for if I wasn’t waiting because of someone.

After thumbing through some pamphlets they had laid out about Dentitril’s anti-anxiety medication and after I finished my coffee the woman came back holding a clipboard. She led me with a smile down a long hallway. The very end of it was one of those doors with glass between a wire mesh. “There are only two rules for our test,” she said “the first is that there are no phones beyond this point. The second is that you have to stay until the test is over.” Before I could protest to either of those things she pointed to her clipboard with the paperwork I had signed and said: “as per our agreement.”

She opened the door. I wish I hadn’t stepped in.

Sterile white walls, low ceiling, too low of a ceiling, and a large plane of glass separating me from it.

On the other side of the window was a figure, featureless and smooth. I assumed at the time that it was a man in a skin colored latex morphsuit. The door shut behind me and the buzz of an electric lock rang like an indifferent knell. I only noticed then that the door’s “window” was completely blacked out from that side. The figure in front of me heaved, its chest moved with breath. Silence.

I crossed the room, trying not to let the figure behind the glass freak me out. It mirrored me. When I stopped, it stopped. When I moved to the other end, it did the same. These movements weren’t mimicked, they were precise. The only thing it didn’t copy was my head movement. Its was always centered right at me, even if I looked away. I can’t say that it stared, because I saw no eyes, but that’s what it felt like.

Whoever this person was, they sure were dedicated to fucking with me.

I walked up to the glass, admittedly getting a little freaked out, but I reminded myself that this was just a test. It did the same, I knocked on the glass, and for the first time it did not mirror me. It’s head cocked to the side and I saw then that it was no morphsuit. That was no latex. It was skin. I jumped backwards only to see it do the same on its end, again, perfectly mirroring me. No, mocking me.

It hit like a freight train, the drowsiness. My limbs felt heavy and sluggish, my thoughts suddenly like they were treading through mud. I fell to my knees, then to my hands. I was confused. They had to have put something in the coffee. My mind was arrested by sleep…

…I dreamed of my father. No, I dreamed of my father’s smile. The same smile he would wear as he disciplined me. The same smile he would wear when I knew I was in trouble. The same one that told me that his belt was in his hands…

…The weight of the drug was burdensome. Whatever knocked me out was strong, and its effects gripped me long after I woke up. Everything was muted, and it took me a while to remember where I was. It took me a minute to remember what was on the other side of the glass.

It was knocking on the glass, “staring” right at me. The thud of its skin against the hard surface quickened once I noticed it. I blinked, groggy from the drug, still fighting off further sleep. I did not immediately see it. The knocking grew louder as I tried to get up. They wanted me afraid? I was afraid. I pushed off of the ground and stood up. I briefly wondered if I had just taught the figure to knock. Then I saw it. Strewn across its face, where there used to be nothing, was a smile. My father’s smile.

The knocking hadn’t quickened. That was a mistake in my drowsiness. There was now two of them. Both with smiles, both knocking. Both “staring” straight at me.

My adrenaline finally kicked in then, my fight or flight finally showed up, and the drug began to fade. If they set out to study fear, they were now studying terror. I ran over to the door, and started banging on it. “This isn’t funny!” I screamed, and tried to turn the door’s locked handle. There was no give, only resistance. The harder I banged on the door, the harder the figures banged on the glass. I could not see out the door’s window.

No face, only smiles, TEETH, flat and wet, tongues pressed against them. Staring at me. Oh god! Starring at me with my father’s malice. It felt like fingers had dipped into my brain. They kept banging on the glass. The glass vibrated, even moved. I pulled on the door handle…

Three things happened then. I pulled the handle off of the door and thought this can be used as a weapon against them. No, this can be used as a way out, as a way to kill yourself the fingers in my mind corrected.

…I felt relief. Almost happy. I smiled.

The lights went off, and the darkness was complete. The pounding on the glass stopped. There was nothing but void and silence.

Then the hum of fluorescent lights, and the room was empty. The things were gone, and the buzzing of an electric lock rang. The “study” was over. The door opened.

I waited for nobody.

I ran out the door and straight out of the building. I saw no one on my way out, not even the woman in a suit. It was dark out, I went straight home…

I told myself that I went back the next day to get paid, or to get my phone back. But really, I just needed them to assure me that it was fake, that even them letting me run out like that was a part of the test. But the building was gone. There was nothing there but an old alleyway.

It’s 1:15 AM as I write this, and there is knocking on my apartment’s door.