Control Freakz

by Evans, Michael

  I can’t take this anymore. The silence was beginning to drive me mad. The monotony of the colors on the wall, the expressions in their faces, and even the stale air itself sucked all the life out of my vision, and turned my reality into a boring, grayscale movie.

  I tried to suppress it, suddenly feeling the pressure of Danielle’s glare beginning to pierce terror through my entire mind. But the desperate feeling inside of my mind suddenly ruptured inside of me like steam from a geyser, and in just seconds the remnants of the explosion scattered in the air for all to see.

  “Danielle, I need you to tell me the truth.” I kept my voice surprisingly calm, despite the emotions raging inside of me. “What the hell happened to our lives?” I choked, finally feeling tears begin to well up in my eyes. “And what can we do to fix it?”

  For a moment, the entire world seemed to freeze. Even the fabric of time itself seemed to move so lethargically that its very existence was unnoticeable to the average person. At first Danielle’s expression was blank with shock. I could see her eyes dart across an image that was inevitably on her ICL, looking confused and suddenly anxiety ridden. The second some sort of emotion began to rush through her, I could see the shock on her face instantly dissolve into a blistering rage. The coldness of her glare penetrated through my skin, causing my entire body to stand still paralyzed with fear. The air was so thick that I could feel the colors on the wall screen practically peeling off due to the heaviness of the atmosphere weighing down on it like a corrosive gas.

  Her small, perfectly symmetrical nose scrunched up, and I could see her lips purse, as if to spew out a nasty remark, but instead she responded with nothing but a ghostly stare.

  Make this stop. I glanced at Hunter, hoping that the look of sheer terror and desperation strewn across my face would somehow coerce him into rescuing me from the harrowing glare of Danielle that was literally beginning to suck the life out of my chest.

  Then, just as my entire body was about to explode from the pressure of the tension between us, Danielle hastily stood up and stormed off down the dimly lit hallway. I shuddered at the slam of one of the doors.

  “Guys, what the hell is going on?” My voice echoed off the ceilings, and broke through the silence that hung over the air. Even the constant beeping and clanking noises that emanated from the kitchen had seized to a halt.

  In response, neither Hunter nor Ethan even attempted to look at me, as they both stayed chained to their mindless trances. There was a new empty expression to their eyes, and relaxed feeling to their bodies that made my fists clench with anger. What the hell did she do to them? Why the hell did she take them away from me too?

  Succumbing to my impulses, I stood up defiantly, frantically beginning to make my way down the hallway. I could feel my entire body tremoring as my nerves grew numb. I was beginning to endure an intense sensation of withdrawal; withdrawal from hope, from love, from happiness, and from the privilege of being in control of my own direction.

  Oh shit. My heart sank as Danielle exited the door she had slammed shut just mere seconds ago. Her black hair almost blended in with the darkness around her, yet the vindictive glow to her eyes burned through the haze of blackness, causing my mind to become overloaded with fear. She began to walk toward me with purposeful, long strides, yet she was only yards way. It soon became imminently clear that she was right about to inflict a hellish rampage of bullshit upon me. But for the first time I actually became frightened of hell, as I finally got the opportunity to stare it in its eyes, and see the mad, gruesome edge to its pupils.

  “Fuck off.” The words blurted out of my mouth as Danielle slowed her pace down to a creepy tip-toe. She smiled, her artificially whitened teeth breaking through the darkness. She closely resembled the demeanor of a pedophilic, middle-aged man, with a history of both stalking and molesting dozens of people in his white van. And, lucky for me, Danielle had already backed her white van right up to me, and had the back doors swung open, holding me by my neck and begging me to come inside.

  Instinct quickly overpowered the numb shock that had paralyzed most of my body, and I began to bolt backward in a desperate escape from the cold grip of her hand. But right as I turned around, I could feel my heart practically give out with shock and panic, as a wall of robot butlers began to charge down the hallway directly at me. My body instantly froze, and I had no time to react, before I could feel Danielle’s sharp fingernails dig into my wrist and pull me forcefully in her direction.

  I screamed, desperately flailing my body in attempt to break free, but her grasp was too strong for me to overcome. The next thing I knew, she thrashed open the door to a room with bright fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. I had to squint, as she madly shoved me into the room, the intensity of the light too much for my eyes which were adjusted to the thin cloud of darkness that seems to reside in the hallway.

  The entire room itself appeared to be an oversized white box, with literally nothing else accept the white that covered the walls around us. The dull colors created a mind-numbing haze over my eyes that caused a ringing noise to faintly echo in my ears. In this moment, I was truly going insane. And as Danielle slammed the door and began to charge at me with her sinister, threatening glare, I felt my body begin to enter panic mode.

  I screamed as loud as the fear coursing through my mind would will my body to yell. I scrambled backward, eventually running into the wall behind me, which only caused my body to completely spaz out in attempt to escape the wrath of hell that was about to be unleashed upon me.

  Danielle laughed, and much to my awe pulled out an electrified pocket knife that she was hiding in her cleavage. Holy crap! She tossed the sheath off the blade of the knife, and let the sharp, lethal edge of the blade shine in the bright fluorescent light. Part of me was in such shock that a woman would ever use her cleavage to store such a deadly item, and the other part of me was in such fear that a woman had just pulled out an electric knife from her chest, and was now holding it up and threatening to stab it into my body.

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch!” She laid a finger over my quivering lips. It took all the will in my body to suppress the urge to scream the second she pulled the knife out. Once again, I could feel the cold, paralyzing energy of death sweep over me, but this time its chill brought a wave of frenzied horror over me, instead of its normal warmth and comfort.

  I can’t die this way. My body stayed frozen in place, but it began to convulse hysterically as Danielle jabbed an elbow into my chest and held the knife up to my throat. I need the power to end this myself. I can’t die at the hands of someone else. I can’t die at the hands of this merciless psycho.

  “If you do as much as say one more word in your entire life, then I will not hesitate to chop your fucking head of,” she whispered, yet every bit of anger and craziness still managed to seep its way into her breath that brushed up against my face. I could feel her body shaking with the intensity of the emotions flowing through her, but her eyes were blank.

  I gulped, holding back an impulse to rip the knife right from her hands and stab her. It’s useless. I felt my heart sink as I began to accept my fate of death at the hands of this wicked bitch. But even in my final moments, I struggled to allow the feeling of defeat and emptiness to devour the matter in my brain and absorb it for eternity.

  “You know what you did!”

  The intensity of her scream hit me like a gust of icy, cold wind. My entire body shuddered, as every last feeling of warmth alluded my body, and was forever replaced by a feeling of emptiness. The sinister, bone-chilling look to her eyes returned, and I began to close my eyes, my brain beginning to shut down. My body had seemingly reached the pain threshold for a lifetime, and it is incapable of enduring another emotional wound, to its already ripped apart brain.

  “You fucking monster!” Danielle yelled, pressing the knife so close to my neck that I could feel the energy form the volts of electricity on the blade cause the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. “You piec
e of shit! You deliberately disobeyed me! You deliberately tried to sabotage our only hope!”

  “You know what you did,” she repeated, this time her voice much lower, but her eyes were narrowed to the point that they were practically drilling daggers into my skull. “And if you don’t fix it by tomorrow, you will be dead.”

  She grinned maniacally, her nostrils even flaring a bit as she chuckled. “I will kill you.”

  I was in a state of such an intense shock that my mind was unable to even put the sheer terror and anxiety overwhelming the nerves in my body into words. Danielle slowly lowered the knife from my neck, and loosened up her elbow’s pressure on my chest, which now ached.

  I shuddered as she put the cover back on the blade of the knife and placed it back into her chest. Then she began to walk away from me, her body language relaxing and the evil look in her eyes vanishing, as she opened the door and made her way out into the hallway.

  And she put on her fake smile, pretending as if nothing happened. Pretending as if she hadn’t threatened to kill me just seconds ago.

  Chapter 18

  I looked around the pitch-black room another time, exhaling as I got up and began to make my way toward the door. This game ends now. The adrenaline and determination inside of me, overcame all the anxiety and terror festering in my veins. Time to find out the truth. Time to find out how to get my life back; even if I die trying.

  I glanced one last time at Ethan and Hunter’s silhouettes, both fast asleep on their respective twin beds. The darkness that smothered their bodies made me shiver, as I imagined the darkness encapsulating me, forever frozen in a state of hell. It was a horrid, yet somehow amazing thing that Danielle had done to them. With whatever magic was inside of her red pill, she’d caused their minds to be completely numb to the real world. The entire day they never spoke or even really moved. At points, they appeared to be so lifeless that I had to double check just to make sure that they were breathing.

  For hours, which felt like an eternity, the three of us were forced to sit on the cold floor of an all cement room, which was dotted with security cameras. The silence that permeated the air infected my lungs and caused a tingling sensation to trickle down my throat, yet I stared up at the black lens of the security camera, suddenly paranoid that Danielle would charge in and kill me, just for a single cough. I used all the energy in my body to tense my muscles up, and force them to refrain from any kind of spasm.

  I was literally perfectly still, my figure unmoving like that of a mannequin or a statue, except unlike Hunter and Ethan my thoughts had not turned to stone yet, and therefore the monotony was bringing a mind-numbing amount of boredom to me. There were multiple moments where the hopelessness and defeat began to swallow me, along with the grayness surrounding me in the room, and I started to contemplate screaming to coerce Danielle into ending all the pain instantly.

  I was done with being forced to stare at the last two people in my life, who even though were physically in front of me, their real selves had left their bodies. I was done with being constantly reminded of the bare, skeleton-like frame-work that used to be the gorgeous home of my life, and was now just a mangled mess of bones rotting away in a hot, dry wasteland. It’s finally time. I could feel the tension in my muscles beginning to release, as the great burden on my life prepared to confront me. I shall be cleansed with the truth, or buried with death. I creaked the door open as silently as possible, being extra careful not to wake anyone up.

  I held my breath for a moment, half expecting Danielle to jump out with her maniacal smile and flowing black hair, a deadly knife in her hands. I still couldn’t shake the image of her going ballistic on me earlier; I still couldn’t shake the stomach-churning terror from mind.

  I stepped out into the dark hallway, my every footstep echoing off the walls, especially with no other noises to combat the waves of sound emanating from my shoes. I tip-toed down the hallway, even suppressing my breaths to make sure I could stay undetected.

  If she catches me, I’m dead. I shivered a bit, the air-conditioning suddenly feeling like a blast from the arctic. Her sinister words echoed in my head: I will kill you.

  The intimidating, yet definitive tone with what she spoke made my body convulse with fear. For most of the day, I let my thoughts scatter, frantically dreaming for a way that I could take one of the red pills, and effectively spare my life. But then I realized, that with saving my life, I would be sacrificing my own right to live it freely. I can’t live like that. I felt my insides repulse as I imagined being trapped in a state of a mindless lull, that is impossible to get out of. The blank, almost dead look in their eyes signified that even though their bodies were still working, they were dead to the world.

  It was almost like the pill was a do-it-yourself lobotomy. And during the horrific event, practically the entirety of the spongy tissues in both of their brains was taken away.

  I need to get them back. The desperation inside of me grew to its most intense level. Instead of surrendering to the despair and defeat inside of me, I let my mind succumb to the insanity and anger causing my body to shake wildly. My nerves became so overloaded with the amount of emotions flowing through me, that it must have looked like I was having a seizure as I made my way down the hallway toward the room with the large computer. The hunger roaring inside of me intensified, almost threatening to devour my own self.

  I am nothing. The realization caused a shooting pain to course through my head. For years, I had been devoid of happiness and love, and the only thing that I had ever been able to hold onto was my memories. But what did they all even mean if I had no one to share them with? What significance did the past have, if I knew I had no future?

  Nothing.

  I sighed, suddenly livid at the entire world, which seemed to always be against me. I hated everything, every last inch of this dreadful earth. Yet the one thing that I hated most was myself. The one thing that I despised, even more than the loneliness and the pain, was me. I hated myself for not being able to overcome my emotions, and I hated myself for ignorantly holding onto love and not being able to let go. It was the one thing that tied me to my old life, and the knot of emotions caught in my brain was impossible to undo. No matter what, the remnants of the love and happiness that used to be so present in my early years could never be swallowed by the despair and defeat. No matter what, even when the darkness suffocated all the light from reaching it, the love inside of me still managed to subsist.

  Why can’t you just let this go? There was a voice, probably my more logical conscious, that screamed inside my head. Why can’t you just give up? Why can’t you just realize that you are powerless, and that it is all out of your control?

  But even knowing those facts, my brain stubbornly denied my reality. Even aware of the perpetual emptiness that would inevitably reside in me forever, my body still somehow imagined that it would one day be filled with happiness and love.

  I let the hopeless feeling corrode my brain as I let my hand touch the cold door handle. For once, I was actually thankful for Danielle. Being as crazy, and frankly as dumb, as she was, she’d left all the doors in her compound unlocked, seemingly entrusting her advisors with protecting them. She must have thought she was too powerful for anyone to challenge her. She must have thought she had too much control for anyone to go against her will―but she was wrong.

  I purposely laid awake, frozen still in my bed, waiting for hours until the darkness surrounding the room began to crawl down my throat and infect my veins, until I ventured out into the hallway. Aware that everyone would be asleep, I knew that this would be my only chance at digging up the truth, buried beneath mountains and mountains of blackness, that destroyed my life. I was prepared now to confront my reality head on. I was prepared to be liberated from all the pain with the truth, or be freed from this awful world with death.

  Truth or death. The words echoed in my head frantically as I opened the door and was welcomed with a blast of cool air. The second the door closed
with a heavy thud behind me, I felt my heart jump, and the lights turned on, illuminating the massive, black computer that encased the room.

  I exhaled, allowing some of the anxiety and madness to leave my body. The holograph appeared on the blank wall in front of me the instant I walked into the middle of the room. The same image of the desktop of the computer appeared in front of me, and I thought back to just the day before, when Ethan navigated through the computer to find those two files.

  The truth is in there. There was an anxious and elated sensation that began to course through me. The answers to my life are in those documents. It was a surreal feeling as I motioned with my hand to go to the main directory of the computer, where the two files were placed right at the top of the recent sections on the drive of the computer, almost like they were purposely placed there for us to find them.

  This is it. I motioned with my finger for the first file, “State of America,” to open. As the loading bar appeared on the screen, I could feel a surge of anxiety erupt inside of me. Suddenly, I could feel a bone-chilling fear cause goose bumps to dot my skin. What if I’m better off not knowing? What if my mom didn’t tell me the truth about this world for a reason? I tried to imagine a reality so hopeless and so devastating that it would be better to live in a pretend world. I tried to imagine what horrors could be contained in this file, if any at all, that would ever justify being thrown into an endless spiral of lies. The truth will set you free. I let the words echo in my mind, in attempt to comfort the terror raging through me, but I couldn’t prevent the darker thoughts from seeping in. What if the truth turns out to chain you to a reality that is even worse than all the lies? What if the truth demolishes your freedom to hope and to believe that things could get better one day?

  I exhaled as the file loaded, and endless columns of text appeared on the screen. I swallowed a blistering scream threatening to erupt from my throat. Time to find out everything my mom never told me. Time to find out the truth about this horrid world that has taken everything away from me. And maybe, just maybe I can figure out a way to get everything that was taken away from me back.