The Darkened Room - Volume IV

I found a classified ad seeking subjects for a psychological experiment. It seemed like easy money and a chance to possibly contribute to science, so I signed up. But when the car service dropped me off at a nondescript warehouse on the edge of town, I should have realized things weren’t that simple.

Inside, a researcher greeted me and led me to a small white room containing only a wooden chair. He affixed sensors to my temples and wrists, explaining they would monitor my reactions. When I asked what exactly the experiment entailed, he only said I would find out soon.

After he exited and locked the door, the room suddenly went pitch black. Moments later, a hidden projector flashed images too brief to fully process - fractal patterns, disturbing faces, strange symbols. Meanwhile, eerie noises blared, and strange scents wafted by.

Bombarding audiovisual effects continued cycling with no pattern I could discern. Sometimes minutes passed in silence and darkness. At first, I tried making sense of it, but eventually resigned myself to enduring the baffling barrage. I had to trust this was in service of some scientific purpose.

After a few hours, nothing had changed, and unease started creeping in. I called out, asking how much longer until the test was over. No reply came. Had they forgotten about me? Panic rose as I pounded on the walls. But the hypnotic images continued flickering mindlessly.

Exhausted by the constant stimuli, I must have dozed off. I jolted awake to the door opening and the researcher from earlier entering calmly. He checked the sensors attached to me and took notes without a word before leaving again.

More endless hours of pulsing psychedelic lights and grating noise dragged by. I lost all track of time, unsure if minutes or days were passing between the researcher's sporadic silent check-ins. My sense of reality itself was bending and blurring in the claustrophobic void.

During one period of fitful half-sleep, distorted muttering permeated the darkness. I strained to make out words, catching phrases about “cognitive limits” and “induced psychosis”. As I listened in dawning horror, the voices faded away. Had I imagined them?

However long I was in that room, no nutrients or water were ever provided. My body grew stiff and my mind delirious. The throbbing visuals wormed behind my eyes even with them closed now. I couldn't tell waking from dreaming. Had I died and descended to some garish, neon hell?

Just as I felt my last shreds of sanity giving way, the researcher entered and wordlessly helped me from the room. As we passed security monitors showing the empty white chamber, a chilling realization hit me. The experiment had succeeded - my mind itself had become the darkened room, warped beyond recognition. Only I would leave this place, while some broken part stayed behind.

In the blurry aftermath, I grasped at fragments of my former self. When I tried recounting my ordeal, people looked askance. The anonymous ad and warehouse had vanished without a trace. Unanswered questions plagued me. What had they learned from my destruction? Why me? Had it all been some test of will?

"The Darkened Room" by Oscar Mendieta Bravo