Before the end of the day we had to lock up everyone except Dr. Gates, Tim Tom, Eric, Cassie, and me. Tim Tom and I might be immune, thanks to our fucked up brains. And Cassie, well, from what my journal says she’s always been scared of radio, TV, and the internet, and since this started she’s kept her ears covered and been careful about what she’s seen. But Eric and the Doctor, why aren’t they affected yet? For safety’s sake we decided they should sleep in a locked room too, and Tim Tom or I can let them out in the morning. Unless, of course, they’ve lost it.
I’m really not looking forward to tomorrow morning, waking up not knowing what the fuck is going on, then finding out the world has essentially ended. I wonder how far it’s gone now. How many unaffected are left out there? Not that I’m going to remember worrying about this tomorrow, except for what I wrote in here. For a little extra help I found the marker and wrote on my arm.
A phrase starting with worm milk is causing people to go insane and most everyone is affected or dead. Don’t believe me? Read your journal.
I sure hope that helps.
CHAPTER TEN
From the journal of Dr. Montgomery Gates
12/24/2012
Instead of sleeping I decided to test my newest hypotheses regarding the nature of this peculiar affliction. After realizing that the only people not affected are Timothy and Jude, for obvious reasons, and Cassie, because she has avoided the Phrase, and Eric and myself I had to ask myself why. What do Eric and I have in common that could inoculate us from this seemingly unavoidable and unstoppable malady? Surely, at some point we had heard the whole phrase, if not all at once, then perhaps in pieces here and there. Would that be enough, to hear the entire phrase piecemeal over the course of the day? Would the mind put it together and would it still have the same effect? No, if the others, including some who were not as inundated with information as I, had succumbed, then I didn’t see how I could have avoided it altogether.
So why Eric and I? What else did we have in common that could have saved us, at least for now? Eric was not one of the patients I had brought here, like Tim Tom, Jude or Saul. His was also not a case of mental illness due to genetics, like Cassie. No, Eric was here because he had been addicted to meth, amongst other drugs, and had damaged his brain so extensively that he could no longer function in normal society due to a severe and odd case of amphetamine psychosis.
After his treatment at an addiction center it became clear that his attention span had withered to nothing. His volition, his ability to reason, was almost nonexistent. He had many of the same traits as a paranoid schizophrenic. Much of this I would attribute to perhaps his most devastating disability; he seems to have almost altogether lost the ability to sleep. Not the he didn’t sleep at all, he would probably be dead by now if that was the case, although there are rumors, unsupported of course, of people who go without sleep all together. But there has never been a clinically confirmed case. No, instead he seems to micro sleep, taking little naps of 5 to 10 minutes at a time, and seems completely incapable of falling into a deep sleep. We have had him on a medication regimen but even with heavy narcotics his sleep is fitful and seems to show very little REM activity.
Obviously, I don’t suffer any of these conditions, having never partaken in crystal meth myself, but there is one common denominator here; neither of us slept last night. Eric was no longer medicated due to the chaos of yesterday, and I had stayed up all night working on understanding the nature of this apocalyptic malady. Now, as I stated, there is a very good chance that both of us have been exposed to the phrase, but perhaps exposure is not enough.
Now, look at it this way. The first day was the professor at Oxford, the second day was more professors, people who were probably his colleagues and maybe even his friends. And professors at other prestigious universities, all of them with fields relating to linguistics, translation, classical studies, history and ancient literature, people whom he may very well have been in contact with. It is possible, even likely, that before his killing spree he had sent the Phrase to them through email or text or perhaps IM. Then, a day later, they went on killing sprees.
Perhaps, before their sprees, they had sent the Phrase to other colleagues, and exposed students to it. After the students were exposed they of course disseminated the Phrase using the many methods they have; texting, tweeting, Facebook, reddit, 4Chan, God, who knows what else. And from there there was no stopping it; the news, the government, the internet, it was loose. But the point here is in the pattern.
Day one, the professor at Oxford, then a full night before the other shootings at other universities then another full night before the students. Do you see?
SLEEP. It needs a full night of sleep to set in, to worm its way into the subconscious mind of the carrier before it could start replicating itself and taking over their mind and forcing them to disperse it via a multitude of media before finally sending them into the rage state which is it’s final stage, as far as we know. Much like a virus, like herpes, it must replicate in the body before viral shedding begins. After all, isn’t that what this is? A mind virus? A string of information, just like viral DNA is merely information, just like our DNA is merely information, that simply wants to continue to propagate, to find new hosts, to find a way to continue its existence? A verbal virus. A language worm. A mind virus.
And that is what Eric and I have in common; neither of us had slept the night after we were probably exposed. Neither of us gave it the opportunity to sink into the nether regions of our minds to do its insidious work.
And herein lies the dilemma. Is it still in there, just waiting for us to succumb to the inevitable good night’s sleep, or is it gone? Gone from our memories. Gone from our minds. Leaving us safe and secure in our continued sanity, or at least mine. Eric is already kind of insane.
And how will we know without trying to sleep? Do I dare take this chance to see if I have indeed found a way to fight of our mutual and ethereal enemy? More important, do I have a choice? Even now in my excited delirium I can feel the heaviness in my muscles, the ache in my bones, the fatigue in my eyes that I have felt so many times while burning the midnight oil. Eric, without his medication, might go for a long time without a proper night’s sleep, perhaps fighting off the effects of the phrase for days, weeks, maybe even longer. But what about me? How long can I last?
Back in the diabetic ward I had taken a number of drugs that can be used as stimulants in case we had to be alert and ready for an attack at odd hours, but how long would those last? Perhaps I could find more here at this facility. But even if I do, how long will I last?
For surely, no matter how many drugs I inject myself with to fight the coming night, I will eventually succumb. Having read studies on sleep disorders years ago I know that after a few days my mental faculties will diminish, my body will fatigue and malfunction, I may induce a form of psychoses, much like Eric’s, and start to hallucinate. So even if I do manage to avoid the madness of the Phrase, I may experience a very different kind of madness. Will I give up at this point? Or maybe even not remember to inject myself with more stimulants and finally fall into a deep long sleep, only to wake up again and succumb to the Insanity of The Words?
Or, will I continue to inject myself, or have someone do it for me, until my body and mind are damaged beyond repair? Or words? There have been very few cases, but it is known that forced sleep deprivation, used as a form of torture and brainwashing, will eventually lead to death.