Inside the Company: Careless Whisper
Blackness. That is all I remember. I closed my eyes to blink for a split second and I woke up here. Waking up in a strange room is often a red flag that would lead to panic. However, I felt strangely calm. I was more perplexed as to how I got here. I don’t remember moving from my spot in the police station, it feels like the time between me being there and getting here was erased. I definitely felt uneasy.
The room I was in was white and very sterile. The walls seemed to have no edges with how white everything was. “Am I dead?” I found myself thinking. The room was very simple, a lone white bed with white sheets and a white sink with white coloured soap in a dispenser. Everything was white.
Everything WAS white. I looked around. No doors. No windows. That was when I started feeling more disorientated. The world around began to spin but I knew I was standing still. I felt the urge to vomit as I began to feel a wave of claustrophobia. This room was suffocating. I felt the air get stale quickly as there seemed to be no ventilation.
“Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?”
I shouted and banged on the walls. But nobody came.
I sat on the bed, it felt strangely comfortable. The fabric was soft, unnaturally so. It felt like I was sitting on a cloud wrapped in a puppy’s fur coat. I started to calm down as I focused my breath.
I guess I just had to wait. Well, waiting is all I could do. Without any clock or any other way to notice the passing time, this wait felt unnaturally long. My seconds felt like hours. Or was it my hours feeling like seconds? I couldn’t tell. All I could tell was that time was slipping away and I felt calm. Why did I feel calm? It was as if this room exudes an aura that soothes me. Whenever I get riled up, I return to my normal relaxed state.
Suddenly, I heard a click. My eyes widened. It was the first sound I’ve heard in what felt like an eternity. I stood up and rushed to the source of the sound; the wall closest to the sink. Then, I saw edges begin to form on the wall and those edges formed a door.
I felt my heartbeat rise despite the room’s ability to suppress it. My heart was desperately thumping in my chest. It felt like a dying animal wrapped in a boa constrictor. I felt both joy and the possibility of being saved and fear at the possibility of whatever that could have been behind that door. Then, blackness. Again.
Then, white light flooded my eyes as I found myself in another white room, sterile as the last. This time, I was in a chair next to a white table. The table felt like marble when I touched it. Smooth. Clean. Perfect.
“Are you done admiring our furniture, Mr. Macready?”
I looked up and saw that right in front of me was a man in a suit with a green tie. He has a distinguished look to him with wrinkles on his face and slicked-back black hair peppered with grey. He held a tablet of sorts and a stylus. I tried to take a peek at the tablet but I couldn’t see anything.
“Shall we get down to business?”
“Business?”
“Well, yes. You see, you are a subject of an Entity.”
“An entity? What the hell is that? Who the hell are you? What the hell is going on?”
“Remember your man in the mirror? Oh yes, the man in the mirror that is a good name for him.”
“That horrifying abomination. I wish I could forget.”
“Well, yes. I am from an organisation that for your sake shall only be known as The Company. We are collecting instances of supernatural activity.”
“Why?”
“I am sorry but that isn’t within your security clearance.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you see. Much like your Man in the Mirror, there are other Entities that have powers. Some of those powers may include mind reading. In which case, having Company secrets in your noggin may prove dangerous to us.”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
He smiled as he pointed to his green coloured tie.
“You can call me Mr. Green. I am one of the founders of The Company.”
“A founder? Wow, I must be special then.”
“Why yes. You are. You are special, my boy. That’s why you are here.”
I tried getting up. Mr. Green looked at me and his eyes began to glow green.
“Sit.” I felt that one word vibrate through my entire body and I felt compelled to sit back down. It was as if there were weights dragging me back to the chair but it didn’t feel like I was being forced to sit. I just felt like I wanted to.
“Now, we can’t have you going off now. For your sake. There are other groups out there that would be more than happy to pick you apart and kill you for no real reason. Your safety is one of our priorities here. So, don’t worry.”
He pulled out my phone from his pocket and placed in on the table.
“We aren’t savages so here have your phone. You may continue to write about your experiences here and share it with the world. However, we will be keeping a close eye on what you write, to ensure that there is nothing too damning in your posts.”
I smiled. At least there will be something normal here. Some normalcy in this otherwise foreign place would definitely keep me sane.
“Alright, now to more proper business. Since I believe that you are more than satisfied to work with us. Here at the Company, we run tests to see what happens when we put two or more Entities together. This helps us understand the Entity Phenomenon and how to appropriately contain the Entity. There are cases of Entities even living on after their host, or subject dies.
There was an entity that lived in the woods in the United States. His ability was to make any photo that took a picture of him look blurry and distorted. Then, this blurry distortion would begin to haunt the dreams of anyone who saw the photo. Eventually, the nightmares would chip away at the sanity of those afflicted. This would often lead to suicide. After the host of the Entity was found dead after being killed by a hunter, we found that the photo still had its effects.”
So, I shook his hand and I agreed to his terms. In exchange for agreeing to his terms, I am allowed to move around the Brig. I will be honest. I still don’t trust them but I would rather have a comfortable life here if they are going to imprison me anyway.
It took me a few hours but I immediately regret my decision to help the Company. Today, they introduced me to something they call ‘Eurythmics’. It is a machine that copies memories from one person and implants them in another. During this copying and transfer process, the receiver gets to relive the memories of the sender as if they were in it. So, they would feel naturally compelled to follow the sequence of the memory but would still retain some remnant of free will in the dream state. They warned me before that any pain in the dream would feel real to me but won’t actually hurt me. They were right when they said it wouldn’t hurt me physically but the mental scars I will have will last me a lifetime.
The process was very simple. I sat in a chair, they showed me the disc that they were going to use on me, it was called ‘Careless Whisper’ and they placed this headset over my head, covering my eyes and ears. Then, I was administered a sedative. After falling asleep, I woke up in a somewhat lucid dream-state.
I was in a room completely unfamiliar to me. Green curtains, wooden floor, lots of books. Looked like a nice place to live. The biggest surprise to me was when I looked down. I was not me. I was a woman.
I grabbed my own breasts and I could definitely feel it. This was not an ordinary dream. I could feel all the right sensations. That’s when I felt a soft sting on my wrists and that was when I noticed them.
Marks on my wrists. Some were still rather fresh and stinging. Whoever’s mind I was in, she wasn’t the most mentally healthy. At this point, I really wanted out. I didn’t know how long this was going to last. So, naturally, I was in a full panic mode. However, I was trapped in this body. I was a prisoner in this body and although I could have minimal movement, I couldn’t truly diverge from the actual chain of events. I was a passenger on this sickening ride.
That’s when I heard it. A soft whisper.
“Hey.”
Confused, I responded. “Uh, hey?”
“Kill yourself.”
“What?” I gripped my hands in a fist.
“You heard me, kill yourself, you worthless whore. Nobody loves you.” The voice began to sound a bit louder. It stopped sounding like a whisper but more of a scratch at the base of my skull. Irritating. Screaming.
I got up and walked out the door. I got into my car and began to drive to work. The voice continued to chant “Kill yourself! Your life is a waste!”
It kept on going until I reached what seemed to be my office. I took the lift up to the roof. I walked towards the edge and at that point, the voice seemed to get stronger. That was when I saw it. As the sun shined on my back, I saw its shadow. It was a large creature perching on my shoulders. This must have been the Entity the Company calls ‘Careless Whisper’.
When I looked up, I saw it in more detail. It was a large birdlike creature with human skin. His face was obscured by a large beak of bone. He has tufts of black fur-like feathers on his wrists, his talon-like feet, and his pubic region. He looked like a vulture with a skin infection. Before I could further analyse his appearance, I felt the wind blowing against me. I jumped.
The feeling of falling to your death is a feeling that is hard to describe. It is both terrifying and soothing. I felt somewhat relaxed that I would soon be free of ‘Careless Whisper’. I thought the experiment would be soon over and I would wake up before I hit the ground, like in a dream. I really hate being wrong.
Falling was fun but the landing was not. I landed on my feet and I felt my body crumple up as my leg bones pierced through my chest. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe and the pain was coursing through everything. Blood was squirting out all the orifices on my head. The world spun manically as eventually, I lost consciousness.
Then, I woke up again in the room. Green curtains. Wooden floor. Everything the same, except for one thing. In the corner of the room, there was a pile of rope. Then, ‘Careless Whisper’ began talking again.
“You useless bitch. You can’t even die correctly. Do it right this time. Kill yourself.”
I got up and reached for the rope in the corner and went to the attic. I slung the rope over the rafters and tied it into a noose. I stood on a chair and put my head in the noose. That was when Whisper became visible again.
Instead of perching on my shoulders, he appeared directly in front of me, hunched over and with a weird smile on his beak.
“Yes. Do it. Now. You worthless piece of shit. End it!” he shouted.
With that, I kicked the chair from underneath me and began to dangle.
Just when I thought that plummeting to my death was painful. It turns out that hanging myself was even worse. It wasn’t instead. No. It was a long and excruciating experience. I ran out of breath really quickly as I felt my throat close up. I felt all my body weight hanging by my tiny neck, stretching against my spinal cord. Eventually, I lost vision.
Then, I woke up again in that bloody room. This time, I woke up immediately seeing Whisper. I looked to my right and realised I was holding up a gun to my head.
“PULL THE TRIGGER! YOU GODDAMN SLUT! YOUR LIFE IS FORFEIT YOU STUPID BITCH!”
BANG!
This time I didn’t feel anything. It was a quick burst of pain but it ended there. I just woke up in the room again. This time, I picked up a phone, ignoring the pleas of Whisper and called up a number. I think it was a therapist. A few minutes later, as I was in the tub, ready to slit my wrists and bleed out. A bunch of men in suits came in and restrained me. Then, they shoved a thin needle into my head. After that, the feed cuts out, I woke up realising I was safe.
I informed the people around me about what happened while I was under. They looked to be rather happy, so I guess that Eurhythmics was a success. I do NOT want to do that again. Soon after, I walked past the holding cell for ‘Careless Whisper’ and I saw myself, or rather the person whose memories I lived, bound to a wall by leather straps with her mouth gagged.
I was about to step towards the cell when I felt the liquid membrane of the reflection of the glass in front of me and faintly I could see the Man in the Mirror reaching towards me. So, I stepped back.
I truly feel sorry for the poor girl. To have Careless Whisper there, telling her to die all the time. She must have been going through a living hell.
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