Strongloch Island

The rain poured down onto my office window during the thunderstorm, and I did my best to tune it out as I watched TV. I had been sitting at my desk like that for the past several weeks, either watching TV or reading. Neither of which had anything to do with my job as a private detective. But, I hadn't received any satisfying job offers during that time, so I was just distracting myself with whatever activity could kill my boredom.

Then, in my trance-like-state, I was interrupted by the sound of my phone ringing. I reached for the remote on my desk to turn off the TV, and then I grabbed the phone to answer it.

"Hello?", I said.

"Hello, is this private detective James Reilly?", a woman questioned.

"Yes ma'am, what do you need?"

"I was wondering if you could investigate a place called "Strongloch Island Hospital. I think my brother might have been committed there", she said.

"So, it's a mental hospital, what do you need me to do?", I asked.

"I was wondering if you could find out all the details about the island and the hospital", "I also wanted to know if my brother is alright. The whole place is really shady, and they haven't let me see my own brother".

The rest of the conversation was about the payment and the location of the island. I accepted the job offer, as it sounded particularly interesting, and unlike anything else I had done before. Just a few days later I booked a flight to the town nearest to the island. When I got there I decided to rent a car and I drove the rest of the way.

There was only one road to get to the island, and occasionally the road would split off towards various homes. All of which had a very old look to them, but they had been well kept. The houses were always quite large and it was clear the owners had to be very wealthy to live in such places. But, those houses were the only forms of civilization that surrounded me as I passed through forests and hills along the lonely road.

When I finally got to the island, I had to cross a very wide bridge, and the island towered over everything. It was quite noticeable from a distance because it was very mountainous and various structures stood on the different layers. The structures themselves were also quite old and luxurious, just like the houses that I had passed earlier. It was clear that an entire town sat on that island, but it was strangely quiet and I couldn't see anybody outside, despite the beauty of the whole area.

I crossed the bridge and I arrived right outside some metal gates. They were connected to dark sets of railings all along the island, which I couldn't even see anything through. I rolled down my windows as I reached out to press the small red button that I noticed next to the gates.

In a moment there was a loud screeching sound as the rest of the road was revealed. I rolled up my window and drove forward into the town. I found a hotel shortly after and I booked a room for a few weeks.

The next morning, I walked around the island to see if could I ask anyone some questions, but everyone either ignored me or were very dodgy in their answers. Most of the residents stayed inside, but I noticed a few of them were working along the docks. There were fishermen and people bringing crates of food off of various boats. This was the loudest part of the island, but the rest of it was pretty quiet.

Since I wasn't gathering any information from the townsfolk, I decided to head over to the Strongloch Island Hospital. I stepped inside and walked up to the front desk, where a woman in a white uniform was working.

"Hello, I was wondering if I could ask some questions and take a look around the place."

She looked at me with furrowed brows and there was a moment of hesitation.

"What for?", she asked.

"I'm a private investigator, and I just wanted to know more about this place", I said.

She looked up and got very tense all of a sudden.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you unless you're here for medical help", she said.

Once again I was out of luck, and I had to gather information another way. I decided to stay in my rental car for the next few nights to see where everybody goes. I watched the hospital for hours and I only saw one person leave during that time. This person looked like a doctor who would leave at the same time at night and arrive at the same time during the early morning hours. I thought this was strange, but I assumed that all the employees and the patients slept in the same facility. Yet it seemed strange that none of them ever stepped outside the building during that time.

I decided to follow this mysterious man one night inside my rental car. He drove across the bridge away from the island, and I followed him from a distance. About half an hour later we arrived at, what I assumed to be, his house. I stayed parked quite a distance away from him until I was sure he had gone inside for the night. Then, I slept in my car, and I awoke early that morning. I waited until he left the house before I got out of my car and searched the premises. I couldn't see anything outside that would help with the investigation. But, I assumed that this man knew some very important things, and I figured the inside would have some evidence as to what that was.

Now keep in mind that what I was about to do was, and still is, very illegal. It would most likely have led to getting my license taken away if I was ever caught, but thankfully that never happened. I used prior lock picking skills to get inside the man's house and search around.

The downstairs didn't contain much, but there were quite a few books lying around which pertained to the sciences and human psychology. Other than that, there was nothing special there, so I decided to check up stairs.

That's when I found a large room with several bookshelves lined with video tapes. Each one was labeled with their corresponding number. In the corner there was a small TV with a VCR player underneath it. There were still several hours to go before the man would come back, and so I decided to do yet another morally and legally objectionable thing. I started scanning through the various tapes as quickly and thoroughly as I could.

All of the tapes consisted of a small room with a machine hooked up to some helmet a person was wearing. This person would be lying unconscious on the bed to which they were strapped down to. I assumed that this was inside that hospital.

Then at a certain point during the tape, somebody on an intercom would say, "the patient is ready to receive contact". Then moments later the patient would start shaking. It would be just a little at first and then it would grow to violent convulsions, before it would stop very abruptly.

The same voice on the intercom would speak up again.

"The patient has been lost. No contact has been made."

I couldn't believe what I kept seeing. They were literally killing their patients, and I wasn't even sure why. I didn't even understand what they meant by contact.

I decided to finish my search of the rest of the house, and I came across an office. This was the jackpot of the whole investigation. Tons of articles and research had been pinned onto the walls, and various other bits of information scattered the desks which were lined up. I began to dig through it all, and I did my best to gather what I could.

I understood that they were trying to explore a strange concept. They believed that those with mental and emotional instability had some bizarre connection towards other realms. These realms were dark places which thrived off of two key emotions -- fear and paranoia. They thought that these realms were other universes that housed nature's unwanted creatures. They assumed that these beings had known of our universe for a long time, and that they had wanted to make contact with us. In turn, the island's townsfolk were just trying to do the same in order to make big discoveries about said realms. But in the process, they were using the patient's brainpower to do so. Their deaths were essentially just failures of this horrible and disturbing experiment.