The Skinners

Day 3

I was resigned to even writing this journal, and for the first two days I kept my will strong, but even the strongest of minds cannot defeat the allure of distraction from staring at the wall of a cell. This journal entry will probably be the longest of them all. There is a lot to explain about the predicament I find myself in, and the hellhole that I now seem to be imprisoned in for the foreseeable future. To start, I should let you know who I am. I used to be a lawyer. A well off, respectable lawyer, with a family, a three story house, everything a typical american would dream of having. Now, it doesn’t matter. Not a single thing I had changes what’s happening now. As I write this, I am sitting on my metal chair, in my cramped metal cell. Everything around is metal, save the soft mattress. You’d be surprised how grateful a person can be. You get taken from your home, locked in this fucking cell, but hey, we have soft mattresses. I guess that’s just the cruel humor of the world. Anyway, getting on with it. The rest of the cell is just a dull, metal, barren, save for the chair I mentioned, and the table it's in front of. However… every wall has a hole in the center, roughly three feet above the floor, about wide enough to stick your head through. Through these, we, the prisoners, can communicate. This is the only human interaction we have anymore. The strangest part.. Well, no one knows what to make of it. I have been here for three days, by my count. Every 24 hours, our cells move. We are shuffled, with new people through each hole. No one has any idea how. An automated system is my best guess. The only support I have for my idea is that our food is delivered through a hole in the ceiling, which I assume is mechanical. One of my “neighbors” theorized that this is Hell. Another said that we were being trapped by aliens and harvested for slaves once our wills broke. Everyone has a different theory. I am trying to find out more about what’s going on here. Why we were all imprisoned, if we are connected, the reasoning behind all of this. With every switch, I’m gathering more information. Spreading it. LIstening to the cell rumors, trying to figure out what’s going on. Maybe… hopefully I can see my family again.

Day 4

I awoke today to the sounds of my new cellies. This is a weird batch. The alien rumor seems to have taken hold and spread through the cells. There is one person that interests me so far more than others. He claims to have been in here for over a year, the man claims to have lost track. I wouldn’t blame him. Nothing can scratch these walls; nothing we do can mark the time. This information means that there’s no telling how long this has been going on, or how long we are going to be trapped. The man… He seems to be nothing more than a shell. I barely got him to tell me how long he’d been in. I had heard from one of the first set of cellies I had that suicide was becoming a common occurrence within the cells. I wonder if I will ever see the man again, or if today will be one of his last.

Day 6

The horrendous smell. Lady fucking luck landed me next to the first suicider I’ve seen so far. I can’t tell what even happened. The body is so decomposed… It must have been in here for months. No telling how long before that. He.. she.. it, looks like it had it’s skull bashed in. I can’t see it through the hole, but I assume one of the walls is covered with blood. It’s probably pointless to hope, but I pray to whatever the hell is out there that something will clean that mess up. I feel as though I’m getting sick. I don't know how much longer I can do this.

Day 7

The next switch has given me the most interesting rumor yet. A group of people called the Skinners are the subject of this depraved story. And trust me, when I say depraved, I mean it. Apparently I was ignorant to the sick gossip too, because I only myself and another one of my cellies hadn't heard of this this rumor. More to the point, there was supposed to be a group of people who had managed to wriggle through the holes. They had became deformed, deranged descendants of human beings. The rumor varied, depending on which of the three connecting cellies told it. Two of the cellies say that there is one Skinner. The other talks of many different ones. The one thing that the rumor agreed on is the level of fucked-up the things were. Skinners are an abomination, in the best sense of the word. It makes me laugh to think that even in the worst of conditions people are believing in something as ridiculous as the “Skinners”.

Day 8

Today brings in less crazy talk. No one in the cells next to me have heard of the Skinners. We all had a good laugh about the insanity of the whole thing. The irony of it all; laughing at other’s insanity while we’re trapped in metal cells. On a different note, some of us have been theorizing that it’s near Thanksgiving. We were all given a turkey leg for dinner. It’s only been a short time since I’ve ate meat compared to some others but… I still feel as though it’s been an eternity and then that over again. Maybe our capturers are going to let us out soon. Maybe this nightmare will finally come to an end.

Day 13

There hasn’t been anything to record lately. The days get longer, each minute stretches out impossibly long, each hour seems like a lifetime. I haven’t gotten a fucking step closer. Everyone in here comes from all walks of life. The homeless, the rich, the do gooders and nerdowells of the world were here. I haven’t gotten past square fucking one. There are no connections. There is no pattern, no sense. We are fucked in here. I have had an epiphany. The key to surviving in this shithole is to accept the fact that there is no hope.

Day 16

There is a new rumor. One I find somewhat funny. A baby. Two horny bastards found each other and fucked through the hole. I knew that this had been going on, women and men alike giving out all kinds of sex possible through the holes. But this slut managed to get pregnant. The best part? I know it’s not a rumor. I can hear the baby cry. It’s far, far off. I’ll probably never see it, and I don’t want too. It’s annoying as shit, it must be a lot worse for those directly next to it. Personally, and don’t judge me on this, I’d strangle the fucker with its umbilical cord. This is no place for life, this is a where the reigning king is death.

Day 17

There’s something strange. An empty cell. Lots of blood. The walls are nearly covered in it. I don’t know what to make of it, maybe a suicider that finally got cleaned out of his cell? The possibilities are endless. I can’t help but let my mind envision the worst scenario… What if Skinners existed? I feel like I’ve been transported back to my childhood; the nights under the blanket with the Scooby Doo flashlight, praying a ghost wouldn’t rip off the covers and take me right then and there.

Day 21

I haven’t slept well lately. My mind keeps going back to the empty cells, thoughts of the Skinners. My fellow cellies have been telling me more stories of Skinners. I finally found someone who knew the story of their origin. The very first “Skinner” starved himself until he was nearly bone. He then… this story is despicable. He rubbed his body against the edges of the hole until the skin was rubbed off of his shoulders and hips, leaving bloody patches that lubricated his way through the hole. It seems as though he raped a woman. That woman’s child was mutated… Unnatural. Mutation shouldn’t occur at this rate, especially just from flesh wounds. Although, nothing about this is natural. I can almost come to believe it. Now that I’m typing it, getting it out of my head, it seems a little surreal, but all of this does too. I can’t believe what’s going on here. I don’t know how much I can take it.

Day 23

Another fucking empty cell. This one was worse. I can’t tell what’s going on. The cells walls might has well of been painted red. They were stained, every inch caked in dried blood. I don’t know what happened there,  I can’t bear to imagine the possibilities. My cellies, all of them, they’ve stopped talking. The switches still take place, but no one talks. Nor do I. No one has anything to say. I can’t take the silence, I can’t take this anymore. The prospect of being a suicider seems much more enticing than I ever thought imaginable.

Day 24

These empty. Fucking. Cells. There’s two of them this time. What’s going on in them?! Why are they empty. There’s no way one human has that much blood. Six quarts? That must’ve taken several bodies. All dragged through the hole. I can no longer sleep. The fucking Skinners must be real. They have to be. How could this have happened?! How could there be something so evil, such an abomination existing? It’s against the nature of God. I don’t know if God even exists anymore.

Day 25

I saw a flash in the hole. A red, slimy, flash. And there are droplets of blood in my room. Now I have proof. They’re fucking real. I need to find a weapon. I need something to defend myself. When that fucker comes back, I’m going to send him back to wherever the fuck it came from.

Day 26

I haven’t slept in two days. I have no weapons. If it attacks I can’t defend myself. I can’t end up like those fucking rooms. My cell will be clean. There’s more blood. This time it’s coating the hole to the left of my bed. I didn’t think it real at first but it’s there. I know it is. I’m going to die here. I can hear the fuckers skitter and scratch, screech and scramble all across the floors. I know they’re coming for me. I haven’t seen a human in two days. They’re turning. They’re dying or turning, I don’t know which. I can’t fucking take this. THERE! It’s happening. The noises. The inhuman screeches. I have to do something.

Day I Don’t Fucking Know

I can’t do it. These little shits thought they’d beat me. HAHAHAH!!! As if. You can’t beat me. I’m the fucking god of these cells. As far as I know I’m the only human left, the last man standing, the man undercover, behind enemy lines, fucked twice and backwards. They aren’t gonna fucking kill me. NO one kills me. I’ll end these motherfuckers. I HEAR THE SKITTERING. THEY'RE IN THE WALLS, I’LL BASH THEM OUT.''' '''

I can’t win. They left by themselves, I can’t win. It’s hopeless. There’s only one exit. They won’t take the one thing I still have. My life is mine to take.''' '''

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Human Imprisonment Behavior:

Test Subject: 5799

Subject became volatile quickly. Patient’s mind collapsed, signs of multiple personalities emerged. Evidence of self harm via smashing his own cranium into his cell wall continually. Coincides with the trend seen by other cellmates. The rumor started by our control test subject, code named “The Skinners” became the object of Subject 5799’s obsession. This led the subject to self-termination after 33 days, six hours, and twenty seven minutes.