Room 101

Take it from a survivor. Room 101 is real. It waits. It is merciless. Room 101 is Hell on Earth. It is a super weapon. People who go in don't come back out. Those who come back out come out as vegetables. I'm the one and only person who has returned from Room 101 both alive and with their sanity intact. Screw thought crime. Fuck Big-Brother. Room 101 is used by the government to control the populous for the shear sake of keeping their own power-hungry agendas from being challenged. There is no more justice. There is gray. And Shades of it. Nothing more. The officials make sure of that. Their ideal is to control peoples' will through psychological means. Enter Room 101.

They had no reason to take me. They just wanted me gone. I left in the back of a black Cadillac Converj. I left with the image of my children and my wife, Julia, sobbing. Fear for myself instantly turned to fear for my family as two of the agents herded them into the house. Thought crime was their reasoning. Bullshit I say. They want to use me as an example. In this day and age there are no martyrs. There are only those who, as far as the public knew, opposed the Party. I was one of the rebels.

They tell us to conform. Nothing is special between one man and another. They tell us that They stand for democracy, what is right. However according to Them democracy is impossible. Doublethink is highly frowned upon. Yet is is approved of. Doublethink is essentially doublethink in of itself. Anything to control the masses. Like putty. Unfortunately putty has more use to Them than us. Can we think for ourselves? According to the Party, yes. Is everything we think instantly self-censored as a result of constant repression? To the Enlightened, yes. The Party doesn't like the Enlightened. They know that the Enlightened exist but they don't know who is within the “radicals'” ranks. The Party convicts based on nothing but simple whim and the Party  always  wins a trial.

Driving down the empty road through the ghettos, which seemed to be all that was left, nothing was said in the car. Silence itself created a subconscious buzzing as if it were uncomfortable with its own presence. The heat was stifling which worked to hide the anxiety-induced sweat dripping from my forehead. I could feel my heart racing. I felt at risk of a goddamned heart attack. My thoughts came and went at a million miles an hour and I somehow managed to censor all of them.

 A lifetime's supply of repression will do that . I thought to myself.

That second I could see the driver's head look up at the rear-view mirror to look at my reflection. I could sense his cold eyes gazing at me through the tinted shades that hid nothing but a corrupted soul.

We arrived at the white stucco building after what had seemed like a lifetime passed by. Maybe it had. The first thing that concerned me was when I noticed the structure had no windows. Then I noticed it had no doors. The agent walked around the side of the car and opened the door to let me out. He then proceeded to lead me around the building to the back where there were two doors that led underground like a storm cellar. We went down the stairs and, what I guess were motion activated, lights turned on. Along the long hall were stairwells marked only in braille. A constant buzzing resounded in my head like someone had shoved my skull in a hornet's nest. Thumping against the walls and heavily muffled breathing resounded throughout the hallway. I followed the agent in close suit. He made an abrupt left turn into a depression within the wall that contained nothing but an unmarked black door. My breath was caught in my throat and the color drained from my face as the realization that this was Room 101 hit me.

The agent opened the door and motioned for me to follow. I resisted and he grabbed me by the arm and forced me in. The room was dark. With just enough light to see the outline of a chair and nothing else. The floor was a black marble and the walls were a deep lapis color almost as dark as the floor. The agent had slipped behind me and grabbed me around the throat with his arm. Holding me in some MOAB hold I could hardly breath let alone move. With his other hand he reached into his pocket and quickly took something out of it. I heard a faint click and felt the syringe pierce the skin of my neck. I felt faint as the tranquilizing liquid slipped from the needle to my bloodstream.

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the fact that I could not move. I was strapped to my chair. The agent was standing in front of me. My head was braced down so his torso was the only visible part of his body. His white cuffs and pale hands seemed disembodied since his jet black suit practically blended with the surrounding walls. After saying nothing, putting me in the grip of silence, for about five minutes, he left. Then the light went out.

What Room 101 did was use your greatest fears to fuck with your head until, preferably, dead. To the Party my fears were no secret. Nobody’s fears were private.

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and the feeling of being watched washed over me. Through the deafening silence I could make out faint, slow, methodical breathing. Panting almost. Goosebumps covered my arms and sweat ran down my forehead. I wanted nothing but to be able to see what was behind me. As soon as I started hearing the breathing it stopped like it was alerted of my awareness. Sloshing, like wet footsteps, echoed through the room. The panting became more fast and ravenous. Something was in the room with me and it wasn't being stealthy about it. Strapped down I could not stand a fighting chance against whatever was walking towards me from behind. My heart skipped a beat or two when I felt hot, steamy breath on the nape of my neck. I couldn't help but picture a deathly pale profile. Nearly featureless save for a large mouth filled with rotted gums and crooked teeth. The golem-like creatures breath became more and more rapid as I envisioned “it”. Thrashing about to the point that my restraints would allow me, I tried to pull the chair up. It was chained to the wall. Now I was really screwed. Taunting me with a primal, sadistic pleasure the beast refused to show itself to me. The breathing slowed down and became more and more heavy with each exhalation. I felt one cold and clammy hand on my shoulder. Then another. A soft, guttural growling emanated from the creature and I could feel its hands slide up my neck. I couldn't see a thing. That is what scared me the most. I could not identify my torturer. Its palms were pressed up against my cheeks and they felt every bump, crevice, and depression on my face. In doing so its fingers slid into my open mouth effectively muffling my sobs of terror. Then, instinctively, I bit down. Nothing. I could feel the long, cold fingers inside my mouth before I bit down but when I did bite I didn't feel anything.

The lights turned on and the agent stormed in in a rage. His silence was stern but he didn't need to say anything for me to understand that I had completely foiled his plan. He looked at me through his tinted shades and, though I couldn't see his eyes, his hostile gaze paralyzed me making me fixated on his stare. Moving with blinding speed he whipped out another syringe and shoved it into my neck much more forcefully than last time. He whirled around with blinding speed briskly walked out of the room. The lights went out again. When the room started to spin faster and faster it struck me that the blue liquid was more than a tranquilizer... it was a hallucinogen.

As I once again came to a luminescent blue light filled the room. The wall facing me looked like glass with water behind it. The water sparkled towards the top and got exponentially darker the further down I looked. I suddenly realized my head wasn't braced down anymore. Then, a thunderous snap broke the silence. In one corner of the glass I could see a small crack had appeared. In a barrage of of similar thunderous snaps the crack spread getting wider and wider as it moved across the pane. It sprouted smaller cracks, like the tributaries of a river as, it grew larger and larger. Then a quiet as stunning as the actual cracking befell the room. I felt my heart beating at a million miles an hour and shivers went up and down my spine in knowing anticipation of what would happen next. Trying to keep my calm I remembered that I was under the influence of a hallucinogen. When the glass shattered inward, spraying me first with small shards then with salty water, I panicked. Water came rushing in at rapid speeds and, quicker still, the water levels in the room kept rising. Soon I began gagging on water and gasping for breath. I forced myself to breath naturally. I forced myself to remind myself that I was injected with a substance that was made to fuck with my mind. The water never rose above my eyes. Instead it immediately began receding.

This time no agent came out and silently threatened me with their freezing gaze. Rather, three of them entered. Each with a member of my small family in their arms. I knew this was real. Hot tears ran down my cheeks as Julia, sobbing, was shot in the head. In slow motion I saw my children kicked from behind the knees and struggle to crawl to their mother. Isaac, my twelve year old, was shot in the head first. His body fell over his mothers in a limp mass. Jeremiah, seven years old, lay on the floor in a fetal position. Without hesitation the third agent shot him once in the chest and once in the head. The three agents abruptly left. Rage boiled over and I once again began thrashing in my restraints so I could break free and hold my family’s bodies. Then perhaps kill myself. I finally broke free.

In came the original agent. Strolling in with a victorious grin on his face. With sadistic, evil pride I mockingly grinned back. Obviously confused his smile turned to a scowl. I lunged at him, tackled him. I held his head up by the hair and punched him in the face. I swiftly took out the syringe from his pocket and stabbed him right in the windpipe with it. I got up and walked out of the room leaving the piece of shit gasping, trying to draw his last breath. Then I turned around. From his shoulder holster I picked up his gun. Walking down the hallway I got to the cellar door and blew the locks off. I shot the driver of the Converj and drove off back into the city.

I suppose the Party will continue funding the use of Room 101 but now I've put real fear into them with the knowledge that it is possible to get of of the room.

<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal">Next stop... DC.