Weird Science! [Worm / SCP]

[Jormnam]

Chapter 1. Calm Beginnings




Laying in bed, the memories fly back. The white rooms. The Doctor. The needles. . . Papers and forms, words they'd give to your grandmother and father. You think back on the smiles, the "sympathy" they'd give you. The Loneliness. It hurts to think even more about the topic.

You're forced to let the memories overtake you, the past overtaking your present. . .

The dull hum of the bright, synthetic light filled the room. Sitting in the cold, rough metal chair, you stared at the Doctor in front of you, your eyes locked on the clipboard in his hand. His face obscured, the memory too blurry to recall.

"-an you understand me, J̷̥͆̃͜@̵̧̩͖̑̑(̴̤̇͊&̶̳̣̀̑̍?" The masculine, smooth voice of the Doctor sticks with you, a strange attraction toward those features. The memory ruining whatever he said last, the pieces not in place. "Please, you need to help me here. We can't help you unless you help us." Eventually, it seems, your previous self calms down and the memory smooths out. The area around the clipboard expands, and the Doctor's white lab coat and skin reveal themselves, his frowning face striking against your ego.

The Doctor's sad face speaks up, the voice from before, leaving what you wished would look better, what you wanted to smile. "Please. . . Just answer some of these questions. We need your help if we'll have any chance of helping you." You glance down, unwilling to look more at the sad figure, instead you spot another. . .

You glance down at your body. The Ugly, misshapen form of yours meets your eye. In disgust, you look back toward the Doctor, refusing to meet his eyes. He gives you a look you're too accustomed to receiving. Sympathy. A hint of disgust. Shame rises out of your stomach and threatens to spew.

Arms shake as you cross them, building up strength to look towards the Doctor and offer him a faint nod. He gives back what he assumes to be a reassuring smile and looks back to his clipboard.

"Thank you, now we can begin our questions. First of all, I know this sounds silly. . .Trust me, we aren't doubting you or thinking you're incapable, this is just a formality. Do you remember your name?"

You pause for a moment, lost in thought. What is your name? Do you even have one? You keep thinking, before eventually, something hits you like a brick wall. Jack.

Jack. . . The name feels both like a drop of water on a thirsty, dry tongue and a knife digging through the side of your belly. History sits behind the name, threatening to spill out and strangle your well-being. You let it sit in your head for a moment. Jack. Jack Harrington. Thinking about it for a moment longer brings nothing but pain. You quickly open your mouth, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth, the faint taste of blood sneaking up on you.

You offer just a whisper to the doctor in your shaky, unused voice.

"Ja-. . . Jack. . . I'm Jack Harrington." The doctor's smile widens as he puts down his clipboard for a moment and his hands move for a moment as if he's about to go in for some form of human contact, but he reflexively puts them back. Thank god. He won't touch you. You don't want him to touch you. You don't want anyone to touch you.

The doctor frowns to himself as he notices your shaking, and picks up his clipboard again. "So. Jack. Tell me, what do you last remember before being admitted here? Why do you think you've been sent here?"

The thoughts pour back into your mind, them. The Stalkers. The Followers. The ones outside your window, the ones creaking in your kitchen. They kept appearing behind you, standing in places you'd be. You'd walk down the street and hear a faint click of a camera. You knew they were following you, taking pictures of you. They even knew where you lived! But just because YOU cracked first, they blamed you!

You couldn't take it anymore. Your Grandmother kept asking if you were alright, if you needed help. They couldn't understand. They WOULDN'T understand. You tried everything you could to catch them. You went down different alleys, you took a longer route home. They still found you.

You decided to buy yourself a gun, a small thing. A Saturday night special with some saved-up money. You brought it with you, deciding to make it the last night that they'd find you. Standing in the middle of the street, you pulled your revolver out of your coat pocket and aimed down the long alley, where your stalker stared unquestioningly toward you.

You didn't bother aiming, firing six rounds down the alleyway, bullets striking against walls and trash. The Stalker looked back towards you, unfazed, and disappeared. You know he's still out there, somewhere. He's there. He has to be.

You look towards the clipboard again and offer a meek "No."

The Doctor shakes his head, and he frowns once again. "Alright, Jack. . . I can tell you don't wanna talk about it. . . How about your family, huh? Do you have any family, Jack?" That question simply needs to more memories and pain.

You remember the feeling of the rain dropping down on you as your Father threw you out of the house. You were given nothing but the clothes on your back as he slammed the door behind you. After your mother was diagnosed with lung cancer when you were 8, your father never looked at you positively. He always judged everything you did. He corrected everything you did. When she died a year ago, he was never the same man.

He stopped showing any emotion, his corrections turned into warnings, and the warnings turned into threats. When he took you to the doctor after the warnings from your school he ignored everything they said, he didn't care about the threat of CPS or your illness.

It all came to a head when the Stalkers arrived. Once you began to run home after school or skip it entirely to stay home, his cold exterior worsened.

"Jack. Your school called me today," You remember the moment almost perfectly, your father's masculine, emotionless voice sticking out in particular. "You've been missing school lately. Fourteen weeks of it."
His fist clenched as he stared at your terrified self. An hour later, you were standing outside your grandmother's house across the city, covered in bruises and shivering from the cold. She took you in, she cared for you. She screamed at the police as they took you away, locked you up in this fucking hell.


You give the doctor a shaky nod. "My. . . My Grandma. She's the only family I have left." you mutter, looking back down at the ground as he nods sympathetically. God, you hate those looks.

"Okay Jack, thank you. . . Our last question for the day, alright? How about something friendlier, something not as drab as those last ones, alright champ?" The doctor gives you a sad smile, one where their eyes don't match their southern neighbors. "So Jack. . .you got a favorite story? Any specific book, movie, or whatever. What do you like the most?"

You give the doctor a small smile.

"I like. . ." you think for a moment, realizing the doctor probably wouldn't understand. "I like online horror stories. Ones where a bunch of people work to create a world." You see the doctor's smile return as he puts down his clipboard.

"Thank you, Jack," he smirks, showing his white teeth. "That'll be all. Let's get you to your room, alright, champ?" He stepped up from his seat and opened the door of the room, waving his hand to invite you to leave. As you start to walk out, you see it on his face. . . Another one of those Sympathetic smiles.

The memory ends, and you're launched back to the present, past your first few months at the "Hospital.". You find yourself back in your white room, face down on your bed, the buzz of electric lights hanging overhead is all that fills your room. . . You can't handle it anymore. The reality of it all getting to you. God, you can't live like this. They all think you're a freak. They all think you're less than human. Your arms shake in restrained anger and fear. How the fuck are you SUPPOSED to live like this?! You get up from your rickety, lowest-bidder bed. You aren't FUCKING standing for this anymore! Nothing's making FUCKING sense! You're FUCKING DONE WITH IT ALL!

You punch the wall of your cell, a loud crack is heard as your fist starts gushing blood. You don't care, you're done with it all. Nothing is making sense anymore. . .

You feel lightheaded, the blood gushing from your hand must be getting to you. . . You sit down on your bed. . . Your eyelids feel heavy. . . You close your eyes for but a moment, opening them to find yourself in an empty, black void, a large, fleshlike crystal growth under you. . . You spot a titanic construction moving towards you, almost like a gigantic, incomprehensible snake made up of hardened crystal or rock. You see a small shard crack and fall off from the being, the shard of this launched toward yourself.

It travels halfway toward you, but you stand still, unmoving, almost like an episode of sleep paralysis. The shard gets closer and closer before Suddenly, a large beam of light slams against the gigantic shard of the previous being, turning and gaining a bright purple glow inside its crystal form. The being's form flickers, growing slightly or shrinking, growing edges, or smoothing out. It takes but a moment before the shard slams into you, the weight crushing you, holding you down until-


You open your eyes to find yourself on your bed, medical staff rushing into your room, a syringe pushed into your forearm before you can even react, sending you off to sleep. . .

Spoiler

What is this? A place unfamiliar, alien. I see that new people join the crowd, keen to watch the fireworks.

[This is an ongoing quest over at Fiction.live! You can keep up with and help steer the adventures of Jack and Co over at: https://fiction.live/stories/Weird-Science-in-Worm/HqvhyAd4AQxAACHF4/home I'd love to see you guys there, and if you liked what you've read, why not head to my Patreon over at https://www.patreon.com/Jormnam Thanks for reading, peace]