chapter 4
931 Words
Profound sat in the chair, straitjacket cutting her arms raw, staring into the pulsing walls of Room 222. It was no longer a room. It was a creature. She knew that now. The padded floor twitched like muscle, the ceiling dripped its blood-light, and the corners whispered in a language not meant for sanity. But worse than all of it was the sudden certainty that she was being watched.
Not just by cameras. Not by nurses peeking through the reinforced glass. No — she felt the weight of eyes too large, too unblinking, pressed against her skull. The government, the agents, the faceless suits behind mirrored glass. She laughed bitterly. “I see you. Don’t blink, you f***s. You’re afraid I’ll become your proof.”
Her laugh echoed. The walls responded, shuddering, and numbers burned into the plaster again: 2:22. She hissed between her teeth. “Yeah, I get it. Same number. Same f*****g prophecy.”
---
The Doctors Enter
The door clanged. For the first time in hours—maybe days—steel groaned open. Two men in white coats stepped in, their faces pale, lips tight, eyes darting like mice pretending to be lions. One carried a clipboard, the other a syringe.
Profound leaned forward, her grin wide, teeth sharp under the fluorescent bleed. “Finally. You came to watch the show in person.”
The one with the syringe cleared his throat. “We’re here to help you, Hannah.”
Her name felt like a slap. She snapped her head sideways, spit hitting the floor. “Don’t call me that. You know my name is Profound.”
The man scribbled on the clipboard. “Dissociative presentation, escalation of identity fracture.”
Her laugh cracked the air. “Write your notes, b***h. Every word you scribble is mine now. You don’t even realize I’m the author. You’re just the secretary.”
The syringe twitched in the other man’s hand. He stepped closer. “We need you to calm down.”
Profound tilted her head, grin widening. “Calm down? Do I look calm to you? Calm is dead. I’m the one alive in here.”
She lunged forward, the straitjacket snapping taut. The men stumbled back. One cursed. The clipboard fell to the floor with a smack that echoed like a gavel.
The walls pulsed, amused. The door slammed shut behind them.
---
The Collapse of Authority
Something shifted. The men froze, staring at the walls as cracks bled open. Hands—those pale, twitching, spiderlike hands—poured out again. They scrabbled across the floor, climbing the doctors’ legs. One screamed as fingers crawled into his open mouth, prying his jaw wider, wider, until it snapped.
The other dropped the syringe, stomping at the flood of hands, but more poured out. He was dragged down, knees cracking, throat swallowed in a tide of pale grasping.
Profound sat back, watching with a calm so sharp it was terrifying. “See? I didn’t even touch you. Room 222 eats its own.”
The walls swallowed the bodies. Not bones, not blood—just gone. Absorbed into the living hospital. The only thing left was the clipboard, still lying in the center of the floor.
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The Performance
She leaned forward, eyes locked on the invisible watchers. “You’re still there, aren’t you? Behind your screens. Behind your glass. Don’t act like you didn’t see that.”
The lights flickered. A faint buzz overhead, like an intercom left half on. She smirked. “Yeah. I thought so. You won’t talk back. You’ll just keep writing reports. ‘Subject unstable. Subject dangerous. Subject beyond repair.’”
Her laugh broke into a scream, sharp enough to crack her throat raw. “But I know you. I know you want to see me burn. You’re waiting for me to give you the act. Fine. Let’s give you the act.”
She stood—straitjacket biting into her flesh—and stomped to the clipboard. She bent down, grabbed it between her teeth, and raised it up high like a prophet hoisting a tablet. Blood from her bitten lips smeared across the papers.
“This is my gospel now,” she whispered. “Room 222 is my church, my stage, my execution ground. And you’re the audience. Smile, motherfuckers.”
---
The Revelation
The lights dimmed. The walls stopped pulsing. For one impossible moment, the room was still. Silent. Calm.
Then the ceiling split open. Not like plaster cracking. Like a wound. From it dangled wires, cameras, lights, all dripping with that same fluorescent blood.
Profound tilted her head back, blood soaking her teeth, and whispered, “Finally. You show yourselves.”
The wires writhed like snakes, lowering themselves. Not to kill. To record. Tiny red lights blinked alive at the tips—recording every twitch of her face, every ragged breath.
She laughed until she cried. “You want the truth? You’re never going to contain me. You put me in here to study me, to control me, but all you did was turn me into something you can’t define. A virus in your f*****g system.”
The walls glowed, numbers searing deeper. 222. 222. 222.
Profound spread her arms wide, the straitjacket biting, her body shaking like a cross between prayer and mockery. “Welcome to the show. I’ll bleed for you. I’ll rot for you. But I’ll never break for you.”
The cameras blinked. The wires hissed. And somewhere in the hidden control rooms of the hospital, someone whispered the words that sealed it all:
“She knows we’re watching.”
- Writer
