Recordings Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
“The hunger. Inside. Insatiable. Ripping. Tearing. The hunger rips
me apart. I feel it growing. I feel it pulling at me. Making me ache. Making me…
Weak. So weak. I wish I was stronger. I wish I could fight it. I
wish I could control it. I wish I could do so many things. I wish I could go
back to the beginning and hide.”
Daryl’s voice trailed off and then there were muffled screams and
some inaudible yelling. It sounded like something primal. Like beasts of rage, battling.
It was horrible.
Daryl had died earlier that afternoon. His appendix burst for no
good reason. Maybe his body couldn’t handle it. No one had been there. Daryl
died alone. Ellie was listening to his last words as a human.
Ellie pressed stop on the voice recorder. She paused and took a
deep breath and rubbed her eyes. It was tragic. It was exhausting, listening to
it all. She didn’t think it would be this exhausting.
Ellie started listening again – a different voice on a different
track. But not so different. Not so different at all.
“Desire. Oh God the
desires. Fuck. I want to consume… someone. Feel inside them. Ravage them. Fuck.
Fuck...”
“The flesh. Out of my flesh. My flesh is haunted. It’s against me.
I need to stop it. Get under my flesh and make it stop. Out. Get it out of me.
GET IT OUT!”
“Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!”
“I feel strong! I am alive. I am powerful. I am a GOD!!”
“I will kill you all. I will fucking KILL you all!!!”
“Tell Abby I love her. Please. Tell her. Just tell her. Please. I
swear. Please.”
“…”
Sometimes there was nothing. Sometimes it was the screams or the
growling of a beast. Sometimes there were just sobs, whimpers and the tears of
the broken, of the destroyed.
Ellie would press play and listen. She would press pause and write
down notes. She would stop and take a break and try to regain a little bit of
her humanity. The process was grueling and left her quickly drained. Over and
over and over it went. Tape after tape after tape. She was listening to the
death and destruction of men and women over and over. Their madness. Their slow
devolution into something less than human, something else. Ellie didn’t know
how much more she could stand to listen to.
Ellie gathered herself, gathered her courage. She was tired. She
was drained. The whole process had left her so empty, so very empty inside. It
was almost over. She was almost done. She just needed to pull herself together
and give it a little bit more. Just a little more. Just a bit of effort and
energy. That was all. Then she would be done and this thing she had been a part
of would be over and finished.
She felt bad. Terrible really. Sorry for all she had done. Sorry
to all the patients. She knew there would be more. She knew the experiments wouldn’t
stop. But she could quit. She didn’t have to do this again. She just had to
finish this one last thing and then she could be done. She could be free. She
just needed one last moment of strength.
Ellie made a phone call and left a message of her own. She was
quitting. She was finished. She told them that she didn’t have it in her
anymore. That she couldn’t listen to the voices anymore.
Then she called someone else. Someone she loved. Someone from a
long time ago. Someone that would never forgive her, but maybe, they wouldn’t
have forgotten her.
“I cannot make you understand. I hope you will forgive me. I was
curious. We were curious. We wanted to see what would happen. That’s all. It
was an experiment. We just wanted to learn and see if we could make them
better. We failed. Failed them all.”
She hoped she would be forgiven. She hoped she could forget what
she had done. Ellie slit her wrists and then she slit her throat. She leaned
back. And then she was free.
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