Crossing the Line

Some people swore that the house was haunted. ‘That statement’…that is how it always started. It was a ploy to get the kids to think freely. It wasn’t our first choice…for kids to be the subjects, but their imaginative skills…the creativity…that’s what we really liked. With adults…they had total control over their thinking, which made free-thinking very difficult. The way kids let ideas manifest fear in their hearts…the way their thoughts came to life as they were put into a sleep induced state. This was how we studied the effects of fear: how the brain registered activities when fear took hold of a child. We hoped this would answer the ultimate question: “If you die in your dreams, would you die in real life?”

There isn’t a child out there that hasn’t heard folk stories or ghost stories. A form of entertainment, no harm no foul. Then there are people with mental illness that can’t tell the difference between hallucination and reality. If we can find out what it takes for our brain to take imaginary things and perceive it to be real, then maybe we can find a way to help people realize the difference between the two. This was what our study was about. We particularly chose this horror aspect of it because this was one topic that caught like wild-fire. Kids couldn’t stop themselves from thinking. Their imaginations evolved quite rapidly. It was perfect for a simple study to see how the brain activities changed as the ideas grew more life-like. We believed we could find out when fear turns into fright…a dream into reality. There was a thin line between the two and we were making progress.

The drug administered that put them to sleep induced state magnified the stimulations already present in the specific regions of the brain…which in turn amplified the senses to make it feel as if they were actually seeing things they imagined. We monitored all the vital signs as well as the brain scans mapping the activities during the event. Just to make sure of kid’s well being, there was always a watcher present in their dreams, blending in the background…observing. If abnormality was present, watcher would pull them out of their dreams instantly.

Using a serum to extremely heighten their senses…was something we weren’t going to apply in this experiment being that they were just kids. But when the experiment results were so close and seemed yet so far away we decided to try it out on one. The stories had manifested into quite a horror story…we recorded every story he dreamt of, every conversation he had with his friends. The dreams manifested his worst fears. As the serum took effect, the dreams became more illusive, more frightening. There was total chaos in his thoughts. The ideas weren’t as seamless as before.

It was going fine in the beginning but as he progressed into his own story, he started to lose sight of what’s real. He knew he had created this, that it was not real but his senses were pushing him towards the brink, the line had been crossed…the brain activity data soared. He was perspiring heavily…heart rate was uncontrollably high. The watcher wasn’t able to keep up with him. The surrounding chaos didn’t help matters much. His brain had taken it all to be real. He died trying to escape his own dream. The watcher awoke as he watched him holding this fragile child in his hand as his life slowly faded away…taking with him his dreams. Nothing was ever the same again after that.

My try at short story....I'll have to rethink this one...