The Back of her Mind

A sci-fi horror story inspired by Mental Image Reconstruction

For the science that inspired this post, go here

---

Have you ever had a something? No, no not a something a - uh - a thing. No, what’s the word? I can’t think of the word! Whatever it is, have you had it?

Sometimes, in the dead of night when I swear I’m not asleep, I have a thing - a something - an experience. The kind where it gets real hot, then real cold. The kind of thing something experience where my heart won’t stop pounding in my chest, and suddenly I can’t move, can’t breath, can’t even think right. Doesn’t take long for it to fade away, and when I have control again, all I can do is scream and scream and scream…

And scream.

My husband holds me as I scream and cry and bawl my eyes out. He doesn’t understand the something - how it messes me all up inside. He calls them night terrors, but I’m awake. I swear, I’m awake. My head doesn’t work, and I’m not me anymore - I swear, I’m not me. I don’t tell him, but sometimes I’m scared this may be who I always was. Who I’ve always been; a paralyzed screaming mess that is sleepless, rotten, hot, and cold.

So anyway, I told the doc all that. And he said, “We’re going to do a sleep study.”

I said, “But I’m not sleeping, doc, that’s the problem.” He didn’t care much about that. They said they’d keep me for a night. No husband, no dog, no warm, quiet, dark bedroom. For one night, I sat in a cold, too bright room. Lights on, white noise machine blaring. All around my head was this big old machine that latched onto my head and had a little receiver that blinked in tandem with it across the room. Must’ve been a wireless connection for some high powered fancy thing. I think that was where the white noise was coming from too, actually.

It was another sleepless night - because it wasn’t a sleep problem, I told the doc that. It didn’t feel wrong to not be sleeping in that place. A hospital room, I mean. Walls all glass except for one white wall. Felt like everyone was watching me even though no one gave a damn about me, clearly. Every now and then I saw what I thought might be a nurse or two rushing up and down the hallway. They didn’t pay me any mind, but they did disappear behind that white wall a few times. Made me wonder what was behind there. Shame on me, my mind started to wander a little too far as I wondered about that white wall.

And then that thing started happening again. I wasn’t sleeping. I swear, I wasn’t sleeping. Don’t let anyone tell you I wasn’t awake, because I was. How else could I still see the white wall? How could I still hear that annoying unbearable white noise? How could I feel the world around me if I was asleep? I wasn’t so that clears that up now. Stupid sleep study. But still, there I was. Shaking. Shivering. Sobbing to myself. But then something weird happened. Something strange.

Screams.

It wasn’t me - how could I scream and sob too? It couldn’t have been me. It was the worst scream I’d ever heard. That’s why I’d rather admit to sobbing than pretend that scream was me. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. And then as the thing - the something - ended, the screams did too. She sounded like she was in serious pain. She… was it a she? It wasn’t me, I know that, okay? But it was a she screaming and that’s a damn promise. And she screamed when I cried. Her scream rattled my bones, rang in my ears. I felt it in my chest, tasted the rusted steel of her tears on my tongue. She was me, but she wasn’t actually me.

And I needed to know she was okay. Maybe if I knew, this stupid thing - the something - the experience - maybe it would stop happening to me finally. Maybe then I’d finally let that sweet embrace wrap around me and take me away to sleep.

But by then, it was morning and a nurse came in to tell me the study was over, led me to a private exam room and told me the doc would be in to see me shortly. Give me the lowdown on what the hell was wrong with me. Of course I already knew he wouldn’t have answers. I wasn’t sleeping after all.

“So…” Doc came into the room just as I had gotten dressed in the clothes I packed. Just barely got my shirt buttoned before he came barging his way in. “...how’d you sleep?” He asked as he looked up from his clipboard.

I shrugged, “Didn’t.”

“Really? Not at all?”

“Not even a little, doc. Like I told you. Haven’t been sleeping.”

“And how long have you not been sleeping for?” Doc leaned against a counter and jammed one hand in his coat pocket as he scanned the clipboard.

“Couple months. Can’t remember.”

“Do you operate heavy machinery at work?”

“Yep.”

“Hm. Maybe you should take a break from that for a little.” Doc said. He flipped the page on the clipboard and let out a quiet grunt. “Yeah, I’d recommend taking some time off. Maybe you have some vacation time saved up?”

“What’s the problem, doc?” I asked. I’ll admit, I was getting impatient with this whole thing. He was talking around me. Like he thought I couldn’t handle it or something. “Just say it.” I demanded.

“Well,” He scratched the bald patch on his head and rubbed his chin, “You say you aren’t sleeping, but based on your REM, heart rate, and brain activity, you were out like a light, my friend.” He walked over and showed me a clipboard page. It was just a bunch of graphs. Didn’t mean much to me.

“But I wasn’t asleep!” I said - maybe a little too loud, but come on! “I was wide awake all night. I saw everything.”

“You know, part of normal sleep is waking up at regular intervals. Most people don’t remember them, but it looks like you do. Maybe you just have a really good memory for those brief waking moments.”

“No. No, I’m not sleeping, that’s what I’m telling you.”

“Well, there’s one more thing we can check…” Doc turned the page. I fell back into the exam bed, trying to get away from that thing in front of me on the page. “This look familiar?” he asked.

“God, no. Never seen nothing like that in my life. What the hell is that?” On that page was the most sickening thing I’d ever seen. It was a monster covered in brown fur, but somehow the skin under it melted off its misshapen face. Its eyes were hollowed out, but still bulging out at me through a tunnel of flesh. The head was domed and hung over its forehead. And there were layers. Layers and layers of flesh bunched up around its forehead and throat. And god, the teeth. Those disgusting gnashing teeth. “You trying to give me a heart attack with that thing?” I shouted.

“We were tracking your brain waves all night. At a specific time,” Doc flipped back to the page with all the graphs and pointed to a peak around 3am, “your heart rate peaked. Also when you were in your deepest REM.” He pointed to another graph. “The fMRI took a scan and… well, say hello to your literal nightmares.” he flipped back to that disgusting thing on the page.

“But doc I’ve never seen that in my life, I swear.” I stared at it a little longer. “Wait… you’re saying this was in my head right when the thing happened?”

“I was getting to that.” Doc replied, “So the event you were having trouble describing did happen last night?”

“Yeah, but you don’t understand, doc. I don’t see anything when that happens. It’s just a feeling. Like a - uh - like an attack.”

“Hm… that’s interesting. Our machine can be tweaked, to read things other than imagery. Maybe I can try and make it look at… what? Feelings? It’s a feeling, then?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Hm.” Doc looked at me like he didn’t believe a word I was saying. “And you’re telling me you’ve never seen this image before?” He pulled the horrific picture off the clipboard and held it up to me.

“I’m pretty damn sure.” I said. I crossed my arms and tried not to look at it. It was creepy, okay? Not like anything I’d ever seen, and not something I ever wanted to see again.

“Our machine might need recalibrated. I’ll have a little chat with our technicians. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.” Doc threw the picture in the trash by the door and opened up the door to leave. He stopped right as he left, “I’d like to keep you for another night. I already checked with insurance and they’re willing to cover it - don’t worry, I didn’t tell them it was experimental. Call it a favor. If you’re willing to stay, I think we can get to the bottom of this before the end of the day tomorrow. Are you willing?”

“Sure, I guess.” I felt like I got beat into submission. Doc wasn’t believing any of what I was saying and I could tell - what else is new I guess? I thought in that moment, maybe if I stuck around, maybe he’d believe me. At this point it wasn’t even about getting better. It was about proving I wasn’t full of shit.

“Wonderful.” Doc smiled for the first time. Didn’t realize how pale he was ‘til the lights were all reflecting off his face and his too clean teeth were right there blinding me.

Before he turned to leave, I had a thought though, “Hey, doc?”

“Hm?” He stopped, but didn’t turn back to look at me.

“Last night - when that thing happened to me? I heard screams. A woman screaming. I don’t think that was in my head though. Do you know anything about that?”

“A woman screaming, huh?” Doc lowered his head and tapped his fingers on the metal of the doorway. “It was probably nothing. In fact, I bet it was just a glitch in the machine. Maybe in your sleep-addled brain the sound of the fMRI firing up sounded like a woman. The mind plays funny tricks on us all after all. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Just worry about getting better.”

“Okay.” I was worried he might say something like that.

Night came on fast. Doc was there to help me set up. Nurses quietly helped too, but doc was busy directing them, and not giving them much of a chance to chat anyway. I didn’t have much to say. I’ll be honest, for the first time in a while, I was feeling like maybe I could fall asleep, but tonight wasn’t the night for that. They secured that big fancy machine on my head, and powered it up. There was that white noise again.

“I did some investigating today, and I realized something.” Doc said, breaking the silence. “That image the machine generated wasn’t from a dream. It was interpreting… whatever it was you were experiencing. Turning your emotions into a visual.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not supposed to do that.” Doc said. He sounded real pissed, but he was letting it simmer real quiet like. “Just a machine incorrectly following its programming. I swear, this modern tech has a mind of it’s own sometimes. You know what I mean?”

“So what then?” I asked. I didn’t even know what I was really asking. I just was trying to keep the conversation going. Something about his tone did make me a bit nervous though, I’ll tell you that.

“So…” He tightened the straps of the machine on my head, I felt my pulse in my skull as he squeezed the headgear tighter. I winced a little and the nurses stopped to look at me, then went back to whatever they were doing. “So, I had to recalibrate the damn thing. Make it focus on a different part of your brain.”

“So, it’s scanning one part of my brain?”

“Huh? What? No. The receiving end is - no. Just no. Don’t worry, it’ll just go right over your head anyways.”

I didn’t like the way he talked to me. Not one bit. But I also knew better than to make it an argument. Even if I wanted to real bad. I just nodded along. Stupid old me, like I didn’t know my own damn body apparently.

“Alright, so you’re going to sit tight here, and I’ll see you bright and early to look at the results. Don’t worry, I think we’ll have this all sorted in the morning, and we’ll be able to effectively treat you then.”

“Thanks, doc.” I wasn’t feeling especially thankful, but who cares? He didn’t. As soon as he finished, he was gone again. The nurses stuck around a little longer, making sure I was secure and all that garbage. One nurse gave me a concerned look as she checked something on a clipboard then looked back at me. “Problem?” I asked

“Problem? No. No problem.”

“So, the doc calibrated that machine to work for me?”

“If that’s what he said.” The nurse sounded real impatient with me, so I just shut my mouth at that point. No point pissing her off I figured. Her and another nurse - a big man with a blond beard and glasses - went over to check the machine with the blinking light, then walked to the door.

“Sleep tight.” The man said as he shut the door. Just like that I was alone in my peninsula of glass, that white wall the only thing protecting what little privacy I had left. It wasn’t nothing I guess. I didn’t really know what time it was, but I could tell you at that point I was kind of starting to miss my husband. I know, shame on me for it taking that long and all, but I wondered how he was sleeping without me. I left my phone at the door, so it’s not like I knew. Maybe I’d call him in the morning. Suppose that was just one more reason to get my ass to sleep.

Or not.

Because when was the last time I really slept anyways? That night was different though and it got me thinking: Maybe doc was right; when he said that I was sleeping all those nights I didn’t think I was or whatever. I felt so aware that night, so obviously awake. I thought before I was awake, but maybe I was in a haze or something. Maybe I was sleeping with my eyes open or something because I felt so aware.

And god, what a boring night. I just kind of… stared. I saw the bustle of hospital employees, heard the sound of beeping equipment, and smelled that disgusting hospital stink. It was the kind of experience that made me feel like the outside world couldn’t exist because my imagination couldn’t comprehend anything beyond these walls, I guess.

Then it happened. And this time, I know for sure I was awake! I know I was and it still happened! I don’t know what time it was, I don’t know how long I had been laying there, but I felt my body start to convulse. I got all cold, but I could feel the goosebumps rolling on up me. I dug my nails into my upper arms as I wrapped myself up in the thin hospital blanket they left with me. I heard the heart rate monitor spiking, and everything around me started spinning.
Like clockwork, that screaming started again. I didn’t know her, and I absolutely knew it wasn’t me this time. But I felt her pain so deep inside me, like her voice was buzzing in my brain. I tried to put my hands to my ears, to block out the noise, but that stupid headgear got in my way.

It felt more real than it ever felt before because for the first time during the whole damn thing - the attack - the event - whatever - I could move. I jumped up and felt all the different readers and monitors break away from my body. The heart rate monitor flatlined before it fell and hit the floor, but that headgear stayed on firm. The light blinking across the room continued on rapidly as I struggled to break free as I shook and fought to hold myself together. Tears streamed down my face as pain rattled through my spine, but I wasn’t the one screaming. I still wasn’t the one screaming.

I looked up just in time to notice there was damn near nobody around. In fact, the last person I saw was a nurse who ran off, not even paying mind to me. Guess that meant I was free to get out of this damn room. I swear, I almost shattered the glass as I shoved my way through the door and stumbled into the empty hallway. Something about that empty white hall put me on edge. The sleep room was behind me again and I was listening out for the screams. They weren’t hard to miss. Just a few feet down the hall - beyond the white wall - there was scratching sounds. It was like when my dog got locked out of the house, but behind the scratches was the scream I knew so well. I stumbled to the door and grabbed the handle. I let out a groan of pain when I realized the damn thing was locked.

Don’t know what I was thinking, but I guess I just about had enough. I ripped off that stupid trash headgear. The white sphere that had been surrounding me in my sleep the past two nights didn’t come away easy. I gripped it with both hands and let out a scream as I smashed it into the handle over and over again until the thing popped right off. I don’t think it should’ve worked, and I wonder now if I even needed to do that at all, but in the moment I was thinking I did something real good. The door swung open, and I immediately had to cover my nose.

“What in the hell?” I croaked out. I couldn’t breath in that rotten air. The room was real dark. I couldn’t see anything at first. Only thing I saw at first was a shitload of tangled wires, and - “Oh God.” I held back the barf just begging to come up out of my stomach as I noticed all the blood on the floor. I gagged and wiped away the sick. It sobered me up real quick, I’ll tell you that. That damn attack or whatever ended right there. Right as the reality came crashing down around me in the dead of that horrible night. Across the room on the other side of the wires was printer paper pinned to the walls with drawings scrawled on them. There were pencils and markers, and all sorts of art supplies all piled up in that dark dirty room. “What in the -”

“I’m sorry.” A voice cried from the other side of the room. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll - I’ll try again, I swear.” There she was. I’d known her by her scream alone, and now I knew she was real.

“Hey, you okay?” I asked, putting on a gentle voice I didn’t know I had anymore.

“What do you think?” She screamed through tears, “What do you fucking think?” She let out a whimper. “Just… I’m sorry, I’ll try again.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t - I just wanna help.” I said.

“You want to help? Just don’t move it again. Please, don’t move it again.” She pleaded.

My eyes were slowly adjusting to the light. Adjusting enough that I could finally make out the dark corners of the room.

“My God…” I gasped. I couldn’t hold it back anymore, I doubled over, vomit mixing with the fluids across the floor. That damn mess of wires was leading right to the back corner. Right back to - “Your eyes… they’re - oh my God, what happened to your eyes?” I felt myself getting dizzy. Felt myself confused, trying to make sense of this horrible world, this sickening room.

“Please,” she begged from behind the wires plugged into her eye sockets, “just don’t let them move it again. Please.”

“I - I - I -”

“The optic nerve couldn’t properly route your… ‘attacks.’” I damn near jumped out of my skin. I leaned against the cold metal wall to look over my shoulder.

“Doc…” I said in a whisper.

“Turns out, your situation was more complex than even our ‘machine’ learning subject could handle. It looks like the optic chiasm was the breakdown point based on our data. That crossover is always a little hard on it. Never thought it’d be this bad though.”

“Hold on… you’ve just been… keeping her?”

“We all gotta pay our due.” Doc replied like he didn’t give a damn about anyone. “Matter of fact, between you destroying our equipment, your insurance threatening to not cover your stay - sorry I didn’t mention that before, didn’t want to scare you off, and… well your very unique way of experiencing night terrors… I think you could be a great secondary for non visual stimuli.”

“Now, hang on a second -”

Doc didn’t give me a chance. He didn’t give me a fucking chance. He slammed that door right in my face.

“Wait! No, stop! Stop!” I screamed as I ran for the door. I slammed over and over into it with my shoulder. I scratched at the walls, pushed with all I could, and when I got desperate, I just started destroying shit - ripping wires out of walls and bending pipes.

And then the gas kicked on.

The last thing I saw was that poor girl. She was all balled up in the corner, clawing at those wires where her eyes used to be. I didn’t notice ‘til then the way her eye sockets were rounded out with smooth metal. Her hollowed cheeks were still streaming with tears though. My last thoughts as I lost consciousness got me to wondering: Could she cry ‘til they short circuited? Could she cry us free?

---

Hey there, thanks for reading! I’ll be honest, this was a tough one to crank out in a week, but I still think it was a good challenge! I hope you enjoyed the story. Or… maybe enjoyed isn’t the right word. Either way, let me know what you think!

Coming up next week we’re going back to TAS for a new chapter! It’s so exciting to me how far we are into the story! Can’t wait to share what comes next. Next chapter is going to be a real fun one. I’ll be honest, the last chapter was probably my least favorite, but I’m okay with that for now.

If you’re looking to get caught up, have a look at the TAS playlist here!

If you’re looking for more horror like this one, have a look here!

All that being said, I’m out of here! Got to get the next chapter of TAS ready. I have so many fun stories brewing, but most of all, I’m excited to finish out TAS. We’re only a little over halfway, but I’m still feeling really good about the whole thing. I’ll catch you next week! Thanks for reading!