What If You Never Go Outside - Psychosis

A man sits at his desk, writing a journal entry on a notepad. He's a programmer, but he doesn't trust his computer, he needs to make sure he can write his thoughts down in a place where nobody can mess with his words. Not that anyone's been doing that he thinks, nah that'd be crazy. It just helps to have them physically written down, helps him focus and think. Plus memory can play tricks on you, best to write things down to remember them correctly. His apartment is too small, the walls are closing in. Maybe that's the reason for his funk lately. He should've paid a little extra for a nicer place, but saving money on rent was a powerful lure. Now he's stuck in one of the tiny apartments in the basement of his building.

It doesnt' help that there's no windows to tell day from night, only the clock on the bottom right of his computer. He's a programmer, so he works from home a lot and keeps strange hours. His only clue that the sun has risen or fallen comes from that tiny clock at the bottom right of his screen. He's working on a big project, pressure to just get it done is intense. But just sitting and typing for hours and hours on end can play tricks on your brain. But he can't shake the feeling that that's not really it. He can't even remember when he started to feel like things were just a little off. Lack of human contact isn't helping, and none of his friends seem to have been online in days to chat over messenger.

One of his few actual friends promised he'd call when he got back from the store yesterday? Yeah, yesterday. But he never called. Or maybe he didn't get the call, cell reception is terrible in the basement. Maybe he just needs to talk to someone, or at least get outside. He doesn’t bother shaving before going out, 2-day growth still on his face. At least he changed his shirt though, discarding the ratty one he'd been wearing for who knows how long. With it being lunchtime outside, he figured he'd run into at least one friend. Inexplicable fear as he opens his cramped apartment's door. Almost like a tinge of agoraphobia, but where did that come from? Maybe it's just from being cooped up and not talking to anyone for so long. Waiting for him outside his apartment is a dreary hallway at the end of which is the huge steel door leading to the furnace room.

There's two soda machines down there, but the first and only time he used one the soda was two years expired. He leaves his apartment, closing the door softly and walking in the opposite direction.

Why did he do that though?

Why is he moving so quietly?

He turns it into a game, moving silently so as not to break the steady hum of the soda machines. But as he gets upstairs and to the front door of his building he’s in for a real shock-it wasn't lunchtime, it was dark outside! And it was late, he could tell by the silence of the street outside the special kind of quiet where you can hear the wind blow. It sends shivers down his spine, and he chalks it up to his body imagining the touch of the chill wind. It doesn’t feel right to go outside, so instead he lifts his cell phone up to the window and checks his bars- presto! Full bars.

The waiting game is just another one of its gambits. He will resist the rest of his life if that's what it takes, because he knows the entity needs him to fall for its deception. And maybe, if he can resist, he can stop its agenda. Maybe if the real Amy is still alive out there somewhere, it's his resistance that's stopping the entity and keeping him alive. He holds on to that hope as he rocks himself back and forth alone in his cell. He'll never give in. He'll never break. He's a hero!

The doctor reads the note the patient has scribbled on. It's barely legible, written in the shaky script of a man who could no longer see. He wanted to smile at the man's resolve, a reminder of the human will to survive, but he knew the patient was completely delusional.

After all, a sane man would have fallen for the deception a long time ago. The doctor wanted to smile, he wanted to whisper words of encouragement to the delusional patient. He wanted to scream, but the nerve filaments that wrapped around his head and drove into his eyes prevented him from it. Instead, his body stood up rigidly like a puppet, and he walked to the patient's room once more, to tell him once again that he was wrong. There was nobody trying to deceive him.