“Good morning Dr—”
“Osman.” he interrupted ”Dr. Osman, at your service. Please come in.”
Dr. Travis Osman. I have heard of him once or twice before. I know he is a well-known bioengineer and a good one at that, I think I remember someone saying he was the doctor to lab grow eyes and cure blindness or something like that. Weird that he asks a bunch of lowlifes in the bad side of town to housesit.
He gestures his arm towards his home and I follow him into his living room, it’s huge; I knew he was rich but damn, I have never seen a house like this. Well, it’s not like I’ve really had a “house”, I can barely keep an apartment.
My thoughts are stopped by his voice, deep, calm, comforting in a fatherly sort of way.
“I appreciate you accepting the ad I posted, I was about to lose hope that anyone would
show up.”
“Well, a mysterious letter showing up in a bunch of people’s mailboxes is a bit weird. I understand why people didn’t respond.”
“Yet you did,” he said smiling. I don’t know why, but I got goosebumps. Like someone whispering so quietly in your ear that only their breath translates. That slow chill that rises along your back when your unconscious becomes paranoid.
I shake the feeling and sit on a dark leather seat beside the lit fireplace.
Dr. Osman sits in the chair across from me and takes a deep breath still looking calm and collected with a touch of smugness, kinda what I expect from a filthy rich guy.
“I must leave shortly. I have a flight I need to catch, but I must discuss with you about a few rules that I am quite strict about.” He keeps eye contact with me almost without blinking.
“As you might know, I am quite serious about my research. It is my life’s work and I don’t want anybody meddling with it. Understand?”
I nod and shuffle in my seat, his eyes pierce into my soul like he is looking for something, reading me like a book.
“I understand. So where is it you want me to avoid?”
“My office. The room right behind me” he points to a set of wooden double doors. His face is different from before, not happy and calm, It’s almost– blank.
But then the facade breaks just as quickly as it formed.
“Well!” he said with the same smile that decorated his face when I came in. “I must head out, please help yourself with anything. The rest of the house is free for you to roam.” He quickly stands and grabs his bag; he sneaks a small smile at me before leaving.
Now here I am. Alone, in a huge house, free to mess with all of his little trinkets and rich-person belongings—but all I can think about is the office. The large wooden double doors seem to pull me towards them.
No, I think, I can’t just take a job at this rich guy’s place and go through his crap, especially the one room he literally just told me not to go into.
I go into the other room. This is the kitchen I guess, with shiny countertops and brand-new smart equipment. Didn’t expect anything less, but I am surprised a guy this wealthy doesn’t have any staff. The place seems so lonely and empty, not even a pet to fill the long gray halls. I decide to kill my time in his movie room. This place is like something I would dream about as a kid. Fancy leather reclining chairs, a snack bar, a real bar and a huge projector that looks to have come straight out of a theater. I decide to watch ‘Human Centipede’. It felt appropriate, since I’m staying in a scientist’s home for a few days. Watching it made me think: how could someone even imagine such horrid things, let alone execute them. I know this movie is based off of Nazi experiments, but still it seems like such a foreign concept.
I finished the movie and chose to look around for some other fancy entertainment. As I stroll the halls, I can’t help but think about my pitiful life. I grew up on the brink of poverty and as soon as I became an adult I crossed that threshold living paycheck by paycheck just trying to not get evicted from whatever place I was living at the time. Then I look at this place and think, what old money did this guy inherit? It can’t be all his work that got him this well off, or am I just being cynical? The thought of the office creeps back into my mind, maybe he discovered something so incredible and top secret that the government paid him off or something, I can’t believe that a bioengineer makes this much money.
Who knows maybe he just has stacks of cash in there, it’s not like he’ll cry over a few hundred bucks. Or maybe he has a new species of animal, or an alien? To think I could be the first person to see such scientific advances, just because I responded to a sketchy letter in the mail.
A little peak wouldn’t hurt.
I find my way back to the main living room. I look around to see if there are any security cameras or maybe even a tripwire in front of the door but, no? Seriously? This guy is filthy rich and he seemed so serious about no one going into that room and still. I try to think of logical explanations for this weird situation I’m in, more so the why of it all. As I think of that I reach for the doorknob still thinking something will happen, maybe an alarm built into the door?
I turn the round silver knob and open the door.
It’s not even locked.
As the door creaks open, I walk into Dr. Osman’s Office, a mix of curiosity and guilt washes over me as I step into the dimly lit room, with a single dim lamp on the desk that places itself in the center of the room. All the walls are adorned with strange, otherworldly diagrams and anatomical drawings. It’s not like any office I’ve ever seen, the place seems more like a room for a nutcase conspiracy theorist than an acclaimed bioengineer.
One drawing catches my eye, it looks like the Da Vinci anatomy drawing, but it’s not human, not anymore anyway. It is a disgusting depiction with elongated limbs, and a face that looks to be in agony, the more I stare at it the more disfigured the face becomes, almost looking at me wishing to be released from its misery.
Wait, what is that? I turn my head to face the left corner of the room which leads to a large hallway. How did I not see this? My stomach churns looking at it, there is something in there– or someone.
I force myself towards it, I have to see what is in there. I turn the corner and brace myself. If this is anything like the drawing I need to mentally prepare myself. What is wrong with me? I should run, I should leave this house and call someone. No. I should forget everything and run far away.
My thoughts don’t match my body though as I lay my eyes upon a row of 4 large glass tanks that reach from the floor to the ceiling. Wires and tubes protrude from them, connecting to computers and IVs with what seems to be blood.
Inside the tanks, suspended in a translucent, blue liquid, is a grotesque and nightmarish sight. Humanoid figures that look way too similar to the drawing. Their arms and legs are disproportionate to the rest of their body and their faces a mix of human and otherworldly body parts with a large tube shoved uncomfortably into the creatures’ mouth, as well as others snaking around its body. In horror, I take a large step back from the creature stumbling on one of the wires, and falling in front of another tube.
It’s empty. For some reason that is more horrifying. I crawl myself up, I am leaving this hell house.
Before I can react, I feel a sharp pain in my neck. Slowly my body feels heavy and all I see is darkness.
When I wake up my head throbs with pain, like the worst hangover in my life. My eyes slowly adjust to the bright light blaring above me. Hold on, I realize I’m strapped down by the wrists and ankles on a cold metal table at the end of the corridor. I can see the upside down view of the tanks lined along the walls oh god, oh no oh no, no no no I start to squirm and fight against my bindings until a quick and sharp pain courses through my body, I look down to my stomach and see that I am covered in tubes with the same luminescent liquid pouring inside my body.
HOW LONG WAS I OUT? I begin to sob, not being able to control the despair an mystery that floods to my brain
“Stop that!” I hear his voice again, manic and unstable. “Don’t make yourself unstable, you will ruin my progress!” He looms over me and stares into my eyes. His eyes are round black beads of ambition and insanity.
“You are full of curiosity, just like the others,” He mutters, almost to himself. “But now, you’re the one who will help me achieve my greatest breakthrough. I have been working on these things for so long, and I think now I finally have the perfect solution to create the perfect being.”
I try to scream, but before I could do anything he began pushing a strange apparatus towards my mouth, shoving and adjusting a long slender tube down my throat, I began gagging and pushing the wind from my lungs. It felt like a snake sliding down to my stomach or– what is replacing it. It muffled the sounds of my attempted screams, it looks like a breathing mask, as for the long tube. The taste of the strange gas that it is giving me makes my lungs burn and my stomach– or whatever has replaced it churn.
Dr. Osman giggles as he begins to explain his twisted plan to me.
“You are going to be the first of my new race, a bridge between humanity and the unknown. Together, we will usher in a new era of evolution. This will allow humanity to complete tasks we could never have dreamt of: exploring new planets without the need for suits, discovering the secrets of the ocean, anything.”
As he monologues about his sick fantasy I look for some sort of opportunity to escape.
A loose bind, a window, a weapon. Something, anything to let me have a chance to live. Dread washes over me as I realize there is nothing, absolutely no change for me to survive. The bindings are too tight, and my body feels weaker every passing moment.
Am I really destined to end up like these monstrosities?
I manage to choke out one last sentence before I feel my consciousness slip, my body betraying me as Dr. Osman’s experiments take hold.
“P-please let me go.”
He leans to my face, his black eyes locking onto mine, I feel his hot breath on my cold and wet cheeks.
“I can’t afford to let you go,” he whispers, his voice filled with cold determination.
“You are the key to a better world, the missing link.”
As darkness begins to envelop me, I catch a glimpse of the horrifying experiments in the tanks one last time. The creatures seem to reach out to me, their agonized faces a testament to the horrors they’ve endured, they almost seem to be looking upon me in pity. In that final moment, I realize the true extent of Dr. Osman’s madness and the price I’m paying for my curiosity. Darkness engulfs me as I accept the fact that if I wake up, I will no longer be human, no longer living the sad and shitty life I left behind— and I wish that I had only appreciated it.