The wire fence scraped away our skin as we squeezed through the small makeshift hole. Our flashlight beams licked the outside of the decrepid factory, leaving no inch undiscovered. For a moment, Ollie’s flashlight flickered, but soon returned to reliability. We couldn’t afford for our lights to go out as the moon was concealed by black, angry clouds and both of our phones were too ancient to have flashlights built in. Once we had checked the flashlight for any faults, we patrolled the perimeter of the building in search of an entrance. Soon enough, the light unveiled a broken window, not too high off the ground for us to climb up to.
I felt my ankles buckle slightly as I hit the concrete panel floor, broken glass crackling underneath my boots. Once again, we fought off the darkness with our lights. Everything was caked in a thick mixture of grime and foliage. Vines began to climb up the walls and splinter into every direction like green webs. Almost every tile brandished a new crack or crevice. The once joyful and nostalgic atmosphere had been tainted by time. In silent agreement, we began to meander through the hallway, our beams dancing along every surface. We would peek through every doorway, interrogating the room for anything interesting, before dipping back into the seemingly endless hall.
I was inspecting a bulbous, black spider when Ollie’s voice beckoned me into one of the rooms. As I entered, a piercing light flooded my eyes, the source of which being a computer sat lonely on a ramshackle desk. The same age that had corrupted the factory was surprisingly absent from the computer. We crowded around the illuminated box, reading the names of each file. I scanned through them as Ollie scrolled gradually. Suddenly, I grasped his arm as I noticed an oddity. Each video was labelled with a number, with 444 being conspicuously unaccounted for. We shared a look of intrigue before he clicked on the recycling bin icon and revealed the missing video, shooting me a smug grin. The mouse tapped on the lone video and we prepared ourselves for what we were about to see.
We looked down on an unfamiliar room, it’s main attraction being a large, complicated machine. It’s inner mechanisms were on full display and we watched, mesmerised, as the gears and cogs weaved in and out of each other in a perfect loop. A couple of figures in swooping white coats stood off to the side, accompanying a substantial presence. I recognised the man as Elias Wright and immediately shook Ollie in unrequited joy. Wright’s books had practically raised me so his image always brought a wave of nostalgic giddiness with it. The digital ghost of him let out a long sigh, one of consuming desperation.
As the three bodies stared at the machine, a small girl skipped into view. She carried herself with a weightlessness only achieved through years of naive joy. As she began to inspect a nearby panel, Mr Wright turned to her and hurriedly snatched her from the panel, audibly scolding her. She seemed unfazed by the yelling and quickly resumed her curious poking of various buttons and screens.
One of the figures suggested something inaudibly, before being quickly cut off with an exasperated yell. The room seemed to stand still after this, with the only movement being from the machine and the little girl. After what I presumed to be a half-assed apology, the man marched out of the room, followed closely by the other two figures. The girl, whoever, continued to absent mindedly jab and jostle everything in the room. After seemingly exhausting her supply of objects to provoke, her attention turned to the machine. I saw the cogs turning in her mind as she mentally debated with herself.
After a couple seconds of staring, she practically leapt at the machine, sticking her chubby yet fragile fingers in every nook and cranny. We watched in morbid curiosity as she ascended the machine’s scratched exterior, teasing the gears with her fingers. As she stood up at the top, the suspense became terror as she toppled forward, straight into the whirring mouth of the machine. Shrill screams flooded from inside the metal mass as the gears chewed on her flesh. Our ears unwillingly soaked up every desperate cry and every crunch of bone. Soon enough, the interior was painted with the girl’s remains, but still cries eminated out from the machinery.
The man reappeared at the bottom of the frame with his hands gripped tightly onto his head. His hands shot towards the controls, tugging his body forward and quickly latched onto two levers, yanking them backwards with enough force to snap them off. The once churning machine became lifeless, but still came the screams. Everything was still. The man pounded his fists repeatedly against the machine as the screams kept flooding out of every pour. He began to scream: a symphony of fear, sadness and desperation battling the never ending yells of pain. The man’s screams became coarse and withered away… but the girl’s never did. They never lost intensity, they never lost volume, and they never lost fear.
Finally, the man let his head collide with the machine as he leant against it, powerless to the noise. Howls of pain echoed throughout the room as he caressed the machine. Eventually, the screams formed words. Those words… they still haunt me. “Daddy, it hurts”. “It really hurts, daddy”. “Make it stop, daddy, please”. “Please make it stop”. I watched his fists tighten as the pleas of anguish taunted him. Thick streams of tears slithered down his cheeks. His face became red as the pressure pressed against his skin until, all at once, he burst into screams of rage, screams of fury… screams of sadness. His daughter’s voice was unfazed by the interruption, still erupting into whimpering cries. The man stopped screaming. His gaze met the ground, each one as powerless to the situation as the other. In a shambling motion, he turned and strode out of the room, never returning his attention back to the machine.
I felt ill. Ollie threw up onto the floor, narrowly missing the keyboard. My knees quaked and my stomach churned and my muscles convulsed. This was wrong. Everything about this was wrong… and yet, we were powerless. My mind buzzed like a hornet’s nest. What should we do? What COULD we do? We exchanged unsure glances, both filled with an overwhelming cocktail of emotions. I felt like I would burst.
I dont remember what happened afterwards. It’s been a while since Ollie talked to me. I wonder how he’s doing… Coming home in the state I was in, no wonder my parents were worried and collapsing on the doorstep didnt make it any better. Constricted by every blanket we had in the house, I told them my story. It felt like with every sentence, a new emotion would flash across their face. I dont remember much after that. Sirens screamed. Neighbours murmured. Tears fell. I was told months later that, while confronting Elias Wright, he shot three officers before placing the barrel to his tempal and… I’m glad that’s behind me. I know its morbid, but his death brought something on me. Something calming. I do still catch myself wondering… what happened to the machine?