I found the book in the corner of my attic. It was hidden at the bottom of a wooden box filled with cables. I really do think somebody went out of their way to make it as hard as possible to spot. It begged the question why they didn’t simply destroy it.
Three hundred yellow pages connected to the black rim of the book. The cover had been signed. I saw that it belonged to my grandfather, Arthur Williams. He’d passed away when I was still a child, yet I’d seen a few portraits and old pictures of the man. He had been a respected scientist, and in every picture he carried a stern look, only aided by his thick black mustache. His name intrigued me to read further.
I flipped open the first page and found a bunch of scribbling and long multi-syllable words. Circles and triangles were drawn at seemingly random spots, with notes written beside them. I had the distinct impression that a mad man had written the book. I flipped to the last page and found it blank. The book had been disregarded before it was ever finished.
I wondered what had been the last page scribbled on. I grabbed the corner of the paper and let it flutter until I spotted the blue ink. There was only three words written on that page. The words were finely written. Not at all like those at the start of the book.
It was smiling.
That was enough to make me flip through the book until I found the start of what would become the end. I don’t know why the author decided to start writing the prose so that it might be readable. Perhaps he wanted it to be read by somebody other than himself, but then why hide it?
3rd August 1956 - Russian Town - Novy Urengoy
Dimitri was a man intent on proving himself mad. So intent in fact that I found him arguing against three respected researchers of his own madness. Each argument irritated the man more until he stood up red in the face, threw his drink against the wall and stormed out, in a desperate need for a smoke. It seemed the notion of his own sanity disturbed him so much he could not accept it.
“The void made you mad?” I began, grabbing a cigarette and lighting it. A lantern, the only source of light, hung at eye level, illuminating his face. The russian wind blew against me with force yet without the cold. That was still a few months off.
Standing upright I noticed how big the man was. Hair covered his arms so tightly that it was difficult to see the skin. His forearms were huge and his hands matched them. The man looked tough, nothing like what I’d expect a scientist to look like but looks can be deceiving.
“No, it is not that simple,” he said. “The void did not make me mad. It was the pressure of the void. You cannot simply close the lights and go mad.”
“How does the void have pressure?”
“How does water have pressure?” He answered back.
“I see,” I said, “you think that the void’s effect on the psyche grows as its pressure increases.”
He turned his head sideways. “Yes precisely. What are your thoughts on the matter?”
“It’s possible, but how might you prove it?”
That was how the conversation began. It was a question he’d thought about and deliberated a lot. I didn’t have to ask him any further questions to probe him to talking, he just kept going on his own. It was as if a water stream had started gushing. There was no stopping it, but there was no need for it either. He’d really caught my attention and interest, and he must have sensed that for he invited me to participate in the experiment he was conducting in two days and also tomorrows planning session.
4th August 1956 - Russian Town - Novy Urengoy
They told me of a hole three miles east of the town. The hole was wide and long enough to fit perhaps ten men shoulder to shoulder, and apparently it was roughly five hundred meters deep. They had constructed a machine to the side of this hole with the sole purpose of lowering and raising subjects in and out of the hole. Yet there was an argument to be had. One of the researchers believed that another safety measure should be taken.
“You do not actually believe in this superstition!” Ivan burst out.
“It never hurts to be safe. It’s a very simple addition to the machine.”
“Safe against what! Foolishness.”
Ironically, in Dimitris group of scientist he was the reasonable one. There were two other scientists interested in conducting the experiment. One of them was Ivan, a man who was especially interested in insanity. Apparently he had been one of the researchers who came up with the notorious sleep experiment, and his notoriety spread far in those circles. He was a tiny man with eyes that fidgeted left and right.
The second man was named Vladimir. He was a very thin man who wore gloves, refused to shake my hand, wore a thick jacket. He had many pointy features on his face and his fingers were long and slender. He thought the void had magical properties, capable of opening the mind in ways that might be beneficial in achieving enlightenment.
I think it was his belief in the soul which made him more susceptible to rumors. It wasn’t necessarily that he believed in magic or the irrational, but rather that he was very intent on being safe, and that it was very plausible that it was true. He was a man very knowledgeable of his own limits.
“But you can’t be serious!” Ivan burst out. “This is simply unscientific.”
“I will not be a part of the experiment if you do not implement the safety procedure. Furthermore I will make sure the experiment never happens.”
“Enough,” Dimitri burst out. “The addition will not impact the experiment in any way and it seems easy to add in.”
“Shall we put up magical barriers too?” Ivan said. “I heard those were easy to set up. I mean I can not believe you think that there is a monster in the bottom of the hole.”
The debate continued much after that but it was no longer about what they should do but rather about their beliefs. Once again I found myself entranced by these men’s thoughts. It was science I was listening to, but it was blended with paranoia and the thoughts that came out were almost satisfying to hear.
5th August 1956 - Russian Town - Novy Urengoy
When we were on the carriage ride to the location of the experiment, Dimitri leaned in closer to me and whispered in my ear. “Its time I tell you that this experiment hasn’t been allowed by the russian state. Actually, it has strictly been forbidden. I trust that anything you experience stays there. I don’t want anybody else to hear about it.”
I wondered why the state might take such a stern position on this experiment. They had been quite allowing of experiments on human nature, so I wondered why that might not be the case now. Was there something special about the void? Perhaps it was the hole we were conducting the experiment in. Did they too believe in the rumor?
Before we traveled to the hole we stopped at a village to pick up three men. They were going to be the test subjects of the experiment. They were all between the ages of 19-23. Two of the men decided to sit at the front of the carriage, just behind the horses, whilst the third one sat beside me. Those two didn’t seem to be on good terms with him.
“And what’s your name?” I asked him.
“Nikolai but Ma calls me Niko.”
Nikolai reminded me much of a rooster. He was filled with pride, and his head jerked from side to side, as he spoke his head bobbed forward slightly. When I asked him about his plans for the future, he said he hadn’t thought it over.
“Say, why did you join this experiment?” I asked him.
“Winter’s soon here and my family needs the pay. So when this opportunity arose I couldn’t let it go.”
“Do you know what you’ll be doing.”
“No, but they said it wasn’t going to be anything dangerous.”
Should I have told him that there was a chance he’d walk away from this insane. I wasn’t quite sure if that even would have made a difference. He’d already taken the money, so he couldn’t go back. Saying anything would just worry the boy. It was best to stay silent.
The russian landscape was endless. The carriage followed a trail surrounded by large still trees that stretched as far as the eye could see. Even though I would hear the occasional fluttering of a bird, my eyes spotted no movement, except for the wind brushing the trees. There was so much in this forest, probably even something that had never been discovered before.
We arrived when the sun was high in the sky. We’d brought tents with us and were planning to get everything furnished and get the experiment started tomorrow. Most parts of the machine had already been created. There was just a few more tweaks to be made before the experiment could start.
I patted Nikolai’s shoulders and walked off towards Dimitri who inspected the machine. He had built the entire thing by himself which was no easy feat. The engine looked fierce and I’d assume it alone weighed around 130 kg. There was a gauge which showed how far the platform traveled. It showed me a zero. There was wooden pillars attached to the ground and a the wires of the platform. It dangled above the hole.
The hole felt like something which shouldn’t be there. Everywhere you looked there was wilderness, trees and dirt, green and brown, and then you’d glance down to see nothing off that, just the void, black as ever. No noise came out of it, and it seemed that it sucked in the noise from the surrounding. Everything was just a tiny bit more silent here.
“Best go to sleep,” Dimitri said. “Tomorrow at dawn we will lower the boys into the void.”
6th August 1956 - Russian Tundra - The Hole
It seemed that Dimitri had woken up early and gotten to work. He’d attach two large sheets of metal which acted like scissors to the wire. All he had to do was press them and the entire platform would plummet down into the void.
We ate breakfast together. The three boys wolfed down all the bread and soup we offered them. When I inspected them closer, without their shredded jackets, I realized how skinny they were. They didn’t seem to be bothered that I was staring at them either. Their gazes were stuck on the food.
Were they really willing participants? A part of my started wishing that the experiment would fail, although I feared how Dimitri might act if that was the case. He still hadn’t told me why he was so intent on proving himself mad. It was a topic I wished to breach later tonight with some of the American whiskey I’d brought over.
“That’s enough eating, you’ll have more when you come back up,” Ivan said, strangely energetic even after waking up. “Into the whole you three. I have a good feeling about this. We’re going to discover something. I’m sure of it.”
The other two boys, respectively, Boris and Igor, two names I don’t think I’ll be mentioning much. They’re silent most of the time, keeping to themselves, and they do everything we tell them to do… begrudgingly.
The three boys got into the platform which swung slightly from side to side. The wood holding the platform up creaked a little but it held. The machine started rumbling and slowly they descended into the void. They all sat still as the darkness thickened. After two minutes I could only see the wires holding the platform up.
Ivan pushed my back. He pushed me into the hole. My heart jolted as my balance dropped and I started falling towards the hole, and then I stopped. I felt his hands gripping the back of my shirt. I panted and quickly got away from the edge. He laughed.
“We used to do that all the times as kids,” he said and I couldn’t help but question where I was and with who. It seemed rather stupid, but I was stuck here. I was still in a state of shock as he continued blabbering.
“What do you think will happen?” Vladimir asked, but it sounded more rhetorical. “Perhaps they’ll become insane before they become enlightened. Yes, that sounds about reasonable. I wonder how insanity will fester itself in them.”
“They won’t be able to control their own actions,” Dimiri said.
“Surely, but I think it will grow in different directions. I think that Nikolai kid will find himself suicidal.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I just do.”
“Insane men fight. In my experience with insanity, it is much better leashed up to a wall or a bed. Especially if we are to conduct experiments on them, “ Ivan said. “Perhaps it’s something to consider as we send them deeper. I don’t think one hundred meters depth will do anything.”
“No. They’ll come up a little bit unhinged that’s for sure,” Dimitri said, wiping his brows with his forearm. “And there’s no need to restrain them. If they fight to the death that’s proof enough of my theory.”
When the gauge reached one hundred, Dimitri pulled and pressed on a few levers stopping the machinery. The subjects were to left there for fourteen hours. During that time, I found myself so engrossed in a book, I forgot to talk to Dimitri.
The platform rose much slower than it had sunk. It took ten minutes before the platform came into sight. The platform had four corners, and each of the subjects had pressed themselves into one. They sat still, and they did not look up into the sky when we took them up.
I noticed Dimitri smiling.
Nikolai had a tough time getting on his legs, stumbling a little bit and making the platform shake. The other two boys seemed to have lost whatever conversational familiarity they had. Boris looked to be deep in thought, almost dead, whilst Igor’s face was really strained.
“Hurry up Nikolai! I need to use the toilet.”
Even though they seemed quite effected when they came up, after eating around the campfire we’d set up, they seemed to regain their original selves. Vladimir stood above the boys and told them to explain their experience, repeatedly asking many clarifying questions. One of the questions he asked many times was, did you hear anything? He was convinced the void whispered truth.
No matter how many times he repeated the question, the answer didn’t change. The subjects claimed that they hadn’t heard any whispers. Eventually, Vladimir cursed, stomped the ground and walked over to his tent.
Ivan interrogated the subjects but he did it one by one, sending the other subjects away. His questions were much more fruitful. It was surely because his questions seemed to focus on the internal life of the subjects rather than the external.
Each one of the subjects, despite having been interrogated separately, said the same thing. They felt a deep sense of dread somewhere in the middle. Nikolai said that he felt as if something just past the void was staring at him, and that it was deeply unnerving.
“But then the feeling disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” Dimitri asked, his brows bending inwards.
“I don’t know how long the feeling stayed. If I had to guess I’d say it was about one hour. I really couldn’t tell though. You say that we’ve stayed down there fourteen hours, but it felt like ages. Anyway, the feeling just disappeared, as if whatever had caused it decided to leave us.”
7th August 1956 - Russian Tundra - The Hole
Today was a wild ride.
The morning started as normal. The subjects ate their breakfast and then were lowered down to two hundred meters. They seemed a lot more reluctant to do so, which I suspect is because they know how horrible fourteen hours of boredom was now. Dimitri’s size did a great job of convincing them though.
Dimitri seemed to be in a good mood and decided to go out hiking. I wasn’t sure what exactly it was he was hiking to see. The russian tundra seemed bare and boring, and I decided to stay within the warmth of the camp. Vladimir seemed to be against sitting with us, so I found myself alone with Ivan.
“Mind If I ask you a question?” I said. Ivan lied down in the tent scribbling thoughts into his notepad. He seemed a lot calmer than before. I wondered if it had anything to do with being in the middle of an experiment. Perhaps this was how he calmed himself. It was a distressing thought considering the nature of the experiments this man tended to be involved in.
“Slightly, but I mind boredom more, so go on.”
“Why do you think they all felt dread at the same time? It couldn’t just be a coincidence.”
“I agree. I think their surroundings are one that naturally produce feelings of fear. Darkness, yes, darkness makes anything horrifying. In such an environment the smallest of noises will become horrifying. So one explanation would be that a pebble carried by the wind flew into the hole and hit the wall just beside them.”
“They said they hadn’t heard anything though.”
“Have you ever seen a man walk into a bear trap?”
“No.”
“They’ll scream out in pain, but the consequences of the act, the repercussions is something they don’t realize. They don’t realize how horrible the event is, and how much pain it will produce. Just what it is producing. The future seems to have been blotted out from them entirely. And then, at once, it hits them, and they feel…”
“Dread.”
“Yup. Now try to tell three other men that you’re distinct and strong feeling of dread comes from a small noise. It just wouldn’t do, so you say you don’t know.”
“What if it has a more psychological explanation? Maybe one of their brains sent out a distress signal, which the others picked up on and furthered on.”
“I see Americans still believe in witch craft. Here in Russia we’re more rational. The brain, as it is, only uses symbols to communicate, whether that be auditorily or visually or through our senses, it is not significant.”
“Yes, but perhaps removing all of those methods forces the brain into other ones.”
“It seems you and Vladimir both believe in magic. Go talk to him. I’ve still got a few theories about yesterdays occurrence that I’d like to write down.”
With that the conversation ended. I didn’t know where Vladimir had gotten off to so I found my book and read to pass the time. The closer it got to being time to pull the subjects up, the less I could control my mind. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t deeply intrigued by the possibilities.
Before the subjects came into sight, we heard something, chattering. It was at a pleasant and calm volume, and when they came into sight we saw them all lying in the same corner, against each other, with smiles on their faces. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
They waved at us, before continuing their talk. I could only hear a little part of the conversation, but from the words I could make out, they spoke of their aspirations into the future, and whatever enmity had been between them was gone now. It was like seeing three best friends talking.
“You got us real good,” Nikolai said. “With that fourth voice and everything.”
I glanced over at the other researchers, who’s faces had frozen. Then, Dimitri spoke, “What do you think of it?”
“At first I was really shocked. But then I remembered one of you asking us if we’d heard any voices, and I realized this might be part of the experiment.”
“Go on.”
“You installed some sort of machine into the platform, like a radio, that let’s you speak with us. I’ve never heard a radio with such good quality before though. It must be new tech? Right? Anyhow, whoever that was was really friendly. I never found myself getting bored of them. They really had an intoxicating personality.”
“Would you excuse us, whilst me and my colleagues go and have a chat,” Dimitri said before walking off with the rest of the researchers following behind him. Vladimir’s gloom appearance had disappeared, and he almost positively skitted like a child to Dimitri. Ivan murmured to himself. His words were going at an incredible speed, most likely trying to explain what he’d just heard.
“Do not tell the subjects this was not part of the experiment.”
“Of course!” Ivan shouted. “We should interrogate each one of them to see if this is not just a delusion. Could it perhaps be a shared delusion? Perhaps delusions are something material, floating around, and one of them struck them all.”
“It’s the void,” Vladimir spat. “The void is speaking to them. We should find out what it’s saying. I’m going to go and ask them what they heard immediately.”
“If we produced it, wouldn’t we know?” I asked.
“I’ll ask what they remembered hearing, and not what they heard, that way making the question about memory rather than content.”
“I will join you,” Ivan said, and followed after Vladimir.
“So it’s not magic anymore is it?” Vladimir said.
Dimitri stood there with a dark expression on his face. He looked towards me. “I thought they’d start hearing voices coming from inside of their head. Not the outside.”
“It is a peculiar development,” I added.
Later that night when the sun had sunk completely, I saw that Dimitri sat alone in front of the campfire. I thought that it might be the best opportunity to approach him and talk to him more on a deeper note. I took my bottle of whiskey and made my move.
He did not welcome my presence as much as he did the alcohol, but after a few cups, he seemed to start to warm up to me. We started talking, me recounting some of my experiences in Russia, him explaining to me the context of said experiences, and then I asked the question, the one I’d been eager to find out since I came on this expedition.
“Why do you want to be mad so much?”
He took a deep breath. “Mad men hold no accountability.”
I thought he wouldn’t say anything more as he got silent of muttering that phrase. After a few minutes, however, he spoke again.
“I come from the northern parts of Russia. There’s not much you can become there. It’s not like America where opportunity is everywhere. So I became a miner just like my father. It’s a risky and filthy job, but it pays better than most others.”
“One day I was in the mine and a cieling collapsed. Me and one other person were stuck in the mine. We had miner’s hats, which produced lights but after the first day they didn’t have enough energy to keep going anymore. We were stuck there in the darkness. Waiting for them to dig us out.”
“Something crept into me then. It must have been the madness because even when I left that cave, there was a part in my mind which wouldn’t stop stirring. A voice in my mind kept talking, whispering at me the most obscene things. It kept going. like a glass getting filled up, until I couldn’t hold it anymore and burst out screaming or hitting something. It was madness. I know it was. I was mad.”
“And then one day, I’m holding my baby…”
“You don’t have to tell me this. It’s alright.”
“Thanks.”
9th August 1956 - Russian Tundra - The Hole
I didn’t write anything yesterday. On the morning I had a terrible headache, and at the evening I didn’t really have anything to write about. No new revelations came, or did anything important happen.
The voice they’d heard stayed, and if anything grew more prominent. We contemplated sending a researcher down to see have an intelligent man experience the voice, but everyone of us thought we should be more careful. If it really was the void talking to them, then it wasn’t particularly clear what the side effects would be.
We’d send the subjects down to the four hundred mark today, and when they came up there was one new shocking relevation. Each one of them had an insane craving to reach the bottom of the hole. When we questioned them extensively as to why they wanted to do so, they couldn’t give a straight answer. They mentioned that the voice had been very convincing.
On the fifth day, we would send them to the bottom. A depth almost reaching 500 meters. It had been the plan all along, yet I couldn’t help but think that was a bad idea. When somebody insisted you do something without giving you their reasons for doing so, they were almost always nefarious.
10th August 1956 - Russian Tundra - The Hole
Today was the final day of the experiment. I thought they’d be happy that the experiment would end but it seemed they were annoyed. Their relationship to the voice was strange. They were almost addicted to it, as if it was some sort of drug they couldn’t live without.
They were too eager to get on the platform, even skipping their breakfast, and rushed Dimitri to send them down. My gut kept telling me that this was a bad idea.
“I don’t like this. I think we should abort,” I said.
“What?” Ivan said. “We can’t stop an experiment at the very end. I won’t stand for it.”
“Yes. Let’s see what change will happens to the voice,” Vladimir said.
“Didn’t you say something about a monster at the bottom of the hole?” I said. “Do you really want to risk it.”
“Bah, enough of the magic talk American,” Ivan said.
“The experiment goes on,” Dimitri concluded.
The gauge stopped at 497, and they were left there for fourteen hours. Instead of reading my book, I sat with my feet dangling into the void, waiting for the platform to come up. I couldn’t shake the terrible feeling my gut away.
Then the time came for us to bring them back up again. I hoped that my gut was wrong. I stood behind Dimitri, eagerly waiting.
The platform rose much slower than before. The machine started popping and crackling especially loud. It hurt my ears. I saw the number on the gauge decrease at a slower pace than usual. The wires reaching down into the void moved especially slowly, and they seemed strained.
“Why is it going so slowly?” I asked.
“Its always gone slowly,” Dimitri said.
“No, now it’s slower than before,” I said.
“It’s just in your head,” Ivan said.
At the very edge of the void, just where my sight stopped, I saw the platform ascend. Yet something was wrong. I knew it. The subjects were too still, and they seemed to carry a strange expression on their face.
The platform rose a little bit higher and I got a better view of the boys. Their eyes were stretched out wide, as if stuck in an expression of horror, yet they had no eyeballs. There was a bloody hole there, as distant and lifeless as the void around them.
Their faces were pale, almost white as bone. The colour had completely drained from it. When I looked closer, I saw that Nikolai’s legs had been severed, and then placed in their original location. This wasn’t just some beast. What had they encountered down there?
The platform rose further up. I had the distinct impression that the boys hadn’t been dead for long. They’d been down there for fourteen hours, and whatever did this to them had taken its sweet time.
“Do you see that?” Ivan said, perhaps he’d been able to see it because of his short length. He walked over to the other side of the hole which declined slightly and laid down on his stomach. Instantly, he started screaming and shrieking and covered his eyes.
“Cut the wire!” He shrieked. “Cut the wire.”
Dimitri seemed rattled by Ivan and instead I grabbed the metal and cut the wires, sending the platform spiralling down back into the void, yet it didn’t seem to stop Ivan from screeching.
“Cut the wire!” He kept on going, as he rolled down onto the ground, pressing his palms into his eyes.
28th August 1956 - Russian Capital - Moscow
Ivan has been in a psychiatric hospital for twelve days now. Occasionally he starts shrieking and covers his eyes. When he does that, I think the image of whatever he saw that day comes into his mind. He keeps on going untill he passess out. It seems his body gets more and more riled up until it cannot sustain it.
The therapist say he refuses to talk about wht he saw. There is one thing he seems intent on mentioning time and time again. It seems to be everything the man can think of.
It was smiling.