Johns right hand was still resting on the door handle as I continued to argue his ridiculous ideologies.
“Listen,” I said. “We’re both highly educated people here, John, and we both have PhDs in biophysics…We know how the human-body works…don’t you think believing in ghosts is a bit…crazy?”
Perhaps I could’ve used a better word there, considering he got dubbed ‘Crazy-Johnny’ after his breakdown.
“Remember my friend, Jon? You know, who disappeared last year?” He quickly asked, ignoring my remark.
“Uh-huh.” I rolled my eyes before staring at the door-handle again.
From all the stories I actually bothered to listen to, I’d recollected this much; John and Jon were best friends and room-mates in college, Jon quickly excelled and became a superstar within his field, and John, even though he claims to have helped with a lot of Jon’s projects, would be rapidly overshadowed and he eventually succumbed to bittersweet jealousy, ending their friendship and parting ways for good.
“Well,” he continued. “Back in 1999, Jon wrote a paper on how brain chemicals react when the body is subjected to immense pain…”
My eyes quickly dart from the handle to his face.
“He wrote that the chemicals released during these painful experiences, are actually very similar to the chemicals released just before death.” He shuffled on the spot before continuing. “He claimed that once technology had reached a certain level, he’d predicted about 20 to 25 years, that we would have the capabilities to build a machine. A machine that could capture this moment and somehow harness these chemicals.”
I must admit, I was quite intrigued.
“Okaay?”
“Wellll, I actually worked with him on the paper…and the machine.”
“…What?” I confusingly asked.
He lightly stroked the door with the back of his other hand and I honestly didn’t know how to react. I took a hard gulp.
“What’s behind the door, John?”
He suddenly stopped stroking the door and looked up towards the ceiling like it was the nights sky. His face; serious. His voice; a whisper.
“…Ghosts.”
He finally swung the door open.
My mouth dropped as I looked around…I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing.
In the centre of the room, was a large machine. It closely resembled that of an MRI scanner, and a glass table with a fully naked and forever twitching man laying upon it.
The machine was projecting some sort of electromagnetic sphere, encasing both the table and the man, in a translucent bubble.
Every single limb had either been snapped off or disjointed out of place, and every inch of his skin was covered with needles. This machine had somehow locked this man in a state of sheer agony.
Floating from his body were thousands of thin and transparent strings, almost like a spiders web, that were extending out to a translucent version of the same man. His ghostly face was full of despair and his eyes locked with mine.
“Hello Jon…” Said John. He then turned to me with the widest grin and asked, “So…Still think I’m crazy?”