”I, Doris Tome, write, as instructed, all of my thoughts and feelings and give full consent in my participation.
19:40 -Six minutes in and the music has begun. I’ve started breathing slower and am, generally, more relaxed.
19:55 -The streetlight above the bench has turned on which means I can see what I am writing.
19:56 - Directly opposite where I sit there is a two way road but the cars, for some reason, I have only just noticed. I cannot describe the music in my ears and I barely notice it is playing anymore.
19:59 -My legs are numb.
20:04 -I am staring at two eyes which are created by the gaps in the hedge directly opposite where I sit.
It is not man made but is difficult to believe that it is not.
20:08 -I have stopped blinking. Not because I can’t but because I don’t want to.
I don’t know why.
It frightens me.
20:10 -The two eyes have sockets hosting nothing but eternal blackness.
20:20 -My skin is tingling as if I am cold but I do not shiver. The eyes draw me in. I feel their dark sockets mocking me.
20:30 -I am no longer aware of my body nor of my surroundings.
This sensation frightens me.
I no longer have a sense of time.
I try to shout. Try to let the eyes know that they aren’t frightening me.
But they are.
I have lost my identity, my body and my voice. It has taken them. The eyes release me for a second and I look down.
They did not release me at all; they just wanted me to sink deeper so that they can steal everything else from me.
I tell myself that I am not lost to it yet. But I am.
I have made a discovery.
Underneath the soulless eyes is a gaping mouth.
I’m sure it would make me vomit if I still had a body.
The Face does not have an expression.
But I see terror.
The mouth is shaped as if it were screaming. The blackness fills it.
What intrigues me is that I cannot tell if it is the victim, the torturer…or both?
The Face is impossible in the way that it has captivated me. It both mocks and comforts me.
The Face silently tells me that I belong to it and I tend to agree.
Despite the darkness closing in, I don’t lose sight of The Face. Not of my own accord.
So now it has stripped me of my will, too.
It has toyed with me and now the toy is broken.
Now it can dismantle what is left.
My sanity.
I have no will to control my thoughts now and so the terror of its expression seeps into my brain.
It knows me now.
Fear. I wonder if this is what it is like.
It’s making me see images. The Face hasn’t moved or re-shaped but I see it laughing.
Laughing at my leftovers silently screaming.
I sink ever deeper into the knowing eyes. They know what awaits me.
I cannot blink or look away from the demonic slideshow of images. I am the victim in every picture.
I cannot blink or look away.
They are burnt in my brain.
The final picture depicts that I am the torturer.
I rape, murder and dismember.
I eat flesh.
I bathe in blood.
All in the same picture; a tapestry of terror.
It lingers in my head.
I see myself laughing sadistically.
Sweet schadenfreude.
I hate The Face…but I also love it. I can see it clearer.
It has taken everything now.
Including my sanity.
Exquisite elocation.
But then, suddenly, the image is replaced by The Face. I do not sink in it. It is simply there.
I feel the cold on my skin.
I blink.
The Face is lost in the darkness.”
The experiment was successful, despite the subject not surviving.