This is the court transcript of the State of Alabama’s case against the Happy Bodies Institute (which will henceforth be referred to as HBI). This is a civil trial against the company as a conglomerate which is occuring simultaneously along with the trial of its founder for his role in facilitating crimes against humanity.
Exhibit 08B is the primary evidence within this case is a letter written by Issac O’Malley, now deceased. Mr O’Malley was a researcher employed at HBI who details his discovery of the company’s unethical experiments:
They locked the doors too early. I was all ready to make it out and figured it too big of a deal; my keycard worked. I didn’t hurry, even when the lock engaged. My keycard didn’t work. I swiped again.
Nothing but a disgruntled beep.
I tried everything. I called security no answer, called the police, but my signal was jammed. I even tried smashing the front door, but the glass was reinforced. I’d walked through it enough times to know that.
With no way out, I decided to explore. What else is a man supposed to do? I had always been curious, but I was never allowed into the board meetings with sharp executives. I was only ever indulged in grunt work, much to my annoyance.
All the corridors looked the same. I must’ve wandered for at least twenty minutes before I heard it. Footsteps. My heart is filled with hope. Someone else was stuck in here. Maybe they were a technician who knew how to work the lock. At the very least, I could chinwag with someone until morning. I could only see the thing’s chest at first.
It was tall, impossibly so. I dove backwards and flattened myself against the wall, hoping to God that the thing would simply walk past me. I looked up; its neck was cocked to one side, obviously unable to fit into the room. It was smooth and bleach white; its footsteps were slow and shambling. Its skin vibrated with a low hum, and as it got closer, it seemed to be…breathing? The whole of the thing buzzed with the unmistakable rhythm of breath.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem to notice my presence; it awkwardly shuffled past me seeming to be in some kind of stupor. It moaned as someone might when half asleep, barely cognizant. I didn’t want to think about what it could do had it been slightly more intelligent, though I would soon see.
I, against all good grace of rational thought, decided to keep moving deeper into the facility. A few left and right turns later, my descent into hell was marked by frigid cold. I could see my breath ahead of me; my hands started to shake barely a few steps into the journey. It was definitely far below zero here.
Just as warmth began to escape my limbs, the cavernous room ahead promised a slight increase in temperature, enough to stave off hypothermia. I collapsed at the entrance to a plastic prison, beset on all sides by foreign machines with unknown purposes.
Along the right hand wall were transparent cells filled with much the same creature that I had seen at the start of my journey. They lay dormant; the cold probably kept them sleeping, though the characteristic twinge of life was still there. I could get a closer look at these creatures, far more overwhelmed by morbid curiosity than fear.
The thing was curled in a fetal position on the floor of its cell. It was motionless save for the hum and was altogether humanoid, though much larger than any human ought to have been. Instead of discernable eyes, the thing has black, vacant holes, which seemed to be entrenched all the way back into its skull. I decided to move on, the mere sight of the creature made me violently ill, and I had no intention of slowing down tonight. However, as I manoeuvred past the other cells, more of the creatures caught my eye. There was some minor difference, or rather a deformity, in each. Some had arms bent at odd angles, others had transparent skin. A subject that particularly disturbed me was one covered from head to toe in human eyes, which stared glassily at me from inside the cell. They did not see me, but their gaze was unnerving all the same.
I moved through the door at the end of the long passage and came upon a CCTV surveillance centre. There must have been at lease 50 cameras in all areas of the facility, constantly active and silently observing. Upon the desk, just in front of the camera controls, was a large ringed binder. I took a few pages of it, whomever finds my letter should find it as well. Needless to say, this has been going on for a long while and the manufacturing of these abominations is only increasing. To what end they are brought into existance I cannot say, perhaps just a simple act of playing god or at worst a manufactured army.
As I turned to leave, I made what would prove to be the first of two incalculable errors. Having absorbed the horrible information, my feet dragged with the weight of it and, as I stumbled, my arm connected with a control panel. I heard the mechanical hiss of a lock mechanism releasing. I peered from outside the door and saw that I had opened one of the cells. The many eyed monster had awoken, its rake like fingers clasped the frames of the prison as it pulled itself upright. I hid, peeking through the small window attached to the top of the security door. The eyes moved rapidly in all directions, searching the room with alarming frequency. Once satisfied nothing was in it’s presence, the ghoul shuffled back into its cell, giving me the perfect opportunity to escape.
I was almost past the cell, I could not feel the devil stir but, in a moment of stupid curiosity, I looked back. And there I was met with several of the eyes locked with mine. Almost as soon as I had registered them, great chasms split along the creature, filled with blackened teeth. A thousand faces writhed and screamed, stirring the body that contained them to lash out with one of it’s ghastly extremities. My left side was shredded by its claws, they moved through me as if I were just thin air. As I ran, the other creatures pounded their fists, heads and entire bodies onto the glass, ravanous at the smell of fresh blood.
And it is here that I am writing. I’m hidden in a nearby lab, my head feels fuzzy, I’m sure that I’m going to die. I’m losing a lot of blood, my fingers have stopped working.
I hear it, it’s close. Please god, help me.