The Delusional Mind (Awake, Part 5)
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Lucifer slowly opens his eyes. The tension that has built up since we found him in the back of the garbage truck reaches its peak.
He blinks and looks around disoriented. Then he notices me and a predatory grin spreads across his face.
”I knew I would find you again, Persephone”, he says.
”It’s Cora now. And you didn’t find me, we caught you.” To my surprise, he lets out a loud barking laugh.
”Your little friends didn’t catch me! I let them inject me with your knockout drug! I’ve been monitoring your actions inside the city since the first time someone vanished. It wasn’t hard to find you, there are surveillance cameras everywhere!”
I bite my tongue. We had been so careful, and it had all been for nothing. He was watching us the whole time. Ice flows through my veins at the thought what he might have seen. Just the knowledge that he had watched me without my knowledge …
”Don’t you want to cut me loose?” Lucifer pulls on the ropes with which we tied him to a chair.
”Why on earth should we do that?” I reply.
”Because if you don’t, my tracking device will bring my team here. It will do that when you cut me loose too, but then they won’t kill you. Maybe. They will at least kill you painlessly.” He is so full of himself. Now it’s my turn to grin. I reach into my back pocket and show him the tiny chip. @suesa
”Do you mean this?” He turns white. ”Yeah, when we noticed who we caught, we checked for stuff like this.”
”It’s too late”, he says. ”They have tracked it here. It will just slow them down!”
”Oh, I doubt that. Damon here took the chip and drove around a bit before he finally destroyed it.”
Finally, the smile vanishes out of his face for good. I’ve taken his power. Payback is a bitch.
”So now, would you be so kind and explain to me why you let us catch you? Maybe we will let you live. Or at least grant you a painless death.” The role reversal causes some weird kind of euphoria in me. Lucifer grits his teeth.
”I knew you’re abducting test subjects. I wanted to know where you take them, the cameras never caught it. So I picked someone from your team and let them knock me out.”
”But isn’t that dangerous?” I wonder. ”You don’t have an emotion blocker. Wouldn’t the drug for the reactivation damage your brain?”
”THE WHAT?” Panic. Pure panic. That’s not what I expected.
”We have the same drug you use to reactivate the emotions. Did you think we just abduct drones? We need people for our rebellion.”
”Where did you get that drug?”
”We have our ways.” I’m refusing to give up our supplier. He’s from Theresa’s group and deathly afraid that someone might find out he’s affiliated with us.
”Fuck. Fuck!” Lucifer pulls on his restraints but can’t loosen them. ”You need to let me go”, he demands, ”I need to reverse this!”
”What’s wrong?” It seems the drug does have bad side effects if injected into the wrong person. Who would have thought? I can’t help but feel a bit joyful. We literally made him take his own medicine. And now it’s doing … something.
”I need to get a blocker, soon! The effects will soon start damaging my brain. I can already feel it messing with my brain chemistry!”
”And what will happen if we don’t help you?”
He stares at me, pure terror in his eyes. ”All the test subjects developed schizophrenia-like symptoms. Hallucinations, Delusions, cognitive issues. Please! I don’t want to end up like this!”
The others in the room have been silent the whole time. Some have pity written on their faces. Others pure hatred. I strongly feel like the second group.
”That’s your problem”, I say and leave the room. The others follow.
During the next hours, I peak into the room from time to time and watch what happens.
It doesn’t take long until Lucifer starts hallucinating. He talks to people who aren’t there, barks order and tries to charm nonexistent women into going out with him. I walk in once to give him some water to drink, but he doesn’t recognize me, at all.
At one point Luna, who has spent her new life studying neurology, takes me aside.
”I hope you don’t expect him to recover from this”, she says.
”You don’t think that will happen?” I ask. Luna shakes her head.
”It’s not exactly schizophrenia, that illness has a genetic origin and usually develops when someone grows up. Their genetics make them vulnerable and drastic changes in brain chemistry, like during puberty or induced by drugs, can trigger the outbreak. But this is different, Lucifer doesn’t have a genetic base for it.”
”But it still caused similar symptoms?”
”I assume the dosage of the drug is so high, that the brain doesn’t need the initial vulnerability. Or maybe it’s a completely different thing, we just say it’s something similar to schizophrenia. Nevertheless, he’s losing touch with reality. Fast. I would expect him to become a different person without proper medication. He will have trouble not paying attention to emotional input when trying to focus on his work. His feelings will be messed up too, at least it will appear like that to him.”
”Can we use it against him?” I ask.
”You bet we can.” Luna laughs.
Sources:
Emotion in Schizophrenia: Where Feeling Meets Thinking
Emotional Response Deficits in Schizophrenia: Insights From Affective Science
Picture taken from pixabay.com
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I love getting the mention whenever you post. Easy curations hahahahah. now let me go read the actual post
Sometimes I read and avoid commenting due to feeling guilty over the easy curations :D
Yes ma'am! :D
Yey! :D Let's mess with Lucifer's head a little! Although I did feel bad for him for about a second... haha
Always a connect stays there and leaves a foot - print even till the end of the story. Truly engrossing content of what one mind does to the other in the form of Awake.
I love the way that you slide science and technology into your stories. You're doing great.
This is seriously awesome. I love specially the toughts description. Pretty much like being in the head of the main character.
Congrtulations!
Thanks, that was the goal 😊
Awesome post friend.
I like your all content because your content type and quality is so good.
best of luck go ahead friend.
Beautiful writing
Hey @suesa that's a good psychological expression I appreciate your post 👌👌
@suesa it’s always a pleasure to read your articles! Thanks for it! The first pic is soooo f**** awesome!!!! Really nice! Thanks for sharing. Upvotet of course. Hugs out to ya
great work and bountiful writing