Still working to edit this up, not finished with writing the whole thing up but I don't know when I'll finish it. Let me know what I can change to improve this, it won't be the last time I edit this. GRoan. As always I own none of this Outlast characters, I just enjoy these novel projects. Enjoy.

The Engine

I'm thinking of math equations when some semblance of consciousness drags back into my mind. It's something I used to do when I was taking classes at Berkeley. I'd get so boggled with numbers, from morning to night. I'd stare at the same equation for hours until I realized I was too exhausted for this nonsense, and lay my head down to sleep, drooling all over my textbook. At some unholy hour of the night I might chance the climb to my top bunk without waking my roommate, or climb in bed with him, and he'd make the climb to my top bunk. Most cases I'd stay in my uncomfortable and cramped chair until I was roused, my head throbbing and a knot in my spine from the improper sleeping technique. Such good memories. So dull and pleasant. Safe.

My hand twitches against the cold floor, the cement, and my back aches. Oh, how it aches. My head throbs as if I just threw back two bottles of hard liquor, a feat I'm sure would kill me outright but I'm certain the sensation must be equivalent. I can't get it in me to move, it hurts too much to try and focus, decide what has happened. Something has happened, hasn't it? In a panic, I realize I can't remember! The notion sends a swell of buzzing through my mind, as I try and decide. I try and decide the cube of sixty-four. It's four. Four people. Four.

Accident. I've been in some sort of accident. Haven't I? That's the answer. I took my eyes off the road for a second. A second was all it took. That's what they always say. One second can ruin a lifetime. Irreversible damage. Oh god, I was hurt. I—

Then I remember. That history was over, done. I moved on. There were bills to pay, you needed money to live on. Then the letter, a job. This would fix everything. I would do the work, get paid, and move on. Survive. The job….

The work.

Oh god. What have I done?

I lose consciousness for some time longer. I keep track by running numbers. The script. I remember running script, waiting impatiently for the lines to load. I was cutting it close, I didn't normally work like this. I knew something was wrong while I was seated there, trying to focus, too distracted. It was an easy fix.

"Are you happy, Mr. Park?"

"Yes I'm happy," I wanted to say. "Can't you see this big grin slapped on my face?" But I didn't say that. I kept my mouth shut as I worked. My cheesy sweeter vest damp with sweat because I was anxious and in a hurry. Too much that I was botching up the job, not thinking about what I was doing. Just going through the motions, plugging in commands without reading the errors. I was better than this, I was just being careless. That's what got me. I wasn't thinking about the people around me, the hints they dropped. They were way ahead of me. I wasn't paying attention, wasn't reading the signs. How stupid could I have been? I was so intent on getting the job done, I didn't stop to think. I should have stopped. There was so much I should have done, but didn't. So many things I should have said, but put it all off. Too literal. My problem was I was too literal.

I jerk a bit when I come to, my eyes opening a crack. White light blinded me. I know I'm not wearing my glasses, I don't where they've gone. I can't make out my surroundings, just blurs and shapes. I needed them to read, for the little details. But it's hard to make out what I'm seeing. Was I even awake? I take a short breath and choke on the harsh air. It's not cold, but it wants to be. The air has a strange quality, sterile but alive with vibrations. I remember those sensations pulsing through my skin the first time I set foot on Mount Massive's soil. The recollection sent a tremor down my spine, and I felt sick to my gut. It might've been caused by the vertigo, as I try an open my eyes to see. Screens. Two sets of six, twelve in all. That smell again, as I swallow the saliva that gathered at the back of my throat. I don't want to get up, to think about mobility. I just want to lie here and forget about the world, about the strange sounds moving around me. Equipment. Do they have equipment?

I've been in an accident. I'm not dressed in my usual warm clothing, to combat this merciless cold that haunts the bone white corridors. I don't know what I'm in, it feels like a scrubs. The important detail, it's not mine. How many times do I need to remind myself, I've not been in an accident. It's old history. I want to forget. I want to leave it behind. I want to leave so much behind. But I'm stuck in this loop, I won't stop tumbling back into it. Reminds me too much.

I feel it now. The peculiar sense of vulnerability that rolls through me. I remember it well. I focus more on the screens. Twelve. I don't recall there meaning, but their presence feels invasive. The screens are dangerous somehow, someone had explained why. It was a conversation during breakfast that I overheard. You watch them too long, some people go blind. I try and make a sound as I turn my eyes off them, but my throat is suddenly dry. I hear movement, soft shoes moving over cement and my eyes locate a blue shape gliding towards me. I don't recognize him. I might, but I don't. The tall figure stands over me for but a second, and it's in that length of time that I conclude that mobility is not yet available. I try and shut my eyes to blot out the world, the screens, but I'm being lifted up.

Strong hands mold around my chest, the brief impulse to choke or dry heave over his shoulder passes, as I'm pitched forward. Thankfully. I try and lift an arm up to shove him off, but the weak limb only fumbles about at his backside as the room spins away. I'm barely holding on, the desire to sleep and escape what is happening is too strong. Even when I'm thrown back into a hard, cold chair, I can't shove it into my sense of self-preservation to give a fuck. My head rolls to the side groggily and my eyelids drop, the room fading back to dark. Back to sleep and dreams, and obscure math equations with no meaning.

I manage to open one eye and tilt my head, as a blue arm crosses into view. Thick black gloves extend up to the elbow and stop there. They look expensive. They are also tightening sharp little loops over my wrists, so tight they bite into my skin. I whimper as they adjust the straps just a little more, the mechanism clicks somewhere far from my ears. I open my other eye, startled by the face leaning over. A mask. The man is dressed head to toe in a full body, blue smock. He has an associate dressed the same, but wearing the dark black gloves and a heavy respirator over his face. I don't want to think about what they're doing.

The first man, the one that lifted me, shoves my bare foot back into a hard brace. He hurts my heel when it collides with the metal back, and I listen to the soft click as the latch constricts, painfully around my ankle. I try to pull my arm back, to push him away, but I've already forgotten my hands are secured tight. The straps cutting into my wrists hurt, and I make another meager sound in my throat. All I can think now is I want out. I want out so bad, it hurts.

But he wouldn't let me go.

I focused between the two figures, the man that resembles an insect, and the man wearing only blue smocks. Hard lines define his face, and there's… something strange in his eyes. Something I can't describe. It's not in my nature to stare people in the eye, but I can't help it. I have no escape.

The man in the respirator reaches over my head, and I try to duck forward. But, he presses his hand over my forehead and pushes my head back into another painful contraption. He tightens a loop over my feverish brow, and the device has it fixed to where my head is locked back and I have only the twelve screens within my peripheral. I'm gazing at them as my eyes droop, I don't want to think about it. About the blindness caused, seizures, the rumors that spread like wild fire. I shouldn't have snooped. There was so much I shouldn't have done. The nausea returns, and I try to focus on the little camera on the tripod, off to the side. If I can lock on that, I can watch it. I think I'm going to pass out or throw up, maybe both.

"Open those eyes," the voice says.

I recognize it. Or I don't. The man in blue leans over, there's an odd smirk pressed in his lips. My eyes move to his face slowly, as he lowers into my line of sight. The other man with the respirator moves away, I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, he no longer exists. The man before me continues to speak, "You don't have to wake up, but open your eyes." I don't care for what he says, it doesn't make sense. It would mean the world to me if he just shut the hell up and let me rest.

I let my eyes slip shut, my brain already diving into the blissful zone of nothing. I make a mental promise I'll look later, if I felt like it.

Pain accompanied by a loud sound causes my eyes to snap open, my focus fully on him now. I take a sharp breath as the stinging works through my cheek, my eyes watered. Did he…. He just.

"What's the matter?" he asked. His eyes glanced over my head, checking the restraints. "Somebody hit you?" His eyes. There was something in his eyes. Lustful, was this lust I was seeing? My heart began beating in my chest, so hard I could feel it press into the thin shirt I wore. The rumors. I remember the rumors about some of the people. "Here. Let me help."

They were only rumors at the time. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to see. All this time, blind. Now, I couldn't get away.

I didn't know what to expect, but the way he spoke. That carnal tone he took, made me want to squirm away.

He leaned forward and I froze, my jaw locked and finger tips digging into the hard armrests of the chair I was glued to. I wanted to crawl away, make pitiful little sounds as I moved to the furthest corner of the room. Somewhere I could put my back, protect my body. I felt his hot breath on my cheek, and he paused for a moment moaning softly. My jaw quivered, but somehow my teeth were locked so tight my throat ached. I was now wide awake. He crept up my face, making wet hungry sounds right in my ear. He wasn't human. My throat tightened and my toes dug into the cold floor, I could have scrapped all the skin off my toes and I wouldn't give a damn. Anything to set my mind away from…. He finished, trailing his tongue along the edge of my brow leaving a cold, wet patch on my cheek. My eyes remain fixed on him as he slowly rocked back, tongue still visible between his lips as he watched me. Smug pleasure thick in his eyes.

I wanted to appear disgusted, or outraged. But honestly I felt like a child. A cold whimpering, defenseless child, lost in this place I had thought I'd known. It was all over my face, I knew. It was impossible for me to look anything but broken and pathetic, tears in my eyes, saliva drying on my cheek. And this guy, fueling his erotic ego to break another man. I want to go home.

I wasn't paying attention, but sometime, somewhere ago soft alerts began beeping. Minor sounds I couldn't be bothered with, while the man was fixated on my face. Until a soft voice spoke up. "Hey Andrew, you getting these alerts?" It only meant I wasn't alone in this room. Even if I was surrounded, I wouldn't feel safe. Not with him there, staring at me.

"Kinda busy here," Andrew said. I nearly mumbled something pathetic as the dominating sneer melted from his face, and became something almost human as he turned to address the speaker.

"It sounds like real trouble," said the other, timid. He was afraid of Andrew. But Andrew had returned his cruel gaze to me, concentrating on something he wanted to see in my eyes. I couldn't do anything but stare back. "At the Engine," the voice went on, while Andrew's focus was redirected. "They said Hope made a lateral ascension."

At Andrew's back the screens flashed to life, screeching with twisted images. I didn't look at them, the twelve screens were forgotten while Andrew was in my line of sight.

"Billy Hope," Andrew snapped. He turned to the speaker, and I wanted to envision the other man cringing under his gaze. I didn't want to feel like the only one here. "Shit. And they're not happy about it?"

"No," the voice answered. There was a brief pause, as Andrew mulled over what he was told. He turned away setting his chin on his knuckles, and I felt the tension flow from my wrists. My eyes drifted off him to view the screens, beyond his shoulder. I blinked against the pulsing light, the way they danced and quivered in black and white. That was… oh no.

Where was I? No! Oh god, NO!

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit," Andrew growled. He brushed by my shoulder, but he had faded from my concern. I couldn't take my eyes off the screens, the screen. Synchronized into a single broadcast. "Come on."

There was no sound. No brutal slam of a door to announce their departure, no indication they had left at all save for the hasty and displeased bark of Andrew as he had stepped from my line of sight. To be honest, I didn't give a fuck. I wasn't looking for them, I was staring at the screen and the odd pulse of figures and shapes it formed. I have no conception of how long I sat there, absorbing what was shown. What felt like minutes began to draw, spiraling back into seconds. How did this happen? Why was this happening?

I had an accident.

That's all my mind would supply. I drag my arm against the restraint, a little more, and a little more. The binding holds, my only success are the marks I don't doubt are now branded in my skin. It doesn't stop me from trying.

It starts in the back of my head. The car. Or was it a truck? Owned a car first, we owned a car. No, it was always a truck. I'm seeing things in the Rorschach's, flashing, blinding, moving. I want to see things, familiar things. Images to remind me of home. Was I supposed to see something? A gate, an elevator. Take it down to the lab. REMs, scans. I wasn't familiar with the medical field, but I had seen an X-Ray of my skull before, after… it was after the accident I decided. That accident. I say something strange, murmured my name. After a short span I realized I was muttering to myself, trying to remind my head of something. What is happening? What is happening? I'm seeing things leap off the screens, moving around my head. I want to look away. I was going to focus on something, but I can't find the point I had set on. Lock on, focus. Keep away from the Engine. Away from the Engine. No, was I trying to come up with a logarithm to salvage my mind?

Math equations. Algorithms. Stuff I studied but it was beyond me, this chemical engineering bull crap they thought could make mortals into gods. It was all theories and in part, superstitions. Rumors. They were always telling ghost stories around lunch time, the highlight of the day when break rolled around. I was seeing trays now, my mind suggested flat trays swimming past the screen. Then skulls, then flowers, then ink blot tests. Ribbons. Gates. Elevators. Trucks. How long had it been? Not since I was sat down….

How long had I been here? Adverse… effects. People saw shapes, when you were drowsy enough. Worked enough late hours into the dawn, or just had terrible sleeping habits. I did. But I never. No, I did. But some of the people, they saw. They saw. They saw. They saw.

A high shriek filled the room. It was loud enough to drill through my ears and burn my throat. They were in a way beautiful, but morbid. The flowers slumped into skulls, then back into ribbons. It didn't take me long to realize the noise was me, I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I tried to jerk out of my chair, my ankles and wrists rubbing hard at their binds. I thought there were people with me, more men in scrubs staring at me. I groaned and whined, why wouldn't they help me? Why couldn't they help me!

The room began to distort. The walls bled with the inkblots, wet gray forms crawling from open wounds that splint in the walls. I couldn't make out where they came from, if it was real or not. No. I was dreaming. I was asleep, dreaming. It's a nightmare, I'll wake up when it's too much. Everything will be all right.

The shapes crept closer, thick ribbons tightening over my eyes and neck. A wet sensation moved from my forehead to the back of my neck. Then the pain. Piercing pain drilling through my spin and out my chin. I felt a pressure on my thigh and when I looked, there was someone leaning over me talking about the cube of eight. Numbers in my head. Think of numbers.

My throat was raw from shrieking, the horrible sound bounced throughout the room perpetually. I just want it to end. Stop. I try to shut my mouth, cease my horrible racket. But I can't move. I sit propped in the chair like a puppet, absorbing the static that burns through my mind. Somehow it all clicks, my brain flat lines and I feel nothing. Not the room, or the images. I see nothing but swirls and translucent membranes stretching. I'm somewhere far away. A distant memory. It's not a happy one.

The truck. The accident. The job.