Something was wrong. At some inexplicable moment the mood in the room flipped.
People started shouting songs at the top of their lungs. Someone stood up and began dancing. The bald man dropped to the floor doing push-ups without pause for ten straight minutes. A woman with heavy makeup stripped off her top and began gyrating in a lurid dance…
Under the dim lights, the scene turned grotesque, like the world was sinking back into some primal, irrational state.
"Weekend, why are they acting like this?" Butterfly's face had gone pale. She pressed herself close to me, trembling.
"Did you eat or drink anything just now?" I asked, remembering what that mysterious man had told me.
"No. I was afraid it would make me sleepy."
"Come on. Let's stay in the corner. I think something's about to happen." I grabbed her arm, pushed through the crowd, and sat with her at the edge of the room.
We had just sat down when it happened.
The bald man was still doing push-ups. Someone nearby accidentally stepped on his hand. He shot up like a broken machine, roaring, and swung a punch. The man went down, head hitting the floor, blood spreading out like paint.
That single outburst triggered a chain reaction. People started brawling wildly, hitting each other at random. Some women screamed, their shrill cries piercing the eardrums.
"Ke-ke-ke-ke…" A strange laugh rasped right next to my ear. I jerked back on instinct and saw a small man with a moustache, his eyes glowing red, sink his teeth into my arm.
"Are you insane?!" Pain flared as I shoved him off, staring at the row of teeth marks on my skin.
Something was definitely, horribly wrong.
The moustached man was like a zombie from a film. With that creepy laugh he lunged at me again. I yanked Butterfly to the side and he crashed into another person — a woman in her forties. He bit into her shoulder, and the chilling part was she didn't even react. She kept singing loudly, her pitch never wavering.
Fear shot adrenaline through me. I struggled to push through the frantic mob toward the door and pounded on the iron gate.
"Open the door! Open the door! We want out!"
"The experiment is in progress. Withdrawal is not allowed." The reply from beyond was icy.
"What kind of experiment is this? What did you put in the food?!" I slammed my palms on the iron until they swelled red — but strangely it didn't hurt much.
"All possible risks and bodily harm were specified in the agreement. You all signed."
I kept up the futile pounding. Then Butterfly's scream tore through the chaos.
I spun around. A man in a baseball cap had her by the hair, forcing her down and ramming his knee into her stomach. Butterfly writhed in pain, tears streaming down her face.
"Let her go!" I lunged forward and seized the man by the throat.
He didn't even seem to hear me and kept attacking her.
"Let her go, damn you!"
I punched him in the eye. He lost balance and dropped to one knee, but quickly rose again. Afraid he'd keep hurting Butterfly, I kicked him hard in the head. He tried to crawl up. I lost control completely, hammering him with all my strength until I was panting and he lay bloodied and slack-eyed, staring blankly — maybe still conscious, maybe not.
"It's… it's okay now." I reached a hand toward Butterfly.
But she had shrunk against the wall, her face bloodless. She looked at me with terror and unease.
She was afraid of me.
It hit me then: I'd never fought anyone in my life. How had I hit so hard, so savagely? If what that strange man said was true — that there was something in the water making people go mad — I'd drunk a few mouthfuls too.
How long before I became an animal like the rest of them?
Time turned into something abstract. My head felt like a runaway machine — one moment I pictured my daughter on an operating table, then the missing finger, then the manager who beat me, then that attempted robbery I never carried out… When I finally looked up at the clock, it was already three o'clock.
Had six hours passed, or eighteen?
There was no trace of sleepiness in me, which convinced me the water they gave us must have contained something. The hall was a wreck: people kept getting hurt, and one woman danced on and on as if she had no physical limit — yet her face stayed fixed in a look of joy.
I tried to find the mysterious man who had spoken to me, but the place was too chaotic. I searched and searched and couldn't find him.
Butterfly was curled up in the doorway like a lamb surrounded by beasts.
"Ring — ring — ring."
That high, grating bell sounded again. The door opened and the gold-rimmed glasses man walked in with a row of staff in black behind him.
"Congratulations. You've completed the first experiment. Please collect your pay and follow staff to rest. The next experiment begins tomorrow morning." He waved, and two black-clad men opened a trunk and began handing out cash.
The deranged ones grew even more excited at the sight of money; the hall erupted into noise.
"May I withdraw now? I don't want to continue," Butterfly asked tremulously, her face still pale with shock.
"Every volunteer has the right to join or withdraw. Of course you can leave," the man replied politely.
Butterfly breathed out and took the money, preparing to follow the staff away.
"The second experiment pays $500,000. You may rest now and prepare." The man continued into the microphone.
Half a million dollars — money many people never see in a lifetime.
My chest jolted. With that money, my daughter could finish the surgery. Our lives might have hope.
Butterfly stopped walking. She bit her lip and then stepped back into the crowd.
The glasses man pushed his spectacles up his nose and smirked, as if everything were going exactly as he'd planned.
There had been eighty-two participants at the start. Five were eliminated for sleeping. During the experiment twenty-nine lost the ability to move (mostly from heavy injuries). That left forty-eight of us, paired up and led to rooms in batches. The rooms were lavishly furnished — small but fully equipped, even the faucets were gold-plated. I couldn't help wondering who was really backing this experiment.
The glasses man said the money came from the House of Qin Consortium. I remembered a news story from last month: Vincent, the Consortium's eldest son, had been kidnapped into the mountains and survived ten days by eating corpses. When they rescued him he was mentally unhinged. Later, in a psychiatric hospital, he bit his own brother to death. The company's stock plunged; leaked ledgers showed Vincent bribing officials, and the city was thrown into chaos. How could the House of Qin have the resources — or the nerve — to fund such a perverse experiment amid that mess?
The door was kicked open with a bang and my thoughts were interrupted. The heavily tattooed bald man stumbled in, gulped down half a bottle of water from the fridge.
Great — he was my roommate.
"You… probably shouldn't drink the water here," I warned, trying to be helpful.
He ignored me and sat to watch TV. I leaned back on the pillow, trying to sleep, but oddly I still had no desire to sleep — even though it had been seventy-two hours.
I thought of that mysterious man who'd told the Black Room story. What becomes of a human who never sleeps?
I don't know how long I stood there. The bald man began muttering at first like a sleep-talker, but his words grew too coherent for that.
"Boss, that girl… I didn't kill her. I told you those pills are too strong. She wouldn't listen. I tried to save her."
"The cops are after me. The gang's looking for me too. I've had no choice — I've been with you since I was seventeen. When things like this happen, you're the one we turn to, right?"
"You shouldn't have slapped me. You shouldn't have made that call. I've always treated you like a brother. I want to live — I'll have to kill your whole family, your seven-year-old son… he clung to my leg like a little meatball, heh heh heh…"
My heart raced. I crept closer. The bald man faced the wall and confessed his secrets.
I was done for — this thug sounded like a killer. My palms were sweaty as I moved back toward my bed.
At that moment the bell screeched again. The bald man stiffened as if jolted by electricity and swung his head around; his pupils were bloodshot and violent. That expression was no longer human.