Jake paced the narrow confines of his cell, the sterile light overhead flickering as if even the electricity was exhausted by the weight of this place. Across the corridor, Lila sat on her cot, knees drawn to her chest, her eyes never leaving the glass wall that separated her from Jake and Samuel. The silence was broken only by the distant hum of machinery and the occasional muffled groan from one of the other prisoners, reminders of the suffering hidden in these underground halls.
He couldn't stop thinking about Jeremiah. The image of his friend, pale and motionless, hooked up to machines, haunted him. Jake's fists clenched in frustration. He needed answers, anything that could help them understand what was happening here, and how to stop it.
He turned toward the wall that separated his cell from Carter's. "Carter," he called, voice low but urgent. "You said you've seen this before. What do you know about it?"
There was a pause, then Carter's voice drifted through the vent, weary and resigned. "Not much, I'm afraid. I've seen too many end up like your friend. Some of the people who came in with me,they're lying in that same room now, just like him. Unmoving. Machines keeping them alive, but their minds… gone."
Jake swallowed hard. "What happened? When you were brought here, what did they do?"
Carter's reply was slow, as if he was dredging up memories he'd rather forget. "When the bus stopped at the coal mine, people started panicking. We saw the armed guards, the fences, the floodlights. Some tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. The tour operator...he was calm, almost cheerful.....told us it was all part of the experience. Said we were going to see a real working mine, and that we'd be part of a new kind of tour. He said they'd put a device in our ears, so we could experience a modern augmented reality tour. 'Total immersion,' he called it."
Jake listened, heart pounding. "And then?"
Carter let out a bitter laugh. "Once they put the device in, everything changed. People started acting… different. Some got quiet, others started laughing or crying for no reason. Then they forgot who they were. Names, families, and even the fact that they were on a tour. It was like their minds were wiped clean."
Lila pressed her hand to the glass, her voice trembling. "But not you?"
"No," Carter said. "For some reason, it didn't work on me. The guards noticed. They kept asking me questions,what I remembered, what I felt. When they realized the device wasn't doing anything, they threw me in here. Been trying to figure out what's wrong with me ever since."
Samuel, who had been listening intently, spoke up. "Why do you think it didn't work?"
Carter hesitated, then replied, "I don't know. Maybe something in my brain's wired wrong. Maybe I'm just lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it."
The silence stretched, heavy with the weight of too many questions and not enough answers.
Then, from the darkest corner of the cell block, a new voice spoke,a voice rough with disuse, edged with a strange, mocking humor. "You can't be hypnotized, Carter. You may have dementia or a brain injury."
Jake, Lila, and Samuel all turned, straining to see into the shadows. The figure was barely visible, just a silhouette behind the reinforced glass.
"What?" Jake called out, his voice echoing down the corridor.
The figure shifted, moving closer to the glass so that the faint light caught the sharp lines of his face. "You heard me," the stranger said, his tone almost amused. "Some people just can't be taken in by tricks. Their minds are already… broken. Or maybe just different."
Carter's voice was shaky. "Who are you?"
The stranger smiled, a flash of teeth in the dark. "Someone who's been here longer than most. Someone who knows what they do to people who don't fit the program."
Lila pressed closer to the glass, her breath fogging the surface. "What do you mean, 'the program'?"
The stranger's eyes lingered on her, the lines of his face etched with exhaustion and something like pity. "It's all a test. They run people through the canyon, the settlement, the mine, over and over. Sometimes it's drugs, sometimes it's those damn devices, sometimes it's just fear and confusion. They watch what breaks first: your memory, your will, or your body. They call it 'the program.' We're just the rats in their maze."
He shifted, glancing down the corridor toward the medical wing. "Your friend.....the one they just brought in, Jeremiah? He's in a coma now. I heard the guards talking. They said he experienced a stroke-like brain injury. The stress of remembering, of fighting the loop, it was too much."
Jake's face went pale. "A coma? You mean he's......"
The stranger nodded, his voice low and grim. "He's alive, but barely. The machines are keeping him breathing, but his mind… it's somewhere else. They say it happens to the ones who try too hard to hold on to who they are. The program pushes until something gives. Sometimes it's the mind. Sometimes it's the heart."
Lila's hand trembled against the glass. "Can he come back?"
The stranger's gaze softened, just a little. "Sometimes they wake up. Sometimes they don't. Depends on how much they took from him, and how much he's got left to fight with."
Samuel's jaw tightened. "And the rest of us?"
The stranger looked at each of them in turn, his voice barely more than a whisper. "If you want to survive, you have to remember who you are. But if you fight too hard, the program will try to erase you for good. That's how they keep control. That's how they keep the loop running."
Jake stared at the floor, the weight of it all pressing down on him. But in the silence that followed, something fierce flickered in his eyes.
The stranger watched him, a faint, approving nod in the dim light. "Just be careful. In here, hope can be as dangerous as forgetting."