By the end of the sixth week, John B’s roommates had stopped eating. When asked why, they would universally answer, “Why eat when I am full.” None of the boys lost an ounce of weight during their time of fasting. Their resting heart rate decreased from between 70 and 120 beats per minute to less than 40 beats, and their core temperature dropped to 97.1 degrees Fahrenheit. When John B came around to their beds at night, they began to open their eyes and weep as he whispered in their ears. Hidden microphones recorded the contents of John B’s whisperings, which more closely resembled the echolocations of odontoceti and Microchiropteran bats than any human language, and were indecipherable to expert linguists and pattern recognition programs. None of the boys expressed any recollection of these nightly encounters, but under hypnosis would begin to transmit the same echolocations as heard in the recordings.

All the linguists stopped eating for a period of nine days after studying the recordings, as did the psychologist who interviewed the boys under hypnosis. None of those afflicted have any recollections during this period of time despite engaging in regular activities. Their memories were erased.

By the end of the ninth week, John B’s roommates had either lost the capacity to store memories entirely or had entered into an agreed-upon group deception to fabricate a shared condition. They began to act as a single unit, assuming identical bodily postures and facial expressions, displayed stigmergic traits common among animal swarms such as walking at the same pace, sitting and standing at the same time, taking simultaneous bites of food, chewing and swallowing as one. Distance did not disrupt this shared behavior. Placed in separate rooms, the boys would cross their legs, scratch their chins, or run a hand through their hair at the exact same time, as though obeying a common impulse. Their voices took on the same tone and inflections to the point where unique vocal signatures collapsed into one shared profile. Interests regressed solely to activities required for physical survival: eating, sleeping, and waste removal. If asked how they were feeling, they would say, “Hungry”, “Full”, “Awake”, or “Tired”. If asked to reflect on past events, they would remain mute. If asked to ruminate on future desires, they may say, “I must find food when hungry. I must rest when tired.”

The boys lay down for bed during the fifteenth week following John B’s arrival, the one hundred fifth day to be precise, and fell into a collective coma. John B lay in his cot in the center of the room in a similar catatonic state, although EEG machines were unable to detect brain activity for him during this period. Medically, he was brain-dead.

All attempts to pull the boys from their coma failed.