Microphones stopped recording during this period. Cameras malfunctioned. Those who entered the room fell into a fugue state and experienced short-term memory loss upon exiting. The temperature in the room dropped from 70 degrees Fahrenheit to 51 degrees before the digital thermometer short-circuited.

The boys awoke three days later. Lacking surveillance equipment, it is unknown if they awoke simultaneously or in turns. The guard stationed outside the door reported sudden, hysterical laughter occurring approximately at the time cameras turned back on. Every boy was sitting up in bed except for John B, who was lying down. Unlike before, their laughter was no longer synchronous or identical in tone. Sound analysis presented incongruities between the vocal profiles for each individual pre- and post-coma – these new vocal signatures being unique and heretofore un-catalogued. The deep, husky vocalizations of three mature adult males and two adult females, not those of the seven-year-old boys who had entered the orphanage.

The laughter soon devolved into violent retching and gurgling coughs as the internal organs of each boy swelled past capacity and ruptured. Blood ejected from gaping mouths and spewed from bulging eyes. Their facial expressions during their dying moments have been analyzed and described as joyous, despite the agony they must have experienced as their organs liquefied and evacuated their bodies. In just under four minutes, the five orphans fell back in bed like deflated bags, while John B opened his eyes and sat up, surveying the carnage around him.

He turned and faced the hidden camera assigned to his cot, this brown-haired boy replica of the man he was cloned from. “More friends, please,” he said. “These didn’t last.”

John B was removed from the orphanage and his status is classified. The status of Doctor O’s/Professor O’s laboratory work is classified. You are a point of classified data. You are a new wave of specimen, classified. You are in your son’s head.

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Imagine hearing this story while stuck inside the world’s most claustrophobic sauna. I was sweating so much it was pooling in my ear canals and causing the woman’s voice to warble. That calm, unrelenting voice telling me about abominations. The inside of the wall cavity had to be nearly two hundred degrees as the fire burned underneath me, ripening the copper stench of blood seeping through the interior lining. Meanwhile, the hunched figure lounging in the plush leather chair appeared to be enjoying an afternoon snooze.

The story had ended, but the airline stewardess wasn’t done with me quite yet.

“You are inside your son’s head.”

My beautiful son, Rox. I am his damaged brain.

A static rasp hissed through the speakers, scratchy and painful. “Signals are scrambled. Thoughts come packed in locked boxes. Memories are shadows on a sunny day.”