Lost Horizons

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

“You won’t believe what I tell you. White coats and clever minds will chose” –Two Door Cinema Club

The research institute had been making slow-but-steady progress in the last ten years.  The new drug had been tested on several patients already and the change in behavior was noticeable.  The symptoms of the conditions had decreased in seven of the twenty patients.  When the number of cured patients reached more than half of the total, the institute could be certain they had obtained success.  However the side-effects of the drug were still under study.  Although the symptoms decreased, the condition itself never seemed to disappear completely.

They had been close with patient Y17 three years ago, but the doctor who had been in charge had let his eagerness for success cloud his judgment and the patient had died of an overdose.  The substance was banned after that particular incident -- news that was utterly disappointing to the rest of the staff at the institute.

Later on, they had developed a modified version of the same substance, hoping it would be as effective as the older version and less dangerous.  The years of extensive research, the effort, the sleepless nights, the sacrifices, and the countless victims had finally paid off.  There would be no more clueless victims and this thought brought ease to the doctor’s mind.  The ghosts of the past patients still haunted him on the nights he actually managed to get some shut-eye.  But in the end it would all be worth it.  The goal was far greater than any dispensable life.  And if the goal was achieved, great things would happen and countless lives would change for good.  Their main goal justified the severe actions of the institute, or so they believed.

Out of the new batch of patients that would be studied next, one particularly caught the doctor’s attention.  The patient’s condition was far more complicated than any of the previous ones they had experimented on, and that both interested and excited the doctor.  He was certain that this patient was going to prove to be a challenge.  But with the knowledge of science, their patience, and hard work, it too would hopefully be conquered.  Although not all of the patients could be cured successfully, they had figured out how to sedate all conditions to control the patient’s nervous system.

Control.  It all came down to that.

 

Among many other experiments, the placebo theory had been tested on the patients for curiosity’s sake.  But of course, as the doctor had foretold, the experiment had been a complete failure since most of the patients didn’t acknowledge their condition. How could one be tricked into being cured by a placebo if one was unaware of the illness?

The doctor placed his glasses on his desk and rubbed his tired eyes with the back of his calloused fingers.  He had been reading through the staff’s progress reports on each of the twenty patients, and it had been a task that had involved staring at a computer screen for almost the entire day.  Ever since he had started working at the institute, his hair line had receded, and he had a feeling it would all be lost to stress if he continued his work.  He also noticed that, lately, the majority of his short hair had turned the color of rain clouds.  But his hair was the least of his concerns, being as it was one of the smallest sacrifices he had to make.