S.M.A.R.T. (The Subject of Mind Altering Research and Testing)

Chapter Twenty-five

He picked up the pistol and aimed it at the General, who froze. For a moment Michael hesitated. Who am I now after I pull this trigger? I've done it before, but, he is unarmed. I could run.. This plan doesn't have to be a bluff anymore, not now that those pills are here... What happens next? He looked at the pills on the ground. He looked at the General who was staring at him now, shaking. He knows he's lost. He knows I'm going to kill him. He is scared shitless. He thought of how well his plan had worked. None of it had been to truly escape. He had wanted the General gone, but now, with these pills...

Michael imagined them finding his body the next day out here. It was almost too perfect. Nobody knew he was there, nobody knew about their little feud. It was all between them, though the thought of being found out worried him. They couldn't possibly suspect me. They will do an autopsy and find the General has traces of the pill in his body. They will think the pill drove him crazy and he killed himself. They will need to keep doing testing and we'll have a new person in charge and I can have my reign over this place. He looked back at the pills. But those weren't part of my plan... Those weren't supposed to be here. His mind was eating him away, while the General whimpered on the ground. He counted the pills instantly. 64. I could use those pills to hide my family, perfectly. We could be safe. Nobody would ever find us. Jane and Sheila would go with me. I know they would... I could spend the rest of my life with them... But, the pill... I would run out of the pills. What would I be like then? I can't... I can't run out of those pills... He thought of the weeks that he had went without it, that drove him so mad before. He twitched, and his eyes burned. He wondered why was this happening to him. Why couldn't he make a decision. Why couldn't this have been easy.

Michael looked back at the facility from the edge of the woods. The place he had spent a year now, most of his time dreaming of escape, and his family. Yet, here he was with the opportunity, and something was telling him not to go. An itch inside him. You need that pill. The itch told him. No you don't, you need your family. He heard back from somewhere else. His mind flipped like a bouncing coin. The coin landed on one side. Michael raised the gun and pointed it to the General's head. Michael felt powerful, watching the man tremble.

"How does it feel, being helpless? How does it feel, knowing that I've beaten you, and that this face, my face, is the last face you are ever going to see. Is it eating away at you? Are you replaying everything over in your head? Because if you aren't, you should be." Michael spat.

The General let out an indistinguishable babble and started to piss himself. Michael laughed at him. "You're a coward. That's all you've ever been. Standing behind your men, giving orders and hiding yourself behind steel doors, passwords, and glass windows. Well what good has that done you now? Things always have a way of coming around. Don't they?"

The General seemed to hear that last part. He giggled hysterically. Steam rose from his pissed pants, and he wiped the vomit that was smeared across his face with his sleeve. "Things always do come around. You're right. You think this is righteous... But I see that shine in your eye. You're consumed by what I started. And that, will always haunt you. Until the day things come around for you too, Michael. You'll never be yourself ag---"

Michael pulled the trigger and the General's brain exploded out the back of his head before he could finish his final sentence. "I'm sick and fucking tired of hearing you talk."

Michael could smell his brain, and blood. It was rotten, and tinny. He collapsed to his knees and gagged. The odour was overpowering. It is done. There is no going back now. He watched the blood flow down an incline, to pool, and form a puddle in the dirt. The blood, and bits of brain and skull were still steaming in the cold air. Michael watched it rise into the air and dissipate. The sun was starting to come up. Now he had one more decision to make, and very little time to make it.

Michael knew somebody would have heard the shot. He rushed over to the tree the pills had spilled by and collected them. He put them back into the pouch and held them in his hands. His stomach turned and his whole plan came crashing down on him. He tossed a coin once more in his head. What should I do?... Who am I?

He didn't have much time left. He saw a light turn on towards the other side of the facility. Michael looked into the forest, and then at the bag of pills in his hands, and then back to the facility. He started running. The warm air smoked out of his mouth, as he breathed heavily. He ran past the tree line and into the grass. The door was still slightly open, just as he had left it. Michael entered the facility, and made his way back to his room as the coin in his head landed.