Null Hypothesis

Boom!

He stops— stops peeling his skin and lets his head swivel in the lonesome dark, towards the noise.

It came from the varied wall, directly below the pale green dot. But the dot is still as always, it has always been there and it has never moved-- the dot is constant and eternal.

The noise was a familiar noise-- very much like noises he has made himself, any of the times he has struck the walls or the floor out of boredom or cold rage-- first with his fists and then later with his face.

But this time, the noise is a mystery because—

Boom!

The varied wall is making the noise all by itself.

He listens to the thud of its dull metal throat.

It’s the first time he’s ever heard a noise that he did not cause with his own body.

How can this be?

He retreats as far as he can!

Away!

All the way back to his sleeping wall.

Back to the surface he had only recently spurned— back in scrambling, clumsy urgency to the only comfort he has ever known.

For he has no concept of death, but several sleeps ago he had decided to bring about an end.

Or atleast to try.

So he had begun to refuse food and drink, and he had abandoned his sleeping wall-- thinking that these things had sustained him and without these things he might finally cease.

But now he listens for the new noise.

He hears the blood in his veins, hears his very heart, stamping against the walls of his own chest.

It is his first panic, for he has never had reason to flee before.

Until now, there had never been anything besides the walls and the floor and the dark and his own body.

Nowhere to go and nothing to preserve.

But this sound carries reasons for fleeing and even... for living.

Boom!

He presses his back against the wall and presses his peeled, bleeding palms over his ears.

The thundering sound, it is awful but it leaves him in awe.

Terror, grips his entire body. But the fear itself is a feeling so new that to feel it is an almost intoxicating thrill.

His heart hammers harder in his chest, it hurts. He hears it's beat, so much faster than he is used to. He feels a flush of heat in his face— and he feels secret, unknown muscles in his cheeks begin to writhe! His lips twitch.

And it’s another sensation he’s never known before: the feeling of a smile, creaking across mouth.

His jaw aches from the effort, until now these muscles have been utterly untried-- not so much atrophied as vestigial.

The researchers watching his heart rate monitor begin to worry that years of study may go to waste.

Subject five forces air out of his chest, letting loose a scream— inarticulate and alien even to his own ears. It's a reflex he did not know he had.

But through it he speaks all his fears and all his curiosities and all his sudden, wild hopes for change.

***

One lab coat says “Why did you do that?”

The other grins, and shrugs. “I dunno. Five's never had a visitor before, I just figure a little knock on the door would be basic decency."

The first lab coat holds his gaze but does not return his smile.

The one who knocked falters. He doubles down on the joke, with a smile and a pitiful laugh that begs comradery. "I was trying to be polite."

“Wipe that grin off your face. Stick to the plan. Follow it to the letter. We’re not here to joke around.”

“Sorry sir, I, well… Okay. I’m sorry.”

“These tests must be controlled, we want to try pure human curiosity against pure human fear of the unknown, controlling for all other variables. You knocking would bewilder the subject. We want to test Five's innate fear of change, not his adrenaline response.”

The second labcoat looks down. “I understand, it won’t happen again. Are we going to carry on with the test?”

The first labcoat pauses. He listens at the door: muffled screams— a hitherto unheard sound from their otherwise mute test subject.

Subject 5's voice is uncanny-- there's a boyish quality to it, but it is utterly wild.

Feral, but seeming full of soul.

The lead researcher inhales. He shakes his head, and pushes his guilt away.

Their test subjects are not children. They could have been, if they'd been raised anywhere else.

But they were raised here, in total dark, total isolation, and total quiet.

Now they are test materials, they are greatly sophisticated lab rats.

They have human DNA and they have human bodies. But they are reduced to their barest components, their minds untainted by sloppy external stimuli.

These are uncontaminated by socialization or upbringing.

These are not children, these are blank slates.

He sighs, looks at the second lab coat and makes a mental note to reassign him to the autopsy of subject 4, so he can't further jeopardize any active studies.

“We cannot continue the test right now. Five has received too much stimulation. Let’s go back, analyze whatever readings we took. We’ll try to continue with the next stage of testing after Five's had time to settle back into his routine. Perhaps next month."

***

“Let me see it again.”

A technician replays the video— in grainy gray infrared imaging: subject 5 scrambles backwards, slams hard into the wall. His face twitches, he bares his teeth, his lips draw back in a lopsided… grimace, almost like a grin, he begins howling.

“What do you make of it sir?”

“Animals instinctively bare their teeth when they’re threatened. This could be a limbic impulse, an evolutionary defense. But damn if he doesn’t look… happy.”

“I agree, sir. It’s… Well, I think he’s smiling. Monitors showed an elevated heart rate. 80 BPM.”

The lead researcher whistles. “We need to be more cautious. A jump that high, the shock could have kill him. Higher ups said no more fatalities. Too much time and money wasted. Bring up the live video, let's see how he's doing now."

The technician nods.

***

147 hours later, Subject 5 sits in his eight by eight world.

Immediately after the sound, he had broken his hunger strike, not only because he felt a will to live, but because he wanted to quiet his stomach.

His hunger was too great a distraction, and he needed to focus all his attention on the wall, in case it boomed again.

So he had eaten from the trough. Bland and flavorless gruel, formulated to satisfy his nutritional needs and keep him alive, but never to offer any pleasure.

And he had sucked bitter, vitamin enriched water from the spigot.

But that was several sleeps ago-- and now he is hungry again.

Now he's so hungry it hurts.

Now he listens to the varied wall, hoping for another thrill of sound. But it remains silent, as it ever was, beneath the lone spec of pale light in his room.

He has no concept of hallucination, he has no words at all.

But confusion and doubt he bears in excess-- and he has some vague, wordless notion that the booming sound might have been imagined or misremembered.

It might not have been real at all.

He voids his bowels and urinates in the water pushing corner, his leavings fall through the grate beneath him, but the smell lingers and he breaths it deep.

It is foul in his nose, his face wrinkles. He breaths again, savoring any variety to his dark, quiet world.

And when the smell dissipates he leans back against his sleeping wall and listens to his resting pulse, like gentle rushing in his ears.

He rotates his head, keeping his view locked on the pale green light-- just about the only exercise that keeps his attention.

He feels his neck muscles slide under his skin, he hears his eyes moving around in their sockets, wet and raspy all at once.

He pulls away from his sleeping wall and rushes to the varied wall.

He pounds it with all his rage, beats it until his fists bleed and the tears roll free down his face.

Then he leaps to the feeding trough, and scoops wet sludge out-- he flings handful after handful down the grate in the water pushing corner.

He smears the gruel across the walls.

And all of this, in mummed silence. He cannot bring himself to scream again.

He wants to, he remembers that felt good.

But he simply cannot.

He also wants to smile.

But throwing his food down with his shit and his piss does not make him feel better, he still has no power.

And he knows that smile-- whatever it was and wherever it came from-- it will never return.

The boom was not real.

He curls up in the center of his room, his chamber, his cage.

And once again, he wishes to end.

***

"Sir, Subject 5 is back on hunger strike, he's sticking to it."

"How long? And remind me, how long did four's strike last before he finally died?"

"Five is coming up on 68 hours. Four was declared dead around the 75 hour mark. Five hasn't moved in around 12 hours, other than to chew his scabs or peel his skin. His breathing and heart rate are steady. By the way, Four's autopsy is complete, as you ordered. Extra-ocular muscles and the visual cortex were both underdeveloped but not fully atrophied, unlike subjects one through three. Seems the green dot made a difference. Do you want to review the full report?"

"Not right now."

The technician nods.

The lead researcher sighs and rubs his temples. "We can reject the null hypotheses for studies three and four, if Four never developed blindness then we can say with confidence that even minor visual stimulation will reduce incidence of the Cave Dweller Effect. Five is the fifth subject to begin a deliberate self-starvation. So we can reject humans raised in total isolation and near zero stimulation lose the will to seek sustenance.

"Yes, sir. That appears to be so. Five's losing the will to live. Just like the others."

He cracks a mournful smile, and runs a hand through his greying hair. He sees his reflection in a dead, black computer screen. He is much greyer than when they started. And he knows it's not just from the raw years spent monitoring and overseeing this project... It's the labor, the stifling of his own soul.

Before heading this research, he'd never believed in such a thing as that: his own soul.

But something in him is wailing, begging him to put an end to all this research.

Quietly, like a whisper he is condemning and mourning his own involvement. That little whisper is telling him he is damned.

He thinks about sneaking in a gun, euthanizing his research team, eiluthanizing each test subject, euthanizing himself.... but he realizes there’s only one subgroup that deserves the mercy.

He bites back on that grief, and rejects all fancy.

Their research is necessary. They’re going to crack the deepest shell of human behavior, and the understanding they’ll gain will make the human world a better place.

His wailing soul is nothing, it’s just the weakness of his own socialization.

There is no soul, and there never was. Not for him, not for anyone.

Uncanny screams be damned.

He stands.

"Okay, Five is ready for the next phase of testing. Let's open the door."

The technician nods. "Sir, do you think he'll leave his room? Do you think he'll explore?"

"I'm certain he will." Then for the first time, he admits the shadow of his own self-doubt to a subordinate, with a dry laugh. "Ha, I already have my mind made up. Does that make me a bad researcher? Am I compromised?"

The technician slowly shakes his head. "No sir, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure he'll explore too. I think our curiosity is greater than our fear of the unknown-- it's innate. And I think that's part of why the previous subjects chose not to sustain themselves. There was nothing for them to be curious about. Five's trying to die right now sir. An open door will bring him back from that... um... I guess I'll call it despair."

The lead researcher nods. "Yes, I believe that's the right word."

***

The lead researcher and his new assistant, they enter their codes, then they set the timer and retreat.

***

Five's stomach groans, louder and lower than the hiss of his breathing. His insides hurt. His body begs him to eat.

His mouth needs something, anything, so he chews his fingers raw. And peels the wounds for boredom.

But he remains curled in a fetal ball, and he refuses to move from the spot he’s chosen for his dying.

He can feel an end coming, he can feel his body winding down.

It will hurt more before the end, but the end is coming!

He has faith and it comes from reason: he can only remember so far back. Before his memories, there is nothing. He did not always exist, therefore he can cease existing. If he had a beginning, he can also have an end.

Five has faith and he looks to his end with hope: he will have and be nothing once again.

Then there's a sound that makes his wilting ears prick forward. A click-- a hiss.

And a whirring, grinding sound. It is soft, like the sound his eyes make when he looks at the green light-- like the sound his throat used to make back when he still swallowed gruel.

But compared to the negative decibels of his room, it is plenty loud.

He struggles to rise, propping himself up on one brutally fatigued hand.

He blinks, the smack of his eyelids is almost as loud as the moving wall. And he feels a change in the air-- not quite a smell, but a movement. As though the wall itself is exhaling on his face.

Suddenly he feels quite small.

He sniffs. There is a smell there, faint and strange. Kind of like his own smell, but different-- and masked in something cloyingly sweet. It is already fading.

He moves towards the wall and sniffs again. he reaches out in the dark to place his hand on the wall but finds it is no longer there.

His fingers drift though open space, his mind buzzes with electric uncertainty.

***

The research team watches the live feed.

They watch Five break his hunger strike, he scoops a mouthful of gruel from the trough.

They watch him drink from the spigot.

They watch him stumble back towards the door.

They see the weakness in his body.

He approaches the opening, he reaches out a palm.

He touches empty space, caresses nothing.

They see a shudder go through his body, he makes no sound, but his heart rate climbs.

They see him take a step forward.

He begins to tremble, and they see him place one brave foot on the threshold.

They see his crooked smile.

***

179 hours later....

The head researcher directs his team, "Well Five and Six have both given us reason to reject the null hypothesis for study five-- it's apparent that human curiosity can overcome fear of the unknown, even in subjects raised in total isolation and a near perfect lack of stimulation."

His hair is brown now, he's dyed it.

Nobody from the research team comments, either on his hair or their research.

He nods, for what can he do-- other than offer total agreement to their silence?

He gestures to their study board and continues debriefing them on the next phase of the study.

"Both subjects have acclimated to their expanded environment. Once they begin to show new signs of despair— for lack of a better clinical term-- we will open the doors to their adjoining hallways, allowing them to explore further and make contact. Phase six."

He fixes his team with a steady gaze. "Keep an eye out for any observational data that demonstrates a raw, instinctual human need for connection. We’re talking physical contact, cuddling, caressing, anything like that. Our null hypothesis is that humans raised in perfect isolation will show no attempt to socialize when a new subject is introduced to their environment. So if Five and Six demonstrate any social behaviors, we'll be able to reject that null hypothesis and show that human impulse towards social contact is innate.”

He cracks a smile and it's sincere. "We're nearing the end of our long work folks.”

But then all trace of smile leaves his eyes. His lips are left in a gruesome rictus.

The other researchers look away.

He continues the debriefing. "Then the seventh and final phase..."

He clears his throat. "Um. If subjects Five and Six show signs of attachment, we’ll limit the flow rate on their troughs. Hopefully we’ll learn whether raw human nature is altruistic or aggressive when faced with environmental stress and resource scarcity.”

He casts his eyes to the floor and manages to say, “we want to know whether the propensity for violence is innate or learned. I have a feeling that.... Well I believe… we will catch a glimpse into the unadulterated human instincts of grief and….”

His dying grin is gone now, reanimated as a frown. He swallows and finishes his thought: “… and of guilt.”

***

A/N:

Forgive my shitty concept sketch, it’s part of a deliberate effort on my part to contradict the proliferation of ai images in online story telling.

I’d rather see sloppy drawings than ai “art”.

That image was my third attempt, and my first sketches are even shittier.

Proof:

And since you suffered through my drawing, some music to make it up to you: