The Blackout Experiment

Prologue: The Ad

"EASY $5,000 FOR A 48-HOUR STUDY"

The Craigslist ad promised cash for participation in a "sensory deprivation experiment." No phones. No light. Just a room, five strangers, and a locked door.

I should’ve known it was too good to be true.

But with rent due and my bank account bleeding red, I clicked Reply before reading the fine print:

"Subjects may experience...unusual psychological effects."

Chapter 1: The Chamber

The facility was colder than I expected—a concrete bunker buried in the woods outside town. Dr. Voss, a gaunt man in a lab coat, ushered us inside.

"Remember the rules," he said, locking the steel door behind us. "No light. No contact with the outside. And most importantly..." His smile glinted in the dim hallway.

"...no sleeping."

The chamber was pitch black. No windows. No clocks. Just five cots, a bucket for waste, and a speaker in the ceiling piping in white noise.

That’s when I met the others:

Tyler, a cocky med student who wouldn’t stop cracking jokes

Nina, a twitchy woman clutching a rosary

Daniel, an ex-soldier with haunted eyes

Priya, a quiet biologist taking notes

The door sealed with a hiss.

And the darkness swallowed us whole.

Chapter 2: The First Night

Hour 6: Tyler started hearing whispers.

"It’s just auditory hallucinations," Priya said, her voice calm. "The brain fills silence with noise."

Hour 12: Nina screamed that something licked her hand. We huddled together, groping in the dark until Daniel barked at us to "get a grip."

Hour 18: The speaker’s white noise changed.

A new sound underneath—shallow, wet breathing.

Not through the speaker.

Inside the room with us.

Chapter 3: The Tapping

Hour 24: Daniel lost it.

"They’re in the walls!" he roared, slamming his fists against the concrete. "Tapping in Morse code! Can’t you fucking hear it?"

Tap-tap-tap.

Tap.

Tap-tap.

Priya tried to calm him, but he threw her off. In the chaos, my hand brushed something wet and warm on the floor.

Then the lights flickered on for one terrifying second.

Just long enough to see:

Daniel’s fingernails torn off from scratching the walls

Tyler curled in a corner, rocking and humming

Nina’s rosary wrapped so tight around her wrist it drew blood

And in the far corner—

—a sixth cot.

Occupied.

The darkness swallowed us again.

Chapter 4: The Sleepers

Hour 36: We stopped pretending we were alone.

The breathing had multiplied. Soft giggles echoed from corners that shouldn’t exist. Something kept sniffing at my hair when I sat still too long.

"It’s not hallucinations," Priya whispered. "They’re testing how we react to them. Like canaries in a coal mine."

Hour 42: Tyler started screaming.

"THEY’RE DREAMING!" he shrieked. "WHEN YOU SLEEP, YOU LET THEM IN!"

That’s when I realized—Nina hadn’t made a sound in hours.

I reached for her.

Her skin was cold.

And moving.

Beneath her flesh, something squirmed like eels under pond ice.

Epilogue: The Survivors

They found me outside at dawn, naked and babbling, my fingers chewed to stubs.

Priya emerged an hour later, catatonic.

Daniel and Tyler? The cops found their clothes folded neatly inside.

As for Nina...

Sometimes at night, I hear tapping on my bedroom window.

Tap-tap-tap.

Tap.

Tap-tap.

Just like she used to knock.

And from the darkness beyond the glass, something whispers:

"You shouldn’t have left us to dream alone."