[TheRaisin]

Lyra

Ian burst back into the cafeteria. His face was a mask of terror, and there was a wild panic in his eyes like that of an animal being hunted. I leaped out of my seat.
"What happened? What did-- are you bleeding?"
Ian sat on the uncomfortable bench. Gradually his frantic panting subsided.
"I just-- I... This place is just getting to me, is all."
Gee, that explains it, I thought.
"Uh-huh. So why is your neck bleeding?"
He shuddered, and an ill look washed over his face.
"I'd really rather not talk about it."
I said nothing, but gave him a steely look.
He sighed. "She cut me. With her fingernail. I just froze. I just couldn't move." He shuddered again, and his pale face took on a greenish tinge. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
"That's because you haven't had any solid food in three months." I slid a bowl of the porridge-like stuff towards him.
"Thanks," he said. "But I'm not really hungry."
I could tell something more was bothering him.
"Ian, what's the problem? You're not telling me everything."
"It's just this place," he said, scanning the sterile room with a look of disgust. "And that... thing out there."
Suddenly the look of desperation and fear returned.
"Lyra... she's going to kill us."
I scoffed. "What reason would she have for that?"
"She doesn't need one. She's... empty. She has no remorse or feelings. If she wanted to, she could just press a button right now and fry our brains.."
"That's insane," I said.
He looked hurt and angry.
"Was I insane not to trust her? Was I insane when I said she was lying about why we're here?"
I couldn't argue with that. He had certainly been perceptive about Ms. Fletcher's treachery, and the underlying malignancy of this place. He had seen the cameras in the cafeteria, and evaded them well. It seemed like he could sense things before I could.
"Okay, you don't believe me? Just try this. Just try to see for yourself what's as plain as day to me, and then tell me I'm insane."
I scowled at him. "Fine, what do I do?"
"First, close your eyes."
"How am I supposed to see something with my eyes closed?"
He sighed. Obviously I was wearing him out. "It's a metaphor! Just do it!"
"Okay."
I closed my eyes.
"Now what?"
He took a deep breath. "Now, let your mind drift. Tune everything out. Tune out all your senses. Empty your mind of all thoughts."
I tried to do as he said. Eventually I became aware only of my own mind. The experience was odd, but I wasn't thinking about that.
"Good. Now that you've blocked everything out, tune yourself in. Don't use your senses, use your own mind. Extend yourself outside your own body, and let everything in."
Slowly, I felt myself drift. Eventually, I realized in some subconscious part of my mind that I was completely out of my own body. For a moment, everything was still. I waited. And finally, it struck me like a freight train.
I could sense everything around me. I was intensely aware of the tiny camera in the corner, and I could feel the electrical current running through it. I had a feeling that if I had focused long enough, I could have traced it back to the room where the cameras were monitored.
So that's how he did it.
But there was no time to focus on that. I could sense the small fly about to land in the porridgey stuff on the table in front of me. I could feel the countless vibrations of countless machines humming in the floor and ceiling and walls. I could detect Ian's satisfaction at knowing I could detect his satisfaction. Each piece of information was like a sharp point of light. All taken together, they filled my mind like a sky full of stars, and for a moment I got just the slightest hint of an idea of a glimpse of what it would mean to be truly omnipresent. But even as I rejoiced at this discovery, a deeper undertone began to emerge. Some intangible energy lay beneath the atoms that made up the physical representation of this building, and as I turned my attention toward it, I became horrified at what it was.
Death. Fear. Suffering. I could feel it all around me. Every particle of matter in the material that created this building was charged, it seemed, with human emotion. I could feel a thousand deaths, a thousand cries, a thousand different instances of incredible pain played over and over again for all eternity. It was interwoven with the very fabric of the place. Every piece of it screamed at me in a cacophony of pain, until it felt as if my mind would snap. At the last moment, just when I thought I would lose my mind, something jolted me back into my body: a human voice, too loud to ignore, screaming a single word.
"NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"

I opened my eyes. I was on my back, looking up at Ian. My eyes stung with tears. The back of my head stung and ached horribly.
"I'm sorry!", he said, his voice tense and worried. "I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have let you do that! You weren't ready!"
I slowly sat up, rubbing my head. I saw I was on the floor, several feet from the bench I had been on.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Exactly what I said. You moved outside your own body. You opened up your mind to everything. But there's more out there than one mind can take. I should have told you how to tune things out. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
"It's okay," I lied. "I'm fine. I got jolted back to my body just in time. But... who was that screaming?"
"Lyra... that was you."
----------------------------------------------
Ian

Her lips quivered slightly, then she gave in completely. She collapsed against me, sobbing.
"It-- it was-- horrible!"
"I know. I know."
"What-- what was it?!"
"It doesn't matter. Don't think about it."
She pulled back so her face was level with mine. She looked me directly in the eyes.
"What was it, Ian?"
I tried to think of how to describe what it was I felt when I meditated the way Lyra just had. I could come up with only one word.
"Ghosts. The remnant energy of the human spirit, imprinted on matter. It only happens when something so dramatic happens to a person that their thoughts and feelings kind of... stick to the matter around them."
"What could be that horrible? And affect that many people?"
"I really don't know, Lyra. I don't know exactly what has happened in this building, and I'm not sure I want to know, but I know what it's caused. Pain, fear, death. And in such large numbers for so long that it's left this place diseased. Look around at the size of this room. Look at the hundreds of doors. We're not the only two they experimented on, Lyra. We're just the two that survived. And..."
"What is it?" she asked. "Don't try to hide it: you know I'll get you to tell me."
"It's too hard to think about," I said.
"Tell me!"
I sighed, knowing she could wheedle it out of me eventually. "Ms. Fletcher said there are other installations like this. She said they were building an army."
Lyra looked dizzy.
"This is too much..."
"Don't think about it now," I said, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face.
"Not just that," she said. "The... ghosts. It was like--"
"I know. I could feel it too."
She looked confused.
"I think people send out thoughts and feelings all the time, not just the ones that people percieve as ghosts. And I think whatever they did to our brains lets us percieve those, at least the stronger ones. And I have to say, that was pretty strong."
"So you were feeling what I felt."
"Basically."
"And... is that how it feels to you too?" she asked tentatively.
"No. When I do it... it's a thousand times worse."
I grabbed the edge of the table and levered myself up. I offered a hand to Lyra, which she gratefully took. I hauled her up off the cold tile floor.
"Are you okay now?" I asked.
"Yeah. Thanks."
"You were right about eating. We should both probably have something in our stomachs other than liquid nutrients."
"Okay, but you'd better get another bowl," she said, pointing to the fly drowning in the porridge.
I smiled, and headed to the counter where a large cauldron of the stuff still steamed.