Nightmares

(The following account is taken from FBI unsolved case #3964. It is a series of emails describing what happened concerning the incident at Blackgate Asylum. It is the only account of the incident found, yet none of what is stated in this report has been proven. The viewer is advised to read with discretion.)

To: [REDACTED]
From: JosiahWarren@████.com
September 8 ,2013
6:39 PM

Hello, Aaron. It's certainly been a long time, hasn't it? I just thought I'd greet my old coworker again and see how you've been doing. How's work been? I don't know what they told you about my retirement, so I'll fill you in now. I wasn't fired like you may think after the incident. I just decided I was just getting too old for this kind of psychological research, and the incident proved that theory. But as you know, I already got my license before coming to work with you. So after a few months I got hired as one of the head doctors at [REDACTED] Medical Center, basically a mental health asylum. I mean, we all know that's what they wanted to call it. But yeah, I'm working with patients with various mental illnesses and its actually been a very interesting job. Things haven't been very busy here, so I guess that's why I'm emailing you. By the way, how are Mandy and the kids? And how've you been, old friend?

From: [REDACTED]
To: JosiahWarren@████.com
September 9, 2013
8:37 AM

Well, Josiah. Honestly I never thought I'd hear from YOU again. All of us here thought you got kicked out or killed after what happened. I'm glad that you're alright, old friend. I was worried about you.

Work here has been the same, you know how it is. Its hard and taxing, and sometimes you wonder if you're even getting anything done in the first place.
Anyways, I'm glad to know you're enjoying yourself, old man. Mandy and the kids are doing fine. My oldest just turned 14 a week ago, in fact.

To: [REDACTED]
From: JosiahWarren@████.com
September 29, 2013,
3:17 PM

My gosh, Aaron. I haven't gotten any better at answering things on time, as you can see. I'm sorry for my late reply, but things at the hospital have been really busy. That and I've got a new patient. I won't reveal his actual name, so I'll refer to him as Lucas. He apparently has been depressed and suicidal, plus he says that he can hear voices in his head. Its probably just stress and his own problems that are making him imagine things, but apparently his mom decided to take him to me. So he'll be staying here a few weeks until everything can get sorted out. And Aaron, I need your help on this one. He gave consent for me to consult with my colleagues, so you don't have to worry about that. And I know that this server is secure. And I know you're still working for the Foundation, but you were always good at judging people. Plus you have children, and you're good with younger individuals… What do you say?

From: [REDACTED]
To: JosiahWarren@████.com
September 29, 2013
3:29 PM

Of course! You were always a mentor to me, and I'll do anything I can. As long as it doesn't go against regulations, that is. You know how hard they are on us about what we say to others.

To: [REDACTED]
From: JosiahWarren@████.com
October 2, 2013
7:46 PM

I've got some very strange news. You remember that patient I asked about, Lucas? Well, strangely enough I've spent the last two days talking with him and doing tests, and I haven't the faintest idea why he's here. His mental health honestly couldn't be any better. He shows signs of depression, but not in a level uncommon for his age. A lot of teenagers go through varying levels of depression at this stage in life, and he's showing the signs of it. But as far as I can tell right now, Lucas is very much sane. I'd like to have a word with his mother about why he's here, and perhaps in a week he'll be free to leave. However, he has mentioned some strange dreams occurring lately. I would like to question him further about those.

From: [REDACTED]
To: JosiahWarren@████.com
October 2, 2013
9:18 PM

That is peculiar… But I guess if he is depressed and maybe even suicidal like you said, perhaps his mother overreacted. But then why did she take him to you at an actual facility and not a private doctor? I guess I don't get it. And what kind of dreams do you mean?

To: [REDACTED]
From: JosiahWarren@████.com
October 4, 2013
12:03 PM

I finally asked Lucas about his dreams. And I don't mean asked, I mean demanded. He wouldn't answer me whenever I asked him for the past three days, and I had to threaten him with treatments that I would never dare perform. Thankfully the young man believed my bluff. I'm not proud of lying to my patient, Aaron. But I had no choice.

This is what he told me, directly from an audio recording:

"Every night for the past, umm… past week I've had the same dream. I'm sitting in a room that looks like one of those interview rooms that the cops use in detective shows. But everything was like, really bright and white. I could barely keep my eyes open it was so bright. And there was another figure there, in the room. He would always be right there in front of me. What's that? Oh, what did he look like..? Well umm… He was black. And I don't mean his race I mean he was BLACK. Everything about him was like, covered in shadow. A complete opposite of everything around him. He would always look at me with an eyeless face, but he never said anything. But I could hear him anyways, in my head I mean. I could hear his voice speaking in my mind. He'd say… He'd say that he would be able to give me my biggest desires. Grant my greatest dreams. No matter what they were he could give them to me if I'd let him. Then immediately after that I'd always wake up and it would be morning."

I'm concerned about this, Aaron. Firstly because of the fact that Lucas was afraid to tell me. Why would he be? There wasn't anything threatening or disturbing, or even anything personal in these dreams. I can't think of a single reason why he wouldn't tell me. Second of all, I can't understand what these dreams mean. Why do they keep occurring? Who does this "shadow man" represent? In all honesty Lucas is fine psychologically. These dreams should mean nothing, but yet… I don't know. There's just something that doesn't feel right. And I know that as a doctor of science I can't make my decisions off of feelings, but sometimes you need to trust your instincts. Right now I believe is one of those times. So I think I'll have Lucas stay here one more week, just to see if these dreams stop. I'm almost sure that they will. And if they don't… I'll come to that issue when it comes.

To: [REDACTED]
From: JosiahWarren@████.com
October 12, 2013
1:46 AM

Aaron, I really need you to answer me. I don't know if you didn't get the last email, or if the Foundation is locking down on communications but I really need help. The dreams have gotten much, much worse in the last few days. On the sixth, Lucas said they changed. He said they were nightmares. He described them as living through his darkest and worst fears. He looked sleep deprived and restless, even though our cameras showed he had slept for a good nine hours. And I could almost sense the desperation and terror he felt as he was talking with me. If this wasn't an individual crying out for help, I don't know what is. The problem is, I don't know what to do. I haven't seen anything like this before. I've talked with some colleagues of mine, and they don't have a clue either.

These nightmares have continued, and every day Lucas looks more and more fatigued. I'm desperate here, Aaron. He told me that the shadow figure appears, and says that he needs to just do something for the nightmares to go away. Lucas won't tell me what this something is, and I don't know if he even knows. Im wondering if this some dark, repressed urge that Lucas has that's finally surfacing. Maybe after years of repressing it. Or maybe not. I really have no idea. And you know the weirdest part about it? I looked at the security footage from Lucas's room. No matter how long he'd been sleeping, at exactly 3 AM he starts to thrash around, cry out in his sleep, and even sometimes starts to cry. I think that's when his nightmares start, and no matter what we do, we can't wake him up. Three AM, Aaron. I know we don't believe in that witching hour stuff but… I don't know. I need your help. Please, if you have any idea what's going on, or if anyone at the Foundation does… please answer me.

To: [REDACTED]
From: JosiahWarren@████.com
October 17, 2013
4:27 PM
(Unsent)

You probably won't respond to these, but I have no one else to talk to. See, this isn't just Lucas anymore. In the past four days, fifteen other patients have mentioned having dreams very similar to Lucas's first ones, about the shadow man. So there goes my repressed urge theory. I don't understand it. These fifteen patients are isolated from each other. They all have different doctors. There's no possible way that they could have found out about Lucas's dreams, so they most likely aren't faking it. Which brings me to the question, how? How are sixteen patients, all suffering from different conditions, all having the same dream? There is literally not a single scientific explanation I can think of or find. And Lucas is the weirdest one of them all. He hasn't gotten better, exactly. He just… Seems to have snapped. He just sits in his room. He doesn't move much, he doesn't talk. And he only occasionally starts laughing. I swear, this kid has either snapped psychologically or is being possessed or something. Honestly, that my smallest concern right now. I'm more worried about how his dreams have spread. I think this might be supernatural. And I know what you think about all that, as do I. But I can't find any other explanation. Just to be sure, I called up a local priest to come take a look at the asylum. As soon as the blizzard clears up, he'll drive up the mountain to make a visit to us.The only other thing that I can think of is if this is being caused by a being you people haven't found yet, but I don't think so. Is there anyone you can tell about this? Anyone I can contact or anyone that can be sent out?

To: [REDACTED]
From: JosiahWarren@████.com
October 21, 2013
8:59 PM
(Unsent)

Aaron, if you're getting these, I need your help. Desperately. Over 50 of our 300 patients have reported having these nightmares. This is a [expletive] dream pandemic! None of us doctors can do anything about it. We don't even know what it is. But these dreams, if I can call them that, they seem to have stages that occur the same in all subjects. It's like they first dream about the shadow figure, and then they have the nightmares. We've had one case of suicide this past week, because a patient said he "couldn't take the dreams anymore, and just wanted to sleep." He broke his own skull by [REDACTED]. The doctors couldn't even stop him. We can't do anything. We've informed officials, but the blizzard that's going on apparently has the roads blocked off. Pretty [expletive] perfect, right? Nine patients said that the shadow figure wants them to do something, and the nightmares will go away. Just like Lucas. When we ask them what they're gonna do, they just smile. They've been put under tighter security. That's all we can do. And for some reason, we can't get cell service anymore. A few of us tried to call other doctors, but all we get is a message saying we're out of service range. I'm not going to lie, Aaron. I'm terrified.

(The following is not an email, but seems to be a written draft of one, and it is included in this report due to the fact that it is addressed to Aaron as a final message. Itwas saved on a documents program on the same computer the emails were found on.)

October 25, I think. I'm not sure anymore

The phone lines are dead. The roads are blocked off. I think the internet is down. This is one heck of a blizzard, and it still isn't dying down. I don't know if even this email will go through, but I have to write down what's going on. Someone has to. On the 22nd, a patient lashed out at a security guard with an eating instrument. The guard died within ten minutes from blood loss. We asked the patient why he did what he did, and he said that the shadow man told him to. Said that if he did, the nightmares would go away. And almost immediately after that, one by one, patients started attacking each other. Between the time of 3 - 4 AM, 26 [expletive] inmates somehow got loose and were able to assault doctors, guards, aids, and even each other. Someone went to check in the security office, and they found our chief of security dead with a bullet to the brain. We found out he had talked to the head doctor about him starting to have these dreams at the same time the patients did. But no one told us. Nothing was done about it. I can only imagine that this "shadow man" told him to end it and the nightmares would go away. And because of that, the emergency lockdown of all cell doors weren't triggered until it was too late. Eighteen of us had died that night. No help could be called, no one to be notified. The blizzard was still raging outside, and the piles of snow made it next to impossible to open the front doors. We were trapped.
When we checked on the patients who had done the acts of violence, we found them dead. Dead in their sleep. How [expletive] ironic.

The 23rd was uneventful and we still had no way of communication. Lucas was moving around now, banging on the door and demanding to be let out. We couldn't let anyone out. We didn't know what this was, and Lucas seemed to have started it. But do you see the pattern? Everything starts at 3 AM. The devil's hour. The witching hour. I don't know what to think about it. There's no scientific proof for what happened, and I can only think that the supernatural was the cause of this.

At 3:07 AM on the 24th, the power lines went down, and it opened the extra security doors. We didn't worry, until a doctor's aid that we didn't know had been affected strangled a security guard, and took the cell keys off of his corpse. And he unlocked the cells, only minutes after the power went out. And somehow one of our patients got to the backup generator before we did, and he didn't leave much intact. So, we had no power, no lockdown, and it seemed like pain didn't bother the [expletive] bastards. Like, yeah, a few of the inmates we shot died. But if you only wounded them, they'd ignore the pain. They were so [expletive] focused on obeying their [string of expletives] dream man that they forgot about feeling pain. At this point I knew that this was not something natural. And it dawned on me who was causing it. The man who first had the dreams, the only man who hadn't gone insane from them, and the only man that ever baffled me. It had to be possession or… Or I don't know. They'll say I'm crazy. They'll say I was insane too. But I don't care.

Over one hundred, one [expletive] hundred, of our patients and inmates were going crazy. Those who weren't, were getting attacked. Attacked and killed. Instruments were being vandalized and used as weapons. I watched as a patient stabbed my friend and colleague, Amy, in the eyes with two surgical scalpels. Right in front of me. I used the gun a guard had given, and I blew his [expletive] brains out onto the wall behind him. Now that I think about it, I think I'm still in shock from that. I had to… I had to shoot one of my patients. One of the men I was pledged to protect and help. And I had to shoot him, Aaron. Do you know what that does to a person? I've killed before, you know I have. But this time it was someone that should have been able to save. And I couldn't…

I told the other doctors I needed to find Lucas. They laughed in my face. So I went off on my own, and found him. He was in his cell, right where we left him. And he was laughing. His laugh was a horrible, haunting sound. I asked him what he was doing, how he was doing it. He just laughed.

So I shook him, roughly. He laughed and spat in my face; I recoiled, and he answered me. "I live off of fear." He said. I know the sound of his voice from all of our interviews, and this was not it. This was deeper. Louder. "I live in dreams, and I can spread them. I can take control of some, like this frail vessel in that way. Or I can make others do my will, like your patients outside.” He looked at me then. Looked deep into my eyes and I was terrified. “Fear is a motivator. People do anything to be safe from it. So I show them their worst fears, but promise them to show them their greatest dreams. All they have to do is obey me, and their nightmares will become dreams. Lucas, here, just had to let me in. And at my hour, this hour, when I'm strongest, I can make their nightmares live on in their minds. Most would do anything to stop it. Even for a 'monster' like me. And then I kill them."

His smile was horrible. I could see a glint in his eye, like a hint of madness and murder. He laughed again, and I brought my weapon up to fire. At that point three patients had entered the room, and I had to use up my ammunition and my fists to stop them. It was horrible. The blood, the sounds of bones breaking and bodies falling. I know I'm definitely in shock still. I think that drove me a little bit insane myself. Maybe that's why I'm so calm all of a sudden. Then I fled, here. To my office. To write this.

I thought at first he was possessed, but now I see what a fool I've been. It's him, somehow. He came back to us. After twenty years he came back to haunt us. The sin of the past… I think he can't be stopped. I know I can't stop him. I went back later, and more patients surrounded him. I pray to whatever God is out there, that someone can stop him. I think I'm starting to go a little crazy in here. I think that the lack of water has ta

(End of file)