u/SamDenner

Larry yearned for more.

For the last two weeks, Larry had checked the mailbox every day. Twice. Once when he went to the gym, and once more when he got back. He was waiting to be hyped.

HYP3 was some promising compound that was pushed in the dephts of bodybuilding forums. Elusive, but well respected.

People rarely discussed it. Which isn't normal for the internet at large. But especially true in online fitness, with its endless discussions over the best diet protocols, training splits, and supplementations. Everyone wants to brag and show off.

But Hype was a phantom. A ghost that was hard to get a hold of. There were no official dealers, no bold claims. No “huge gains”, no “burns fat”, no “anabolic this or that”. Hype simply appeared on random accounts, never as an official sponsor or advertisement. Appearing often only in a single frame. Hard to see, easy to miss. Its users made, without fail, one of the most impressive body transformations and then just dipped. Their frozen feeds were petrified monuments to their incredible achievements. Being hyped was like being elevated by God. A guaranteed entry into the Hall of Fame. Before everyone falls off the merry-go-round.

Larry knew from his enduring observation of the fitness space that Hype seemed to make the rounds again. By pure chance Larry saw the telltale signs in one of his followers called Fit4Fabi and DMed him, if he knew how Larry could get his hands on it.

“Sure, give me your address, and I’ll send you some. I’ll work something out for you. ;-)”

Larry sent his address without hesitation and waited for a reply that never came. He didn’t know how often he had read the single message Fit4Fabi sent him. 

He’d gone dark after that.

One day, HYP3 finally arrived.

He looked at the maroon liquid in the syringe. 

No ingredients, no dosage, no warning labels. 

Inject and forget was written on it in a shaky handwriting*.* 

Doubts started to creep in. First, giving a complete stranger his address and now he was on the cusp of injecting something off the internet. 

He had done so before.

The graphs on his white board, showing his strength, weight, and bodyfat percentage, hadn't moved in the last 2 months. 

A sigh escaped him.

The needle found its way through his skin into the underlying tissue beneath easily enough.

A push, and there was no going back.

A tingling swept across his skin. His body drank the fluid like an alcoholic. 

The world became brighter, his ears clicked, his heart hastened.

The weights Larry kept at home were calling to him.

As soon as he touched them, his muscles took over. Guiding him through exercises on their own. His mind took a backseat and let the body do the work.

Soon, the meager weights weren’t enough, and his body improvised. Looking for heavier and heavier objects in his flat. Repetitions multiplied to keep up with the progress.

Larry’s body craved exercise.

After each superset of his full body workout, it could be persuaded by Larry to reluctantly drink straight from the faucet and take selfies in the mirror.

In his haze, Larry was vaguely aware that he shouldn’t post everything at once, so he scheduled uploads. Each selfie looked more impressive than the last.

Larry could feel the blood pumping in his muscles as they grew in size. He could see progress happening in real time! 

Mice were crawling under his skin. Muscles that refused to grow for months were sprouting like a meadow in spring. 

HYP3 was the best thing that could have happened to him.

Stubborn belly fat that dragged down his mirror image for ages evaporated in a day. After it was gone, his body was starved for fuel. Larry ate raw protein powder to compensate. 

Then the muscles took over again. Shoving his brain into the backseat.

Larry wanted to stop, but his muscles wouldn’t obey. Pushing him further and further into hypertrophy. Repetitions grew exponentially. His muscles were transcending the natural and supernatural limits; they bordered on the grotesque. 

Pain receptors all over his battered body screamed in agony. His body didn’t care, handing the pain off to an already overwhelmed brain. Larry whimpered like a beaten dog. 

At some of his refuel stops in the mirror, his hands grabbed his phone. His pictures were getting attention. Larry saw some messages from his followers asking about HYP3.

Larry wanted to cry for help, but his hands answered them: “Sure, give me your address, and I’ll send you some. I’ll work something out for you. ;-)”

The body pushed beyond the limits of the brain. Drowning it in agony and fatigue. 

Larry ceased existing.

But the muscles kept on training until it reached its absolute peak.

Then, and only then, did it stop.

It admired itself in the mirror before it took one final selfie. Striking a pose to match the Gods.

Perfection.

The final muscle to be trained was the tongue.

It pressed against the roof of his mouth, increasing strength from the isometric hold, until it broke through the bones. 

The vacant brain was pushed against the inside of the skull. 

Then the tongue started to move in a circle, accelerating like a hammer tosser.

The head vibrated like a stand up mixer. 

Squishing, squeezing, and blending the sludge of blood, bones, and brains. 

The heart kept adding blood into the mix. Diluting it, so sludge became puree, became fluid. 

It continued until everything inside had become a uniform maroon liquid. 

Its body leaned over the sink and tilted its head to the side.

Its hands grabbed a syringe and inserted it into the ear canal. It pierced through the eardrum and extracted the liquid. Again, and again, until there was nothing left.

Finally, its hands scribbled something on the syringes.

Inject and forget.

ABSTRACT

I used to work in a sleep lab, and we found something that is kept under lock and key in order to prevent mass hysteria and panic. Even if you do not believe me, I beg you. Please do not sleep without any protective cover: pajamas and/or a blanket. You cannot eliminate the risk completely, but by reducing the exposed surface area of your skin you can mitigate the risk.

We are always perceiving the world, and when we sleep the firewall is down.

FINDINGS

Before we were shut down, we studied the connection between sleep habits and psychological abnormalities. Our theory, that we originally hoped to prove, was that there is a correlation between people who sleep without a blanket and a variety of psychological deviations. We didn’t expect to find causation^(1). 

>^(1) We had a stroke of luck because one intern forgot to turn off a disconnected theta waves antenna set during one of his shifts. Which led us into a breakthrough, because we picked up signals that we should not have received. Our working theory, that was later confirmed, was that we picked up the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, which is all around us and can be in sync with theta brainwaves. Also, there was Amplitude Modulation like in your AM radios. Something out there seems to be communicating. And we are eavesdropping.

We picked up the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, and although it is normally too weak, we could pick it up with our instruments via the resonance catastrophe^(2). Our brain works with neural oscillations, depending on what we’re doing: as alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and theta oscillations. We suspect that there can be an interference between the CMB and the theta waves, those that are active when we are bored, meditating or sleeping.

>^(2) A phenomenon that occurs when a natural frequency (in this case the theta waves) matches the frequency of an external force (CMB) which then amplifies in strength. Think of someone pushing someone with exactly the right time on a swing leads to higher swings even when the exerted force is identical. There is also the famous case of Tacoma Narros Bridge collapsing, or similar cases when soldiers were marching other bridges in unison. Basically, it enhances the power of the signal.

The skin is our largest organ and is one of the organs that we use to perceive the world. We all know the sensation of touch, temperature, pain and proprioception. Our skin is like an antenna that helps us receive the world. But it is way more sensitive and capable than we give it credit for: We know the feeling of being watched. A gaze that bores into your skin and gives you an itchy feeling.

We can receive more than we thought possible, and that applies not only to our instruments, but also our skin^(3). But sometimes we cannot decipher it, and/or it gets immediately filtered out by our consciousness. Unless we sleep.

>^(3) The CMB permeates us and our skin can be receptive to transmission via amplitude modulation. We hold the belief that not all transmissions are malignant, as practices like meditation or deep focus have beneficial results. However, a lack of consciousness opens the gate to cosmic influences. Similar phenomena, like the “Call of the Void” as a meditative imperative or having the urge to swerve into oncoming traffic because we are bored, can be explained through CMB synchronizations. There are other, similar transmissions that nibble at the corner of our consciousness.

Every time the consciousness retreats from the skin the possibility of receiving a transmission grows exponentially. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sleep, meditation, deep focus or boredom. Exposed skin is searching for stimulus, and this stimulus can come from the CMB if no other sources are present. When we are conscious our brain can filter out most negative transmissions, however while we sleep we are defenseless.

Tactile engagement, such as even the touch of your clothes, disrupts the dermal resonance. It blocks the outside signal. The safety we feel underneath a blanket is not just the cozy feeling, but also a survival mechanism that shields us from the outside world. It’s ingrained in our behavior, we wrap newborn not only because it contains their body temperature, but also to shield them from cosmic radiation.

CONTEXT

Our study was pretty simple. We monitored the brain activity of people while they slept with and without blankets, we found that all people had irregular bursts of activity during sleep. To use a crude simile: It was like someone was hooking parts of their brain up to a car battery. Sometimes these bursts led to profound changes in the subject, virtually overnight^(4).

>^(4) One time a burst was recorded the subject, who has no background in Christianity, started to believe the rapture was imminent. He became fixated on a date and after that date had passed, when he woke up and realized it was a post rapture date, died on the spot. He was still connected to the monitoring machines and all of his electric signals in the brain ceased at once.  Efforts were made to resuscitate him, but to no avail.

Even stranger, some bursts occurred at the same time in multiple subjects, which was unexpected. Additionally, when those bursts happened at the same time, the gathered data looked exactly the same and the same effects could be seen in multiple subjects^(5). We could see the same changes in behaviour in affected subjects. Naked sleepers had a tendency to have more of those bursts than covered sleepers.

>^(5) In one bizarre event, those who received the CMB transmission started to speak in a strange language. We brought on linguists, who could not place it. Even more strangely, affected subjects showed tendencies to build towers out of various items. They were contained, after more and more subjects spoke this language.

During the course of the study we noticed that sometimes “naked sleepers” and people with blankets could get those irregular bursts at the same time, but naked sleepers did get those synchronous peaks in brain activity about 5-6 times as often^(6).

>^(6) After we calculated in several factors we concluded that more exposed skin (that means, not occupied with other functions) means a higher probability of having those bursts of brain activity. But it was all so sporadic that we could not make any conclusions that would hold up during peer review.

Two subjects in adjacent rooms had one of those simultaneous bursts and after that they both dropped the concept of object permanence. They were completely normal in a one on one conversation, but for them, whenever something left their field of vision it ceased to exist. We referred to them as OP-1 and OP-2^(7).

>^(7) OP-1 was a 34-year-old architect. He’d stare at objects, then panic when they were moved out of sight. Not because he forgot them, because he believed they were gone. Erased.
He couldn’t draw anymore. Sometimes he drew something blind while still focusing on the object he was drawing. Of course, he wouldn’t realize his painting and the object he had been drawing are the same as before. He called them “blinks” and said they only existed when he looked at them. He stopped trusting people too. Said faces “vanish too fast to be real.” He wasn’t angry. Just hollow.
Touch helped. If he kept a hand on something, he believed it stayed. But the moment he let go, it was like it had never existed.

>OP-2 was 27, more emotionally expressive. She clung to caregivers, refusing to let them leave her line of sight. Called them “my besties.” If someone stepped out, she’d cry like they’d died. When they returned, she’d flinch, whisper “you came back from the blank.”
She made talismans out of string, little objects she kept in view to “hold the memory” of things she couldn’t see. When those talismans were out of sight, she would not recognize them as the same talismans she’d seen before. However, a continuing fondness could be seen.

Even after we did some tests, object permanence permanently was gone. We were baffled. It’s like the burst wiped the concept off their minds. Both were entered into a closed asylum for further tests and treatment.

In one peculiar incident I witnessed firsthand, we recorded bursts in multiple subjects along a straight line throughout the building. This was especially troubling as we were experimenting with a device that allowed us to attract these cosmic transmission. We could see a wave of synchronisations take place at roughly 3:33am and hitting different subjects and the device along its path. The subjects immediately woke up and were under the delusion that the universe was created right then at this instant at exactly 3:33am^(8).

>^(8) After they woke, they received immediate medical care and counseling. During which they expressed a relief of finally being alive, comparable to waking from a stasis. In their minds, everything was just put in this world by an outside creator. When asked about their previous memories, all of them replied with similar answers akin to those memories were programmed into them. There were no cases of amnesia, everyone remembered events from their past, when quizzed about them. Some complained that the creator didn’t bless them with better “pre-lifes” (memories). Despite extensive psychological counselling they did not relent in their delusion.

We were shut down shortly after.

SUMMARY

We are confident that these recorded bursts of irregular brain activity are caused by synchronization with the CMB. The effects vary between different signals. We are of the opinion that those transmissions are not occurring naturally, but are manufactured by an outside influence. The risk can only be mitigated by reducing the surface of the area that is exposed during theta wave inducing activities.

Loose skin lets signals in.