They’re lying, I know they are, they have to be…I know what you’re thinking, I’m just another delusional, paranoid or anxty kid writing drivel, but I tell you it was real. The rain burned like acid, though my clothes, through my skin, melting it to pieces as I walked home from school.

No one was there, like they all knew what would happen but me, me walking home in the rain that burned so bad that the fabric of my umbrella was gone in instants.

And before I knew it I was clothingless, still walking, until some poor bastard in his SUV picked me up and took me to the hospital. That’s where they told me it was all a dream…just one fucked up dream…but I know it’s not…it can’t be…the umbrella handle and shaft with it’s spokes that once held the fabric above my head is still in my hand. Even a team of surgeons couldn’t get rid of my death grip on it. And that scar, the five pointed star, it’s still there from that guy who ran up to me right before it happened…bastard was going on about the end of the world…guess it was…even if no one remembers, but I do, they’re lying, it happened, we’re done for.

Don’t know if anyone will ever see this, ever read this, but I know that no one will believe me if I ever get it to anyone else, anyone outside this mess. Yesterday I was just a typical fourteen year old kid, today I’m a fucking conspiracy theorist that cracked, at least that’s what the clipboard by my bed claims. I know I didn’t crack, though, I know I didn’t hit my damned head on any bar on the bus home. It’s real, I know it, I don’t know how they fixed me, how they changed me back, but it’s real…the world is ending…that idiot was right…I can’t believe I’m going to be alive for the end of the world…

Shit, I’m not going to be alive for it, I was alive for it, the world ended, there was no one there…no one…just me, and that damned guy in the SUV…wonder if they tried to tell him otherwise too..hope he didn’t believe them…unless he’s one of them…doesn’t matter, he’s not around anyway. They didn’t say a thing about him, and neither did I; I figure if he’s still out there I’m not going to give him away, don’t want him to be a prisoner like I am here in this so-called ‘hospital.’

It’s no hospital, I know that now, it’s a brainwashing clinic, people are here for ‘cancer treatments’ and ‘surgery’ and the like, but they’re just testing them, I know it…the guy in the next bed, they took him away, to ‘surgery’ and he didn’t come back…they claimed the surgery went badly…yeah, I’ll bet it did. The experimental shit probably didn’t agree with his system…wonder what they did to me besides getting rid of the burns…I wonder…

I’ve been talking to this girl on the other side of me, I think she almost believes me, but she’s too far gone to believe me fully. I know this, but I can change that, I can work on her, I know she’ll remember soon, I know it…it has to work…I can’t keep this information to myself, can’t be the only one to know the truth…

She’s in from a ‘car accident.’ Two broken legs, spine surgery, the doctors say she’ll walk again but it’ll be a long road to ‘recovery.’ They must have done all kinds of experiments on her to leave her like that, not to mention their mind altering techniques worked on her…but I can see the doubt in her eyes, she’s still got something of what was before in her head, I know it…if only I knew why their techniques didn’t work on me..if only…

They say my parents want to see me, I don’t believe them, everyone’s dead, and if they aren’t, they’ve been brainwashed, I know it. They keep trying to take my umbrella from me, but I won’t let them. The girl next to me says it looks like a metal pipe, complete with the bolts that once held it to the bus wall, but she doesn’t know why I’d be holding a pipe, or how I’d get it off the wall…but it’s there, staring at her in the face.

They keep trying to take it from me, but I won’t let them, won’t ever let them.

I think they’re catching onto her, I think they know she’s doubting them. They took her in for more ‘surgery,’ I’m worried, I don’t want her to go like the rest, to spend eternity in one of those white rooms gibbering nonsense for the rest of her life; that’s no life, none at all.

Maybe that’s what they did to me, maybe it was something else that happened and the acid is fake…maybe something else happened…don’t know, can’t remember… but I know this reality is false, I have to break free, have to find out what happened…everyone’s leaving and coming back different…

They took her to surgery, and she didn’t come back. They told me they moved her to another room for her own safety, from me and my delusions, but I can’t find evidence of her in the other rooms. Maybe they have her locked somewhere where I can’t find…they know how determined I am…

My ‘parents’ saw me today, mom cried like she does, dad just stood there as always. Mom tried to get me to her side, tried to convince me that this reality is real, the truth, but they’ve either been replaced or been swiped, doesn’t matter, they think this is real, so they’re not themselves anyway. Don’t know how it could be them, what with the acid, but maybe I wasn’t the only one saved and changed…I don’t know…maybe everyone here is like that…wish I knew the truth, but this ‘hospital’ is so secure I can’t find a break, can’t find a leak, nothing, just more ‘evidence’ that this reality is real.

The person who is supposed to be my best friend came and saw me today, he didn’t talk about the lies or the truth, just stuff from the past, but I know he was thinking it. I knew he thought I was delusional, had suffered a blow and was now insane…I could see it in his eyes, but he was always the type to pretend like things were fine, even when things went to shit before the rain…

Other ‘friends’ have seen me, but they acted worse than he did, and I know none of them would believe me if I told them the truth. They say they’re going to move me next week, I have to find evidence of the truth…have to find evidence…but it’s so hard…

It took me a while, but I found it, and just in time, too. They’re moving me to a higher security facility tomorrow, a ‘mental health clinic’ so they can ‘reintroduce me to society.’ Right…but at least I found her room number, if nothing else…so I snuck up there when no one was looking.

She was drugged up and wasn’t looking so good; she could barely keep her eyes open let alone talk, so I just sat with her for a while, but whatever they did seemed to have broken whatever mind control had worked on her. She went on about the rain in detail I couldn’t remember, went on about the burning and the people screaming and running, and the melting and…and she knew more than I did, could remember more than I could…the bastards…they took away my memories and left her thinking it was all happening right there, right then…

“It’s real, it happened, the rain’s stopped.” I whispered in her ear, hoping, praying that would get her out of it…it didn’t…she just kept gibbering on…so I told her my story, and she stopped long enough to listen, then kept on, more lucid than before, but still very much out of it. I didn’t have much time, they’d be here soon, they’d find me soon, cart me off, and ‘reintroduce me’ like I didn’t want them to.

“It’s not real, this isn’t real.” I told her, but she didn’t hear me, didn’t register me. I kept trying, but they found me at dawn and carted me away…

They won’t let me out of the room, they keep trying to make me take pills, but I know that it’s just another way to control and manipulate me. I know they want to erase the memories…they say it won’t, it will just suppress some of the feelings, some of the obsession, but it’s what keeps me going, keeps me alive, keeps me from agreeing to it…

No one here is sane, I know this. I’m the only one here who knows the truth and sees it, everyone else has had their minds hacked into one too many times for it to be truth, for anything to be truth.

Each person here lives in their own fantasy here, and it’s starting to make me think that the truth is just another fiction…makes me want to give into their reality…but no, I can’t, I know the truth, and it has to be known! Now if only I could remember the full truth of what happened. I can just remember snatches, stuff that doesn’t make cohesive sense…people…no people…rain…melted clothing…whole clothing…they’ve messed with my brain too much, and her words let more memories back into my head…

I keep dreaming about what happened…maybe if I pretended like it’s all okay they’ll let me out, and I could find out what happened…what really happened…and why…and maybe find her again…the only person who believes me..

I’ve been pretending for a week now, and they don’t buy it, but I know that if I keep pretending they’ll be convinced soon, and they’ll let me go. I don’t think they’ll let me until I take the pills, though…they’re worried I’ll stop being lucid if they just let me go, let me be…but I already am lucid…

My parents visited me today…they don’t like the place, I know that, but I don’t either. I tried to act like I was before, and I managed to convince them that I’ve conceded to their reality, and they were happy. Mom smiled, dad smiled, they left happy, and left me dead inside. Does no one remember? Does no one see? Does no one understand? Maybe everyone was brainwashed, even the people here, the doctors and nurses…but no..they’re the ones doing the ‘surgery!’

They let me have a computer today to see what I’d do, so I surfed the news, looked at the fake baseball scores and the fake local and national news. I checked my e-mail only to find it had been deleted, and looked for information…but in ways they’d never suspect, never see that I was searching for the truth…and they bought it…especially since I couldn’t find out anything anyway…

They enrolled me in classes to help me survive in the ‘real’ world, and I’m seeing a ‘psychiatrist’ who is hard to deceive. I thought he saw through me the other day, but they haven’t acted any differently towards me, and they keep letting me have more and more privileges…here’s hoping they let me go soon so I can see this world they’ve set up for us to live the rest of our brainwashed lives in.

It took two months since I started pretending, but they’re finally convinced; I leave tomorrow! But they’ve told me that it’s been four years….four years since the acid rain, and that I’m eighteen and have to live on my own now, but mom said I could stay with her and dad until I got money together and a job and things.

I started my search the day after my release, told them I was looking for a job and went to find the girl who’s name I had never known…Janice….that was the name the nurses used…it took a while…weeks…but I think I’ve finally found her…

She hasn’t been locked up, hasn’t been put in the padded cells to gibber out the rest of her life. I think they perfected their brainwashing skills, for she doesn’t seem to remember anything, but at least she doesn’t seem to disbelieve my story, and doesn’t seem to think I’m insane or that my brain chemistry has been changed or something.

They had ‘fixed her spine’ before, but when I saw her she was in a wheelchair. She had fallen down, and this wasn’t the first time her legs were broken since before, and it worries her. She doesn’t understand why they’d keep breaking…but I know it’s just an excuse to get her back into the hospital, just an excuse to keep trying new procedures out on her… But her brain seems the same as it was before…and she hasn’t told anyone about what I’ve told her, which is a good sign that she doesn’t think me insane.

Maybe her injury was from the acid, and she’s agreed it’s a possibility, but she doesn’t seem fully convinced, of anything, really, of reality, of this false reality, anything, but like me has found that pretending everything’s okay is better than voicing doubts.

She said she’d help me find a job so as to keep up the lie that everything’s okay. She thinks that her work is hiring more people; she’s an accountant, and I’ve always been good at numbers. She said she would talk to her boss later…she also said that she needed a roommate soon, for hers was finding the constant injuries to be too much to deal with, and was moving out at the end of the month. She is also letting me use her internet access, but I have to be really careful, for I don’t know if they’re paying attention to her like I know they are to me. Don’t want them to think, to suspect, that I’m not ‘fixed.’

Her work didn’t hire me, but the local supermarket did. I found my parents a bit too much to deal with, for pretending to be ‘alright’ all the time was a bit too much, and they were both treating me like I would break…which I never broke to begin with, and I certainly wasn’t going to go mad on them yet. I had too much to do to go nuts right now

I moved in with Janice Walters a few weeks ago. I’ve told her everything I remembered about the past, about the rain, and what she told me about it before. She says she doesn’t remember telling me any of that, or anything, a fact she finds rather disturbing. I think she’s really starting to believe me now, especially since every time she goes in for x-rays lately they keep telling her that it’s not fixed yet, even though it’s been a month now, and they aren’t even worried.

Now she really thinks something’s up; two months and they still aren’t worried, and no one else seems to be, either. Her work has started to act and treat her as if this is going to be a very long term, maybe even permanent, thing, and she’s concerned; she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her days in a wheelchair, and I don’t blame her. It’s all part of the conspiracy, and even if it wasn’t, life in a wheelchair isn’t pleasant in general, and while she’s getting more and more used to it, she says she’s really starting to miss walking up stairs.

She had another appointment today, they still act like everything’s fine, but at her insistence did tests anyway, and ‘found out’ that her bones don’t heal right…forgot what the name they gave it was…but they nonchalantly told her that they didn’t expect it to ever heal right. I don’t believe them, and I think I’ve come up with a plan to test it out.

I’ve found a man in the area who was released from the ‘mental hospital’ about the same time as me, a man who lives in a world of delusions and conspiracies, and who agreed that the ‘hospital’ was lying about her injuries being permanent. We’re going over tonight to get her checked out.

Hah! I knew it! They were lying, she is fixed, more than fixed, there was never anything wrong to begin with; they inserted a chip to make it seem like it so they could control her. He removed it, and her casts, with ease, and she can walk just fine. He tells me that we have to go into hiding now, for everyone will know that we figured out the lie if she continues to walk around like this, and he says he knows just the place where we can go…go and be safe…but I told him that we had to find out the truth. He just smiled, pushed a button on the wall, and sent us through it, saying simply; “welcome to the conspiracy.”

I knew I was in the right place when they started to take a very big interest in my umbrella, the only thing that has survived the control that they’ve seen thus far.