---
*System Log: New Simulation Initiated.*
*Subject: Trey O'Malley. Trauma Source: Auditory Exposure / Isolation Syndrome.*
*Simulation Type: Sensory Manipulation.*
*Warning: Sound Levels Approaching Maximum Tolerance.*
*Begin.*
---
Trey awoke strapped to a metal chair.
It was cold, bolted to a concrete floor. His wrists were bruised from the tight restraints. A thin spotlight beamed down on him from the ceiling, casting his shadow long and stretched across the floor.
The rest of the room was darkness.
Then came the first sound.
*Click.*
Soft. Barely noticeable.
Then again.
*Click. Click.*
Followed by a *tick-tick-tick*, like a clock buried under the floor.
Trey turned his head, eyes darting.
A loud *buzz* tore through the dark. Then a high-pitched squeal, like a dentist drill dragging across steel.
He clenched his teeth, jerking against the restraints. "Where am I?!"
A speaker on the ceiling crackled. A voice came through, robotic and distant:
"Welcome to the therapy room. You'll be staying here… until it stops."
"What?! Until *what* stops!?"
There was no answer.
Then came *the static*.
Not from a TV, but from hundreds of unseen devices, all blaring different frequencies. Screeching violins, babies crying, a door slamming again and again and again.
Then silence.
Then *slam!*
A hammer on steel. Followed by laughter—guttural, unhuman.
The lights flashed on—just for a second.
The room was full of chairs.
Each chair had someone in it. Their eyes wide. Their heads tilted. Screaming. But no sound came from their mouths.
Then black again.
"Stop! Please! Make it stop!"
But the sound only got worse. Layered. Deep. Personal.
He began to hear his own name.
"Trey… Trey… You hear that? That's your name. They're calling you."
The whisper crawled into his head, under his skin, like a centipede of noise. It wasn't from the speakers. It was *in him*.
Then it changed.
His mother's voice.
"Trey, turn that music down…"
His father's voice.
"Why can't you ever just be quiet!?"
His sister's voice.
"Trey, you said we'd play… but you never came…"
He screamed.
The walls began to pulse. They weren't made of concrete anymore—they were made of mouths. Screaming mouths. Screaming versions of his own face.
He thrashed in the chair, but now there were *no straps*. He was choosing to sit. He couldn't move.
And then—
*Silence.*
Not the peace of quiet.
But *vacuum silence*. No heartbeat. No breath. No thought. Only pressure.
A deafening, brain-crushing nothing.
And in that silence, one word appeared on every wall, dripping in black:
**"LISTEN."**
Suddenly, the silence broke.
A single *bang*.
A gunshot—inside his ear.
---
*System Report: Subject Deceased. Cause of Death: Internal Hemorrhage via Auditory Feedback Loop.*
*Simulation Cycle Complete.*
*Reinitializing Mind for Next Upload.*
*Loading…*
---