Katlynn sat on the thin flimsy blue mattress piled with blankets in her college dorm room. Her short and somewhat petite body hunched over her laptop like a gremlin, a cascade of wavy black hair hung over her eyes. The light form it illuminated her pale face in the otherwise dark room. Sitting in a swiveling computer chair next to the bed was Katlynn's friend Eric on his own laptop. He was a tall stocky young man with messy brown hair. The two had met at campus tabletop gaming group. After finding out they lived on different floors of the same dorm building the two college students quickly became close, spending most of their free time hanging out and bullshitting with each other. "Hey Alex is doing a one shot of 'Vampire the Masquerade' for Halloween weekend. You in?"
"Yeah, sounds good. Let me guess, you're going to play another malkavian." He chuckled knowing her a little to well. "Hey, so hypothetically how immoral would it be to perform experiments on another person for your own personal curiosity?", Eric asked as he looked up from his laptop. A small grin paint on his face. The shadow from the laptops like cloaked his deep-set eyes.
Katlynn looked up at him with a smirk and eye roll, "I would call experimenting on another human less immoral and more... morally ambiguous." She raised a brow at Eric, "Why? What weird shit did you hear about in your phycology class that you want to try now? It better not be any more of that pavlovian crap. I still can't look at a box of crayons and not giggle like a lunatic."
Eric shook his head, "No, actually I have been ready a lot on hypnosis lately. Supposedly the right mix of sounds, touches, and visual aid you can reprogram someone's mind like a computer. So what do you say, up for being my little guinea pig again?"
Katlynn cackled out and shook her head in amusement. The idea sounded absolutely ridiculous. As far as she knew research into hypnosis was spotty at best, but she decided to humor his curiosity. "Sure, why the hell not. Nothing better to do on a Thursday night. So, what do I need to do this time?"
Eric enjoyed the way Katlynn always seemed so willing to like him indulge in his somewhat odd curiosities. He handed her the pair of headphones he had resting around his neck. Eric switched out their laptops, sitting his in Katlynn's lap and setting hers to the side on a small dresser. "Okay so all you have to do is put the headphones on and focus on the screen. While you do that, I am going to squeeze a few pressure points on your hands, wrist, back of your neck and temples. You all right with that?"
Kaylynn nodded, "Sure, sounds good to me." She looked at the computer screen and off handedly commented to him, "What the hell kind of browser are using for this, and why is the web addresses just a random stream of numbers and letters?" Eric assured her that it was nothing to worry about and nudged her hands up to place the headphones on. Once they were snug to her head Eric pressed play on the laptop. A soft rumbling frequency played over the headphones, the screen began to flash colored light at different flash rates. All the while Eric large firm hands moved and work from one pressure point to another in a deliberate pattern.
Slowly the frequency through the headphones became higher and louder. The screen flashed faster. Katlynn's eyes started to glaze over. With a loud hum reality seemed to crumble around her and yet her mind was so lost in a foggy cloud, she couldn't hold on to a thought long enough to even panic. Her mind had been pried open and prepared to be rewritten. A soft yet firm voice spoke out through the sound waves. "You are relaxed now. Open to control." *Sharp pinging sounds rang out* "When you hear the words 'I command you', you will follow the order without question. You will not remember hearing the order given and will believe all actions are your own. You will awake from your trance believing nothing took place." *The high-pitched sharp sounds began to fade back to a low hum. The flashing on the screen slowed and soon both the sound and flashing lights faded to a stop.