One Page Horror: “Fear” by A. N. Modine
No I am not going out. While researching with Dr. Benson, I have grown cautious throughout my days. I just want you to understand where I am coming from and my perspective.
I have been a researcher for Dr. Benson for seven years now and what we have seen is terrifying. He has been studying fear in the human psyche and it’s possible meanings. His hypothesis as followed: Fear is a psychic inclination on ones future. The worst part is there is a positive correlation within this research.
At first, I found this to be absurd. But after seven years I do not know. Are sample pool consist of 200 clients who have irrational fears. We promised to aid them in overcoming those fears while doing our research and pay them for there time. Dr. Benson first became intrigued by this while researching behavioral psychology and how a person can learn to overcome there fears through learned behaviors and behavioral sciences. He explained to me about research that happened many years ago in which psychologist trained a child into becoming scared of a certain object.
The researchers within that experiment had adopted a child. They gave it a good life except when they taught her to become scared of a certain object at a young age. How they did that is they produced a stuffed animal to the child. However, when the child approached the animal a loud noise would go off frightening the child. They continuously did this until one day the noise was no longer needed and the child saw the object and began crying as its heart began to race. The media got a hold of this information and went after the researchers, inciting anger and discontent, stating how unethical the research was for the child. The researchers realizing the impact on the child they had to fix the issue. They did fix the issue by doing the reverse. Having good things become associated with the stuffed animal and eventually the child overcame its fear and loved stuffed animals shortly after, all in all a success for their child and the research team.
However, years passed and that child became a mother. One day while her child was playing outside it began to rain. Being the good mother she was she called the child in from the yard. However, the child left her stuffed animal in the yard. She begged her mother to go get it, and her mother decided she would rescue the animal. When the mother grabbed the stuffed animal the rain was coming down hard. A car that was driving to fast took the turn in her neighborhood to harshly sending it into a fishtail. The driver over corrected and ended up jumping the curb into the yard killing the mother. Upon hearing this story Dr. Benson decided to start his research within this subject matter.
Now, fear comes in many forms and their are hundreds of phobias out there. Our patients suffered from many of them. Our clients told us all about them. How they felt, what they see, how they breathe, and it was scary. I felt this like many others to be irrational because all these things that people fear existed from the beginning of time. However, when Dr. Benson and I learned of some of the deaths that happened to our clients, I became worried. About 25% of our patients died of natural causes which I felt to be fine, but the others sent shivers down my spine. “Rosie,” she was a hydrophobic (Scared of Water), she drowned in a puddle one night after passing out on the sidewalk after she been drinking during a rain storm. “Jack,” was a caulrophobic (Feared Clowns) ended up having a heart attack while in an antique shop, where the section he was end had porcelain dolls including six different clowns. “Rachel,” was an arachnophobic (Fear of Spiders) while working in heard garden one day she was bit by a black widow. The ambulance with the antivenom was on its way when there was an accident that delayed there arrival by three minutes. She did not make it. “John,” Nyctophobic (Feared the Dark) died during a burglary in which he was shot in the house after the power went out during a winter storm at 10:00 PM.
Yeah I lost my job with Dr. Benson. But my biggest fear is of dying from something that I cannot see. So, if you are scared like me stay in. All the rest of you just listen to this warning. We all have fears, so be weary. And if you are Nyctophobic, I hope you sleep well tonight
scarefirsttalklater 