Days of imprisonment: 3
Food supplies: Low
For the last few days, I have been trapped inside the basement of Kemper. I don’t know why this is...it’s not like the doors are locked. The moment I come close to getting out of here something in my mind snaps, and I return to CSIF. It’s as if someone rewired my brain and planted a command deep within my mind: “No leaving Kemper.” I have to ration my food and I’m always hungry. My sanity has all but gone. Still, I can’t escape and so there’s nothing left to do but code.
Day 4
Food supplies: 1 cliff bar
I thought my emotions had been dulled. I thought that hope and fear had become distant things, like half-remembered dreams or Inception references. I was wrong. I saw a ridiculously huge bug in Kemper 75 and I was afraid. It had an egg sac and when I struck it dozens of other bugs emerged. That’s not what scared me. What scared me is that the original bug survived.
Day 5
Food supplies: None
There are tons of people here but I don’t think they’re...really here. I see familiar faces but something is off. Every person has a ridiculously complex personality, and all the labels we put on people are mere simplifications. This sounds strange, but the people here are the very simplifications I describe. Like the ELIZA program, everyone I meet has been pre-programmed with automated responses. No one will answer my questions about why I’m here, or how I can escape. The coding continues but there’s so many bugs. They’ve already infested 75 and we’ve been forced into the less lively 71.
Day 6
Food supplies: Trash
I’ve been surviving on what I find in the wastebin. If Kemper had not been so close to Shah’s, I would probably be dead. I saw the bug I had failed to kill, and it had grown to a frightening size. It seems that the more I think about it, the more it bugs me. See what I did there? Okay but seriously I think I might die here.
Day 7
Food supplies: Bugs
Suddenly, my fear of bugs was gone and I realized I could kill two birds with one stone. Today, I feasted on bugs. I know it’s really gross, but my code miraculously works now. I have no idea why.
Day 14
Food supplies: Good
And just like that, I’ve established a routine. I don’t eat bugs anymore. A girl I know founded a Facebook page called food deliveries, and now I eat quite well.
I used to be moderately annoyed that I was trapped here, then depressed that I couldn’t go to Teabo anymore. Now I don’t mind. I’m just...at home...and I think everyone thinks of home in a bittersweet way. I know I do. Here, time doesn’t pass the same way for everyone. I know that for three days I spend here, I age six months. Some people age faster. Some people don’t age at all.
I know this is my rate because when I got here I was a freshman. Now I’m almost a fourth-year. Time flies, but so do bugs. I’d better get back to this.