Choose Your Own Brainwashing, Day 28 - Part 5 (Patreon)

You start to head towards the group of people on their knees, but are sidetracked by someone waving at you from the snack table.

“It’s a good idea to at least drink some water before you begin.” they advise, and you grab a bottle of water to drink and a banana for good measure.  The chilled water is gone in an instant and you’re about to join the people on their knees when someone holding a green magic marker calls “Hey, you! Come here next!” You’re getting a little irritated at these constant distractions, but you head over to the marker-wielder nonetheless.

“You’ve got a spiral in your head. I know you do because we all do, and one of the things you need to do before you can kneel is show everyone else what your spiral looks like.”

You’re handed a piece of regular notebook paper and your own magic marker (purple) and you sit next to a low table and try to draw the image that you’ve been seeing in your mind’s eye since earlier in the… since earlier.  It is remarkably easy to picture, and just as remarkably difficult to draw.

“Draw what you feel, not what you see,” green marker says, so you close your eyes and just let your arm move of its own accord. The resulting spiral is extremely primitive, but also seems intrinsically right. And now, finally, you can finish walking over to where people are kneeling.

Or not.

As you start to get up from where you’re seated, a firm hand takes you by the elbow and steers you toward the group of people who look confused. “You’re almost ready, friend,” they tell you, “but before you can kneel you need to figure out why you’re doing it.

“Stand here and look at the spiral you’ve drawn. How does it make you feel? How does that particular design, the design that you chose, change you as you look at it? Why do you want to kneel? Does the spiral have something to do with that as well?”

You hold the piece of notebook paper at eye level and really examine it closely. How does it make you feel? Focused, like nothing else that’s happening around you matters. How is the design changing you as you look at it? All your thoughts seem to be tracing a pathway inside your mind that is the same shape as the spiral, and you realize that what you’ve actually drawn are your thoughts.

Why do you want to kneel?

You keep holding the paper spiral in front of your eyes and try to figure out why you want to kneel. With all your thoughts there on the page the only thing left inside your mind is the urge to kneel and let your mind go completely blank, but you know that’s not a reason why.

Do you kneel for yourself? Do you kneel for someone else?

And that’s when you remember that you are here in this basement at LeeAllure’s behest.

You want to kneel for her!

It doesn’t matter why you want to kneel for her, just that you do.

“I kneel for Lee.” you tell the other people. No one stops you as you find an empty space amongst those kneeling. It’s right up against the wall of the basement, and there’s already a small tack sticking out of the wall on which to impale your paper spiral. Your body sinks down until you’re at eye level with the spiral, and you let that fill your mind.

But something is missing.

Oh, yes, the reason!

“I kneel for Lee.” you chant, until your mind starts a slow-spiraling descent into darkness.

“I kneel for Lee.”

“I kneel for Lee.”

“I kneel for Lee.”

How long do you chant?

1. I can’t tell.
2. An hour.
3. All night.
4. Until Lee says to stop.