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It was the glowing cloud that broke him.
While the carcasses of dead animals poured out of the sky, Carlos screamed over the sound of roadkill pelting the building for his team to pack up the equipment and get in the van. The team of scientists drove towards the city limits, towards where the Glow Cloud’s dome met the ground, filling the air with the stench of vanilla. He remembered shouting at the other scientists, stepping harder and harder on the gas pedal. He had thought the cloud was made of water, like any normal, non-sentient, NON-CARCASS-DISPENSING cloud.
But nothing was normal in this nowhere town, was it?
They hit the cloud like it was a brick. The van exploded, and Carlos remembered pain. Like a candle, he melted down. He tried to speak, to yell for help, but all that came out was blood. Then, he woke up in the scientist’s workshop, with a nasty bump on his head, and nothing else. He ran over to the window and threw aside the drapes, only to see a vague yet threatening black van driving away. Every day, he became less and less convinced that that day had really happened. Every day, he became less and less convinced that he had ever brought a team of scientists with him in the first place. Every day, he panicked, feeling the scar on his head, and remembering that something was missing, and that he kept forgetting that.
Trying to focus was a slippery slope. There were other people, weren’t there? Samantha…, maybe Brian? But without fail, his mind would steer him away, and he would think of nice green fields, and not notice the buzzing coming from underneath the bump on his head that never seemed to go away.
At one point, he had remembered. He resisted the growing urge to just stop thinking, his head aching while he took shallow, ragged breaths. The Glow Cloud. A van. Escape. All of a sudden, he knew what they were doing to him. He heard the buzzing getting louder and louder. He got in the van and for the first time since that day, thought about leaving the town. He sped out to the city limits, feeling his metal barriers starting to loosen. He looked up as he passed a sign.
“You are leaving Night Vale. Come again soon, and watch out for helicopters decorated with complex murals picturing birds of prey diving.”
Then, Carlos woke up in the scientist’s workshop, with a nasty bump on his head, and nothing else. He screamed in horror, grabbed a scalpel, and began to dig into the bump on his head. Then, he woke up in the scientist’s workshop, with a nasty bump on his head, and nothing else. No matter what he tried, it never worked, and every time, the placating voices crooned at him, trying to lead him into a life of blissful ignorance. He refused.
After a while, Carlos stopped trying to leave. He had his sanity, and if he focused hard enough, he could keep it. Every night, staring up at the sky, trying to imagine what could have been if he hadn’t driven into this town with his team, he would turn on the radio. Every night, the weather report would lull him to sleep.