Chapter 11

CONTENT WARNING:

This chapter contains brief discussion of suicide

"How does one even make free energy?"

"I dunno, I was kinda hoping I'd come up with something just naturally."

"I knew it! Free energy my ass, you were just spouting lines again."

"Look, I'm figuring something out."

It's too early in the morning for Terri to be awake, so I've resorted to consulting with myself on what to do.

There still isn't a couch in the room, so I'm just lying on the hardwood floor, staring up at the ceiling.

"Let's see. Terri is the only thing we know of that breaks the rules of reality, so whatever we come up with has to rely on him."

"How can Terri make free energy? I mean, his power is that he's invulnerable."

"Yeah, but there's gotta be something there."

"You know, we haven't really tested how far his powers go. Invulnerability is just what we've been calling it, but how far does that go?"

"True invulnerability would mean that nothing in his body can be damaged."

"But what about stuff like cells? Those are a part of him, in fact if certain cells died, he himself would die."

"Brain cells need oxygen to not die. The reason we need to resuscitate people within a certain time limit is because the brain cells die very quickly without oxygen."

"Can his brain cells be damaged? If he truly is invulnerable, then it would reason that they won't die if he can't breathe. In fact, he might not need to breath at all."

"If his cells continued to function without air, would that be free energy?"

"I don't know if air counts as energy, but food definitely does. I mean, we still have to test the air thing, but if that works then we can deprive him of food and see if he still doesn't die. That would be actual free energy created from nothing!"

"Okay, if we want to test the air thing, do we just choke him?"

"Isn't that cruel and painful? Even if he dies, just believing he's going to would be torture."

"I don't mind torturing him for research; the real issue is that his body reacts certain ways when he believes he should be feeling pain even if no actual injury occurs."

"How do you cut off his air without him noticing. Even if we somehow put him in an airtight room without him noticing, his body might still pick up on the lack of oxygen and react."

"I remember in an article a while back, they talked about some chemical that when you breathe it in, the body doesn't realize it's not getting oxygen and you'll just suffocate without ever realizing it."

"Oh, yeah, it was being considered for assisted suicide.

"That's perfect then."

With a plan in my head, I get up from the floor and make my way over to Terri's room. Terri picked room 302, which is right next to my room in 303. Right now, I know the door is locked, so I leave a note on his door that I'm going out to get supplies.

Now, for the hard part.

After finding the article and figuring out what I wanted was nitrogen gas, it wasn't immediately obvious to me where I could get a tank of the stuff. Eventually, enough asking around directed me to a welding supply store.

"Yeah, we got nitrogen. You looking to buy a tank too or rent?"

"You can rent nitrogen tanks?"

"Yeah, the tanks alone can be pretty pricey. Some people just choose to rent, especially if they're just starting out."

"Oh, yeah, that would be perfect. I'm only gonna need it for a bit if you charge by the hour."

"We charge for the whole day. We charge $5/day for a 20 cubic foot tank and then go up by $5 per 20 additional pounds and all our tanks are DOT approved."

"How big of a tank is 20 cubic feet?"

"About this big."

The store associate lifts up a metal canister about the size of a water fountain tank.

In my head I debate if that is enough to cause oxygen deprivation.

"Just to be sure, I'll go with the 40 size. Also, I'd like to have it filled."

"And, again, that's just for today, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Total for today comes out to $30."

'Damn, it's really that cheap. Man, if I ever want to kill myself, now I know how to do it at a good price.'

(Author's Note: Please do not do this. You can very easily screw up suicide by hypoxia and suffer as you slowly gasp for air. Also, seek help if you are suicidal.)