FEATURE: Where Creepypasta Takes Us - The Russian Sleep Experiment

Everything was fine for the first five days.  The subjects hardly complained having been promised (falsely) that they would be freed if they submitted to the test and did not sleep for thirty days.

Josef Mengele.  Nazi doctor.  Experimented on 1500 sets of twins.  200 survived.

There should be a movie made out of "The Russian Sleep Experiment," and it should be viewed by no one, because I doubt anyone would be able to handle the slow-mounting dread and shockingly gory finish.  Human experimentation numbers among the worst horrors "civilized" societies indulge in, said societies including and certainly not limited to our good ol' government of the USA.  If you're running low on cynicism fuel, look up Project Artichoke, MKUltra, the Tuskegee syphilis study, and the actions of the Atomic Energy Commission in the fifties.  "Slender Man" is an impossibility.  "The Russian Sleep Experiment" is frighteningly plausible.

Like "Dead Bart," "The Russian Sleep Experiment" formed deep in the guts of 4chan boards.  The earliest searchable version of the story traces back to May of 2009, which means it was probably bouncing around the 4chan boards for months prior.  The story supposes that, after World War II, the Russian government placed five captive enemy combatants in a sealed chamber, providing them with sufficient food and distractions.  The only addition was a stimulant gas that destroyed their desire to sleep.  The time period, just after World War II, draws associations with America's amnesty to Nazi scientists, aka Operation Paperclip, and especially with Japan's Unit 731, which possibly inspired this creepypasta's more graphic elements.

Dr. Aubrey Levin.  South African doctor.  Electrically shocked and chemically castrated countless homosexuals.

From there, the story evolves into a clinical depiction of unremitting violence and gore, the kind that might appeal to fans of movies like Frontieres and Martyrs and leave others to wonder just what the point of all this cruelty is.  But "The Russian Sleep Experiment" works for that reason.  It's a depiction of banal evil, written clinically, short on opinions, loaded with enough convincing medical-speak that it sounds kinda-sorta plausible.  The author develops the awfulness steadily, trusting in the clockwork precision of the story.  What happens after three days of isolation?  What happens after five days?  What happens after nine days?

After nine days the first of them started screaming.  He ran the length of the chamber repeatedly yelling at the top of his lungs for 3 hours straight, he continued attempting to scream but was only able to produce occasional squeaks.

The first three quarters of the story have a morbid sort of genius, as more and more gruesome details are revealed.  There are some obvious flaws in the writing, evidence of the story's origins on a website that skews young and values immediate impact over craft.  This is hardly a significant complaint, but the story does lack the visceral and formal success of something like "Candle Cove."  I can't help thinking that if the author studied medical records of the time and, at the least, proofread for spelling and grammar and punctuation, the story would feel more like an actual record (and more disturbing as a result).  There are better creepypastas out there, and there are certainly more succinct creepypastas.

Dr. Shiro Ishii.  Headed Japan's Unit 731.  Referred to test subjects as "maruta" (logs).  Performed live vivisections without anesthesia.

However, "The Russian Sleep Experiment" still pulls me in.  As a nasty piece of gore, it's darkly imaginative.  As a reminder of real-world horrors, it's nearly unbearable.  The impact of the piece mutes slightly at the end, when the anonymous author makes a stab at a psychological twist.  It arrives in needlessly flowery dialogue, and it puts too neat of a bow on the whole premise.  At the same time, its purpose - to show that our humanity is precious and fragile and easily lost - makes sense in the wider context of the creepypasta.  It's a mostly honorable close to an uncommonly horrific story.