"Have you perfected the chemical?" Lord Deligade demanded earlier today. I had. Only now that I've tested it on a series of rats have I seen the seriousness of the side effects.
They went mad.
All of them.
I inserted the serum at five the afternoon of November the 12th and in a matter of minutes I recorded signs of intense agony in the subjects. This had never happened before. They writhered and squirmed, emitting sharp cries constantly for hours before suddenly becoming stable.
It was a releif at first. I ran a series of tests. The rats had increditable reflexes and their motor skills were through the roof. They learned faster and easily over came obsticles. For the first time in weeks I felt excited at my sucess. Lord Deligade commended me and sent another large donation to see the experiment through.
Today I had worked through sun down trying to create a complete batch to present to the Board of Directors, when one of the rat cages rustled behind me. I ignored the noise and pressed on. It was as I lifted a hot becker off a burner that I happened to glance into the cages. The glass tube nearly slipped out of my hands and it took me several seconds to register what I was staring at.
Blood and entrails smeared the floors of the cages, the gore usually leading to the shreded corpse of one of the rats. Those that were not torn apart were decapitated and of all fourteen test subjects, one lone rat remained. I still don't know how I failed to hear the fighting. From the positions of the bodies and the scratches on the last living rat, it was clear that all the rats, not just the one, had been ruthlessly attacking one another.
Where this behavior came from, I have no idea, but I refuse to have any part of this experiment any longer. I'll sail home to America if I have too, but the sight of those rats.........
I'll never forget. My candle has just snuffed out and only the light of the full moon guides my hand. I will leave the cages till the morning and take all my notes away. Lord Deligade will be disappointed, but he will have to understand.
