The Dark

The night seemed endless, as if no matter how long I lie awake it made no difference. I once more turn over in hopes of finding my way to sleep - an impossible notion I'm well aware. Just as I began to feel myself slip into a light slumber, the voices once more began to rise around me, seemingly seeping through the walls. It was nothing new, a cacophony of voices from everyone who had come before. I was told that they would guide me - that if I just listened to them I could find the answers I was looking for, but I couldn't. Everytime I let them in it felt as if my head was being torn apart from the inside, an excruciating pain that seemed to wrack my mind as well as my physical body. I forced myself to ignore their insistent pleas to be heard and once more close my eyes.

It didn't take long for me to wake up once more. How long it had been I had no way of knowing, there were no clocks in my room, the barren walls of my small apartment had but a single photo, a photo of me and my mom from back when things were simple. I miss those days sometimes, but whenever I began to think back the whispers would start once more, ripping me from my thoughts and forcing me back here - to this bleak room in an old building in the middle of nowhere, a place I was told that I was safely hidden. Even if that were true I can't speak for whether I'd prefer this over the possibility of being discovered.

~~~

Throughout my life I always wondered why I seemed to know things which should be impossible. It felt like I had some supernatural power, and when I was little that's what I convinced myself that it had to be. As I grew older I learned more about whatever it was. It always sounded like a whisper in my ear, something I would often overlook as I had become accustomed to it, it would try and help me with everything from schoolwork to simply playing games with my friends. With the voices guidance I was able to excel at almost anything. It wasn't long before I came to rely on it, and not very long after that when it started to change.

I was never sure what had caused it, however as the years went on more and more voices began to join in what had quickly become a chorus. Each voice seemed to have it's own personality, each trying to tell me the same thing in it's own way. It didn't take me much longer after that to learn where the voices came from.

~~~

The loud incessant banging ripped me from my memories back to the present. I sat in silence waiting as it paused for just a moment before the whispers began once again, having no choice I listened, and as my mind was assaulted by the whispers which seemed to yell impossibly loud one thing was made clear - I had to run. I didn't know why or where to, just that I needed to get far away from whatever was awaiting me outside, so I decided to trust the voices as I had always done and grabbed the small bag of my belongings that I had prepared long ago and stepped out the back window.

I was immediately greeted by the chill of the night air. The moon was shadowed in clouds leaving the night lightless, making the dark feel as if it were enveloping the world. I began to slowly make my way away from the building and into the alleyway where I would hopefully be able to collect my thoughts. The echo of my footsteps in the abandoned alley seemed louder than any scream could be in that moment, as I made my way slowly, forcing myself to remain calm even though my thoughts were racing.

I knew so little about what I was dealing with - if only they hadn't tried to shelter me my whole life, then maybe I'd know why I was running at least, but it was always blind obedience that was expected of me, and I had been too young to question it at the time.

~~~

I never knew what discovery meant for me, not who I was even hiding from. I simply remember the odd look of sadness on my mom's face when I told her about the voices once they started to become too loud and unbearable. She believed me immediately which was the first shock, and the second came when we dropped everything in our lives to move into the middle of nowhere.

The house that we lived in seemed to have once been a store of sorts. It was a simple wooden building with a few rooms in the back and a larger room up front. We had set up so many places to hide, and I had been forced to practice staying quiet in them repeatedly for "my own safety" - something that she refused to elaborate on.

We lived there for years uneventfully, never having any contact with the outside world. She claimed it was safer this way. Maybe she was right, but even if it was it didn't stop the inevitable.

As I was sleeping one night the voices told me to hide. I went to try and warn my mom only to stop short as I saw her at the door, loudly saying that she was the only one who lived there. I hid. And that was the last thing I ever heard from her.

Until the next time the voices spoke - and I found her to be among them.