The Voices (565 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.45 on 14 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Hirilnara (View user info) at 2006-09-19 14:34:02 EDT
He's doing it again.
She cradles her newborn son carefully, pacing the room nervously. Everyone she's talked to - doctors, friends, her parents - say it's perfectly normal, and her son is a gorgeous, healthy baby.
But, watching him stare into the middle distance, frowning in intense concentration, she can't shake the feeling that something is very, very odd.
She tries singing a lullaby, and briefly his eyes flick to her. She keeps going, willing him to keep looking at her, to react, but he looks away again at nothing and the frown deepens, as if he's trying to block her out.
Sighing, she puts him down and leaves.
In the dark of the room, he keeps on staring, giggling occasionally to the emptiness.
Why won't they all go away?
He glares across the room at the other children. Noisy, messy others, who run and squeal, and stop him hearing the voices. He stabs the paintbrush mutinously at the paper, splodging red everywhere, and closes his eyes. If he could just concentrate...
A game of tag rushes past him, laughter and chatter ripping through the silence. He growls, and stabs at the paper, again and again and again. His rainbow is now a mass of red, slowly trickling down the paper.
She's crying.
Slowly the fact breaks through into his consciousness. Muffled sobs from downstairs. It's better than the fighting though - he could never hear the voices when they were screaming at each other, when plates crashed into the wall. It's better now his father has gone; mother's crying doesn't blot out the voices. He closes his eyes and smiles. Crying is good.
Why won't she go away?
She keeps knocking at the door, destroying his concentration, making the knife slip. He grits his teeth and works it back and forth, trying to blot her out.
She's his mother, she worries about him, she wants what's best for him - but she doesn't understand. Can't see that the best thing she can do is just leave him alone with the voices.
The knife breaks through a new layer, making blood weep faster and sending a wrack of pain through him. Pain is good - pain makes his focus sharper, and the voices clearer. If only she'd go away...
She knocks again, and frustration bubbles up inside him. Wrenching open the door, he glares at her. But instead of telling him what she wants and leaving, she starts shrieking hysterically, pointing at the gouge in his arm. She drowning them out and she...won't...stop...shrieking.
He lashes out with the knife, six, seven times. Blood spatters everywhere, but she's quiet. And there's an explosion of sound in his head, a cacophony of purrs and sighs and murmurs; oh yes, they LIKED that...
They're bored.
The voices have been getting quieter again. It's not enough to kill any more - they want him to make each one special. Each time they demand a greater tribute before they will deem to speak to him. So each time, it gets more complex. Burning the unworthy alive, carving oaths of allegiance into their still warm flesh, drinking the blood from their veins; each time he has to find a new way to please the voices.
Silence.
He struggles against the leather straps, growling. Someone in the room is reeling out a list of charges - a list of his tributes. But the voices won't talk to him. Everything he's done, everything has been for them...so why do they abandon him?
There's a pinprick in his arm, and numbness starts to spread. Even as his fingers uncurl from their fists, even as the strength drains from his muscles, he strains to catch one last word.
But now there's only silence.
User Reviews
Submitted by Hirilnara (user info) at 2006-10-27 08:17:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
*Looks confused* Who?
Submitted by ruthless (user info) at 2006-10-26 19:14:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Stewie?
Submitted by Hirilnara (user info) at 2006-09-21 21:09:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Tell me about it! I must have thought of and rejected at least 20 different ideas because they wouldn't work, or weren't going anywhere.
Still, I guess it's part of the challenge, and not just another torture method...
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-09-21 20:49:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I do have to say...we got an awkward title...i mean like one night stand and i got HIV awkward.
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-09-20 14:40:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It shall be a pleasure facing off against you.
Submitted by Allyson (user info) at 2006-09-19 22:41:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-09-19 21:07:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2006-09-19 18:28:46 (#)
Ranking: 2
good
Submitted by Magicaddict (user info) at 2006-09-19 18:46:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes...well...
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2006-09-19 18:28:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-09-19 17:02:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-09-19 15:39:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
good.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-09-19 15:33:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
nice.
yup.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-09-19 15:21:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
As a UM judge, I rated this a little lower, because there were SEVERAL stories of this exact type submitted for review...
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-09-19 15:05:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
intense