Every night I awake to whispering… Every day I am subjected to people whispering about me. The thing is, no one else hears the voices… Sees the shadows… I have, do, and I believe I always will… there's nothing to be done about it. As you’d expect, I’ve had my fair share of Mental Institutions, Looney Bins, Wacky Shacks… Whatever you want to call them, the first time I was placed in one, I was three, my own mistake, I used to talk back to the voices, ask them politely to let me sleep and, or, concentrate they never did. My mother asked me who I was talking to… and foolishly I told her, I was young and vulnerable. Her horrified expression when I told her about what they said, in unfamiliar languages, garbled, forgotten tongues. I didn’t know who they were, nor who they had been, I only knew about the whispers, ominous whispers, that haunted my dreams and dogged my steps no matter how many drugs were pumped into my system. Now, I live in a nunnery, my parents being strictly Catholic believed the voices were the work of Satan. I knew differently.
Recently they have been unspeakably restless, I was in the prayer room contemplating my fate in this sacred place in which I had been raised to believe with utmost certainty that I would never belong. People like me were often accused to be witches and burned at the stake for nothing but seeking out help, people never understood, my research had lead me to believe, for nothing but seeking out help, a way out, people never understood. It gave me immense relief to know I was not a unique case, but it equally disappointed me that there was certainly no cure… no modern medicine could give me the normality I craved. No, never would I have anyone to call friend; neither would I have anyone to call family, seeing as my parents had legally disowned me… My name now was ironically Angel… before I was disowned, at the ripe old age of five, I had been known as Angel Farrington… Daughter to Zebediah and Eleanor Farrington, I sighed, gathering my belongings and made my way to the bare room in which I slept, with nothing but an enormous crucifix, a simple bed and a modest mirror I had covered in a black scrap of fabric, exactly as you would picture a bedroom at a nunnery to be. I hated to see myself, I knew what I looked like from memory alone, emerald green eyes that seemed to swirl as if they contained liquid, black hair, that surely must reach my hips by now, all contained in skin like alabaster. To the people here I was Satan’s spawn, and nobody could ever love me, despite my rather ordinary appearance. I was cursed the worst of people… until I died I would be an outcast to humanity… Even the holiest in this place, the kind of woman who should have been beyond the reach of my evil, would cross herself as she passed me, as though my ungodliness was contagious. I frowned, if they wish to avoid me, so be it. I had no care for them, I had not uttered a word for nine years, and I could not see myself uttering any anytime soon. Certainly not to any of these people who would frequently try putting holy water in my drink, believing that if I consumed something holy, I would become well. It never worked even when, as a child, I had drunk it directly from the font… Still the voices haunted me, I learned to hold my tongue, never speak, even when spoken to, although that was rare… Stepping through the doorway of my room, I kneeled in front of the window, watching the nuns at work, holy work, growing plants, harvesting the fruit. Something a kindly nun had said I could take part in. Then she learnt of my condition, now she too avoided me, never met my gaze and acted as though I was hell personified.
My fingers itched, absentmindedly I reached for a charcoal pencil and drew on a piece of paper close by. My mind drifted, seeing myself taking part in the nuns work, chatting happily with the woman close by me… It would never happen. I would never converse with another human being, only in my dreams. They were interesting, recently I had been transported into different places, some so ethereal in their beauty I believed that I had died and, somehow, God had overlooked me and I had made it into the holy land. Although some nights I was taken places so dark, horrific, and terrifying that I knew I had been taken to where everyone thought I belonged. Then the voices would begin their routine of whispering into my ear, waking me and beginning my day.
Setting the pencil down once the itch had ceased, I stood and curled up on the small, boxlike bed. This was the only time the voices would fade, they never left, but as I got tired, they seemed to also. This I was grateful for, surely I would be insane by now if they didn’t allow me this luxury, however small. I was grateful for it. Shutting my eyes I waited to see where they would take me…
My eyes fluttered open again, sunlight pouring through stained glass, illuminating marble that glittered in the soft light, I grinned, I had been taken to the merciful Heaven like place. Although something was different, a feeling of encroaching evil filled the chapel in which I found myself. Widening my eyes I span on my heel and fled, only to realise that the evil I felt was most likely me. I dropped to my knees in the waist high grass, curling up I willed the voices to awaken me, to help erase the feeling of impenetrable sorrow that made its presence known as I fled. A new voice called to me, in perfect English, Do not run from me, child, you are MINE, I will find you. Soon, you can run, love, but you never could hide from me, do not rely on your god fearing guardians to protect you, for nothing can protect you from me… standing I took a look around the meadow I had run into, ready to fight to the death if I had to. Not surprisingly I saw nothing, just grass moving in the gentle breeze.
Relaxing my clenched fists, I sank back onto the ground, awaiting midnight… when the voices would awaken me… This was going to be a long night, the beginning of many…
My eyes slammed open unexpectedly, I had the overwhelming feeling of being watched. I looked to the window, seeing a black fog rushing out of it. I ran to the window, slamming it shut… A bloodcurdling scream sounded across the corridor. Flinging open my door, I narrowly missed being speared in the eye with splinters erupting off a door that had been flung off its hinges… more screams were heard. Suddenly the entire nunnery erupted into chaos… Women came out of their doors, only to be impaled on the bones of others, skin literally falling off their bodies, windows smashing in with the force of the wind. Furniture spontaneously combusting, cooking women alive as they slept… I slammed my door shut, opening my window I gaped at the ground ten feet below me… hair escaped the tight plait it was in, hair whipped around my face, my nightdress floating around my ankles, I heard someone hitting their fists against my door, the only one still on its hinges… My survival instinct kicked in, I ignored the woman at the door, and debated how far I could jump without dying… the scent of apples reached my nose, drawing my attention to the apple tree not five feet away from the barred window… gathering my night dress in my hand, I breathed in and squeezed through the bars, finding myself on a ledge overlooking the quaint town where I grew up… everything was so peaceful, it was as if they hadn’t heard the screams.
