Welcome Home

Voices

Artist: Unknown (please let me know!)

It's been a year since the morning you came back home. A boring, depressing, and uneventful year. The problem with your physical situation was never given a proper solution as you had expected. And like you predicted, you remained locked away from the population. Your only company being the radio and your father. Having to hear the happenings of the world through a speaker rather than experience them as you had yearned of doing once wasn't the best thing ever.

You felt like you were dead in a way. Forever the age of twenty-three. Not able to get a job you've dreamt of, a marriage, a family. Instead stuck in this damned home. Stuck again like you were in that studio a year ago. Henry would be away most of the day due to his job so you were more alone than anything. Left alone with a mind plagued of unwanted thoughts and memories.

Henry was gone as usual, leaving you sitting in the dark room listening to what was happening in the country through the radio. The curtains were closed to not risk any outsiders potentially spotting you roaming the home so the house was faintly lit by candles. You crotched a random scarf as you listened with uninterest. Your father bought you yarn and needles to help keep you busy with something. You would use it frequently as it helped keep you distracted although not thoroughly entertained.

On the radio was a man narrating the events of a baseball game in process with obnoxious enthusiasm.

"Randy Smith hits the ball out of the park! What a-"

The connection abruptly cut off and the stillness settled back into the house. "Oh come on", you grumbled and paused on your scarf to give the radio a smack to help get it working again.

A second later it comes back on but not completely in working condition. The voice of the commentator disfigured and muffled by a loud static overlay. You adjusted the antennas in hopes of catching a connection in further frustration. You moved them slowly towards each other, the voice on the radio becoming more visible yet the quality was still not back. After finding a connection you noticed that the radio was once again silent with white noise.

No one spoke but it was working. Seeing how the device was acting seemed odd as this has never happened until now. You sat patiently leaning closer and listened.

Then a voice. But not one of the commentator's. Something menacing and deep. You could hardly make out what it was saying as the audio still remained corrupt. "What the hell?", You eagerly tried making out what the man on the radio was saying. The noise cleared up and whoever was on the radio spoke with a vail of obscurity.

"We know you're out there"

You froze in a cold sweat. What the fuck was this and who was this? Every pause, the muffled sound of a cartoon played in the concoction of static and eerie noise. You stayed silent in paranoia that whoever was speaking through the radio would hear you somehow.

"You're not free"

You immediately knew what the radio was referring too, what else would it have been. Panic swarmed like angry bees and you quickly reached for the radio and threw it across the room without thinking. You watched wide-eyed as the object shattered to pieces on impact of the wall only ten feet from you. Regret seeping in immediately at your destructive choice. You couldn't make out the voice when you were listening, it didn't sound like who you thought it was. It didn't have a distinct voice that you could make out. Had the studio not been burned to ashes like you've thought?

Millions of theories raced through your mind in speculation, it didn't seem real. But yet again, you're a toon so anything was possible. Henry. Your father was to be home any minute now. You didn't know whether to tell him about what just happened or to keep it to yourself. You didn't want to put any more stress on him than he's already endured but how would you explain why his radio was missing? You quickly swept up all the remains into your palm and threw it away in the trash bin by the kitchen counter. Just as you got done, you heard the sound of the lock engaging and the outside light flood casting your shadow. "I'm home", Henry announced after closing the front door shut behind him.