The Calling | The House of Voices #1

Thirty Five - Break

Break

October:

When I woke up, an unknown amount of time later, I found myself blinking against the harsh brightness of the white ceiling above me. Groaning, I tried to use my hands to shield my eyes, only to find that I couldn’t.

My hands and feet had been strapped down to the sides of the bed, disenabling me from moving. Mortified, I struggled against my binding. The buckles strained against the metal restraining bars at the sides of the cot I was resting on. It was useless. The only movement I was capable of was lifting my head and my hips off the bed.

Huffing in frustration, I dropped heavily back onto the cot, and looked around as much as I could. This wasn’t the same room I’d been locked in this morning. It was exactly the same size, but the structure was a tad different. There was a water pipe attached to the wall next to the cot, something that the previous room hadn’t had. There were grubby hand prints across the wall next to the pipe, as if whoever who’d inhabited it last had been trying desperately to get out, willing the walls to cave beneath their touch.

A shiver crept up my spine, caused both by the sight of the hand-prints and the arrival of the voices.

“I like the buckles.” He sniggered tauntingly. “They make good accessories.”

I made no reply. I couldn’t. I’d completely drained myself before, when I had been screaming in Larkson’s office, and whatever energy I’d regained during my drug induced slumber had been lost during my futile struggle against my bindings.

“What? No snappy comeback? No ‘leave me alone’?” he asked, amusedly. I tried to say no, but the only sound that came out was a scratchy, unintelligible sound, like two rough surfaces, rubbing against each other . I blinked weakly up at the ceiling. “Have you finally lost your tongue?”

I ignored the boy’s words. True as they might have been, they stung; they reminded me of a sad fact that I had to come to terms with – the voices had beaten me. They’d officially ruined any chance I had of having a normal life. They’d broken me in that office, they’d proved that they were, indeed, stronger than I ever was. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to recover from that.

“Hmm. I guess you have.” He said, after I didn’t answer. “At least you finally know what you are now. Useless and weak. You can’t even hold your own to protect your own sanity. You deserve to be locked up. Life is wasted on you.”

I felt a few hot tears trickle down my cheeks as the room began to return to its normal temperature. The boy was done with me. For now.

For a long while after the boy had left me, I mulled over his words. I hated to even think it, but what if he was right? What if life was wasted on me? I’d watched people I care about die right in front of my eyes, and still couldn’t appreciate the life I was blessed with. Sure, I had to live my life being constantly tormented by three malevolent voices that did everything in their power to drive me to insanity, but I was still alive, wasn’t I? I’d survived when others hadn’t.

I blinked away the last of my tears. I had no more left to cry. The boy was right. Life was wasted on me.

I began to wonder what life in a padded cell would be like – because that was, undoubtedly, where I was going to end up. If Dr. Larkson was willing to throw Parish into a high security mental facility just because he’d punched a nurse while trying to help me, who knew what she’d do to me after the fit I’d thrown in her office? And if the mental breakdown wasn’t bad enough, I’d gone and attacked her on top of it. If I didn’t wind up in a strait jacket sometime soon, it’d be a miracle.