Voices

1

 Piercing shrieks are filling my head. Desperation and fear overcome me. The taunting sound of the train is coming closer and I don't know what to do. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Everything flashes. What to do...what to do...what to do. I can see the train now. She's not going to get out. She's stuck. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck. I don't even know her. She's a girl at school. She's in the grade above me. I'm just the weird boy that no one pays attention to. Why did she follow me? If she hadn't I wouldn't be here now. I wouldn't be in the situation. I would need to hear this horrifying noise. Her goddamn shrieks. I've never heard anyone make such a loud and painful noise.

I have to go to help her.

No, don't.

But I have to.

Why? It's not like you know her.

But...she's a living human. I have to help her.

I'm right in front of her now trying to untangle her from a vine that's wrapped around her and the train tracks, but the train is coming. I can't help her. The lights from the train are staring me down. The lights. The lights. The lights. And then I'm awake. I sit straight up in my bed. Tears streaming down my face and the voice yelling at me that I'm weak. I don't even fight it. I'm so tired of fighting it. I just want it to end. I want the voices to end. I want everything to end. Why won't it just end? Sometimes I wish my life would just end. I don't deserve to be here. Not after she died. After her death the voices got louder, more persistent. I haven't had a normal day in the two years since the accident. She would be a senior now. No one misses her. No one pities her. Few people even remember that her death and me losing my leg are connected; that they were the same accident. Then again, few people remember that my right leg ends at the knee. Sometimes I forget. I forget that part of my leg is fake. Forget. Forget. Forget.

I forget lots of things. Like what the world looked like before the accident. Before these voices took over ever minute of my life. Before the endless hospital visits. Before the colorful little pills that were supposed to make the voices go away. I'd tried so many over the years. The round blue ones that made me practically double in weight, the pink ones that made me even more depressed and basically caused my first attempt, the little white ones that made the voices worse, the long green capsules that made me sleep 20 hours a day. Eventually, they stopped trying to medicate me and put me on suicide watch for a while, but they couldn't really find anything wrong with me. They won't even diagnose me with anything which is just as well because the last thing I need is everyone after me. If I'm given a diagnosis, then my mother will tell my guidance counselor who has always been out to get me and then the whole school will know and they'll probably come after me to kill me or something.

I finally decide to drag myself out of bed and walk over to the tall monster on the other side of the room, but not before checking under my bed first to make sure there's nothing under there. I look back at the tall monster, it's eyes stare at me, daring me to open it's mouth. I do and then reach down it's throat into it's stomach where the demons lie hungrily waiting. They lick at my arms until I grab at one and pull it out. As soon as the demon lies lifeless in my hands I close the monster's mouth. Double checking behind my door, I make my way back to my bed where I get dressed.