Purloined Collection

Wall of Fame

I woke up to hear knocking on glass. At first, I thought it was the window, until I heard it come up from the mirror again. Slowly, I peeked out of my room, seeing the slim, long mirrors on the hallway of my father's house, illuminating the lights. Then I saw it. I quickly shut my door closed and shook away the image of the face that I just saw-- the face that had been haunting me for days.

That night, I couldn't sleep with the voices in my head whispering words, words that made my whole body shiver and the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I was not losing my mind, I couldn't be. This happened every single night; when I was alone and when everyone was sleeping peacefully, my mind was a wild beast trying to break free from its cage.

"Not this time," I whispered to myself, "No more, I say."

Lying back down on the bed, I buried my head in my pillow in attempt to remove the voices in my head.

Three o' clock. I was still awake, the voices were getting louder, and they were only saying one word constantly-- too constantly that it almost only sounded like static to my ears. I felt like my head was about to detonate, and even if I hit my head and pull the rest of my hair out, I knew I couldn't make them go away. They would never leave . . . and it was driving me crazy. I had to do something. Something.

Mindlessly, I walked out of my room, my feet having their own minds. They, out of their own will, stopped when I was standing right in front of the hallway again, the hallway that gave me ideas and pictures of creatures that were unknown in the world. It was a very long and narrow hallway filled with mirrors. I always thought it was a glass esophagus that didn't only consume our bodies, but also our sanity.

"Just don't look at the mirrors," I said to myself, my voice slightly shaking.

My feet began walking while my eyes looked nowhere else but forward. I didn't know where I was going, yet my body seemed like it did.

Hurry, one of the voices whispered to me impassively.

My head twitched, like there were spiders crawling into my ear. That voice. It was so familiar yet so peculiar. I must have had been going crazy. Is this how they feel like every day? My patients, I mean. They had told me stories about the voices in their heads, and I completely understood them, or perhaps I only understood their cases, and not what they were really feeling. But now, I think I know.

I landed in the library at my father's house, where I mostly spent my time as a child. Since back then, I was flooded with facts and researches about the human body-- the brain, mostly. I wasn't really fond of science and medicine, not at all, but when people force you to like something, it would eventually get into your head and persuade you and your mind.

"Sister," an angelic voice softly spoke.

I walked to my right, where I heard someone call my name. I stopped almost as soon as I took a step, remembering that on the right side of the library, there was only an unfinished wall, and nothing else.

"Just stop it," I hissed, "you're--"

"So many books, so many untold stories, do you agree?" I heard another voice, but it was rather deep and raspy . . . My father's.

I cleared my throat and breathed out before I turned around to face him. He had a book in his hand, and his favorite mug in the other. The bags under his eyes, and the way he was slouching gave him a restless appearance. It was very funny to see him like this, nobody ever saw him with his big stomach poking out of his shirt, and when his salt and pepper hair are not combed back. He looked more like an alcoholic widower than what he truly was, a successful businessman.