Aenigma

It Came from the Attic

 Sometimes Arvin wished he never got the hearing aid.

He was a very orderly person, as everyone would say, he had a habit of keeping everything on schedule. He didn't have time registering nightly nightmares on his precious time, or crying little girls from his attic— because at this point all he wanted to do was to sleep.

A normal person normally sleeps at 2:13 am, he thought. Because each time the clock would hit the time he would wake bathed in sweat, at the sound of an ear-splitting scream coming from the attic. It disturbed his daily schedule of course, and so did was his sleeping habits, but what bothered him the most was the fact that the sound came from a little girl's, and as far as he was knowledgeable about he didn't have anyone living with him.

It's just some post-war trauma, his therapist said. Auditory hallucinations, his therapist continued. And to convince himself that it wasn't real, every night as he heard the scream he would venture up the attic and see it for himself. He survived the third world war and everything so, what was he afraid of? All he needed to do was grab his glasses, a flashlight, and a gun. He would climb the stairs and enter the dusty old room, filled with stuff his parents used to own.

To narrow it down, every night he would find absolutely nothing. The screams would stop, like a voice fading away second by second. So he had nothing else to do but to go back to sleep, which he always did, until the constant awakening and shrieking and climbing up became a daily routine and were added to his schedule.

Then came the crying. As Arvin would stir his favorite coffee in a cup of boiling water, the little girl would sob— from the attic— a voice so hear-warming and touching Arvin couldn't help but to get out of the house. The first time he heard it, he dropped his coffee and broke his father's old mug. It sounded a lot like the children who were slaughtered right in front of him, the people who were running away from the bombs and bullets of the battlefield. It was all imprinted inside his head, through his blurry vision, he would see the frightened people he failed to save, the terror in the eyes of the ones he killed, and the faces of his friends who didn't made it out alive.

Every time he heard the cries, he would take his coffee out with him and go for a walk. His therapist claimed that his brain registers the little girl as the ghost of his past, that she was the living memory of all the terrible things he saw and done. And ghosts mostly stayed in one place, and in Arvin's situation it was the attic. But it was nothing to worry about, just a few more therapy, after Arvin forget or learn to live with all these things, the little girl would disappear. The same way his nightmares of dying disappeared after he got the hearing aid.

So Arvin lived his life exactly that way. He learned to live with it, even after it started talking him. She would whisper the names of all his friends who died, and all the horrible things that happened to him. But Arvin— Arvin is a very brave man, he got so used to it he even started talking to it. Oh yeah? Well do you know Kermit, little girl? Guess what? He's dead. He came into the point that as the girl screamed at 2:13 am, he just yelled shut up you rotten hallucinatory child who couldn't live without pestering an old man, your parents must've been very proud of you I'm sure.

Until one day when he noticed his vision totally blurring, Arvin went to the hospital. The doctors called it Glaucoma, he called them lying pieces of anatomy. Still, they proceeded to replace his eyes with an artificial one. He didn't quite agree with them at first, he didn't trust the Philippine' quality of medical stuff, especially if the hospital's being run by the government but, when he found out that it had the same brand as his hearing aid— which worked perfectly fine— he finally decided to just do it.

He liked the way he could see very clearly without having to wear glasses, and the way he could adjust his time and schedule dedicated to massaging his eyes into something else entirely. For a moment he felt absolutely happy, getting his mind off things that usually bothered him.

This time, when he woke at 2:13 am at the ear-splitting scream that came from the attic, and when he got up from bed and wore his slippers, he didn't have to reach for his glasses. He doesn't need it anymore. He could see things very clearly now.

So he grabbed his flashlight and his gun, and proceeded to climb up the stairs to the attic. He noticed the cracks and dust on the wood he was stepping on, and every little detail of everything he sees.

The floor creaked as he stepped on, and quickly he noticed something peculiar this time. The little girl maybe wasn't screaming anymore but, she was crying. She never cried during the night, Arvin knew very well of it. He shone the flashlight around the darkness, and reality blinked into the sight of a cave where he and his group used to hide. His ears heard the guns and explosions, and his vision would switch between visions of his old attic and the battlefield. The little girl cried louder, and louder, and louder.

Arvin's knees trembled, he pulled out his gun as he walked around. He shot the attic's window, the box of toys he used to play with, and the old mirror that belong to his grandmother. It cracked and broke to pieces, but still stick together, like a puzzle. And as his flashlight reflected against it, he saw the little girl.

Behind him.

She was curled into a ball wearing a pink shirt and gray shorts.

Arvin wanted to run, but his body froze in fear, hands trembling as he tried to keep a grip at his flashlight. The light was all shaky now, and the little girl started walking from behind.

Step by step, her foot would stomp against the wood, in a sound pattern so clear and obvious Arvin was convinced it wasn't just some hallucination. It was real. Creeping beside him, slowly. Ten thousand fingers were running down his spine.

He could see the girl now, very clearly. The light shining upon her face, which was ashen white. Her limbs were bent in angles that Arvin couldn't process how she managed to walk.

And she opened her mouth, she could scream, or cry, or whisper like she always did. And up to now, sometimes Arvin wished he never got the hearing aid.