Playground

Voices

Author Note: PG-13, some coarse language, dark set.

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Get the fuck out of my head! I screamed in my mind for the umpteenth time, slamming my psychic barriers up only to get them slammed back down.

Tz, tz. You need to do much better if you want to protect your filthy thoughts, Valery. The voice said sweetly in my mind.

I threw my head backin desperation and hit the wall I was leaning on, hard. Tears starting to roll down my face.

That won't help you out either. The voice said laced with amusement.

I hit the wall again.

Seriously, you'll only get an headache.

Again I threw my head against the wall. Pain blooming and flaring all over the back half of my head.

I sat there, on the cold tiles, for forever, gently tapping my head against the wall and trying not to listen to the devious voice. Images and memories of my family slowly playing on my closed eyelids, painted in the colors of anguish and I can feel the presence in my mind, watching.

Somehow the day went by and I held on, going as always. But by the time I was going back to bed it was dripping inside my skull. Sweat beads covering every inch of my skin. The last hours brought an ever increasingly stream of images, flashes and hallucinations. The presence watching me from my mind mind hadn't spoke again but it had become heavier and heavier on me. Slowly, steadily draining my strength.

I can't understand what is real and what is a product of my fucked mind anymore. I stare, frozen, at the bed with empty, fog-covered eyes. Dripping drops in my skull. Whooshing air through my mouth. Rolling drum in my chest. Air flowing fast around me as the coverings of the bed come to me. Painfull darkness and an alluring chasm.

Yes, sleep Valery, sleep.

There was silence. My consciousness floated in the empty blackness of silence. There was no reference, nor there was direction. A least not until I felt that drag, pulling me down, or was it up. Did it mattered?

I followed the pull, oblivius to the consequences. It was so easy, just going along with it and not having to struggle. Struggle for what? I slowly floated down, or up. No, it was down, yes.

Valery.

Who was that voice? Someone calling me? from where? I couldn't focus on it, but I feel uncomfortable. Whatever is dragging me is making me edgy.

Valery!

Again that voice, what did they want from me? That feeling is worsening, I'm restless and I start fighting against the pull. I don't want to go there anymore, there is pain there i can feel it.

VALERY!

NO! I scream back, fear paints the emptiness around me, pain makes it red. Panic flood my system, less than an inch behind pain. I scream soundlessly again, trashing against the the force growing ever stronger. I know what it is. It' my body calling back my self to take it's place again. I now know know what the voice is as well. It's that blood-curling presence in my mind trying to... Trying to what? I ask myself, but my panic doesn't allow me to look for an answer, only mindless reactions.

I'm slowly, relentlessly dragged back, screaming and kicking, in the world of pain that is become my body. Things have changed since I passed out, the pain is now mostly searing in my veins and it stopped dripping inside my skull. I also lost control over my muscles altogether. It will come back. like everything else will come back. Came the voice of the presence. I'm no sure I know what it means, or that it matters, or that I even care. I knew that I once cared, I only want over now. I can't see any more reason to hold on to sanity and I just... Let it go. Laughing.

And the laugh with me, because I did the right decision.

Three days had passed since it all started. Without sleep, food or water. The place I use to inhabit reeks only god knows how much and me with it. There is no presence and no voice in my mind anymore, I don't need them. The only voice I hear now is my own, thought is not still that pitiful one. I am not the same pitiful creature either, I have changed. Black veins now bulge from every inch of my skin and dark talons adorn my fingers. My mind reel in the fractal, yet kaleidoscopic visions through I now see the world. But in the end, it ain't going to have any importance.

Because now, the only important thing is... my family.