Can You Hear It Too?

         “Shut up! Leave me alone! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Emit screamed.

         “Oh Emit. Don’t you remember?” The voice asked him.

         “Leave me alone!” He sobbed and started running, slowing, stopping. “Where am I?” he whimpered.

         “You really have no idea, do you?” the voice questioned.

         “No! What do you mean? Why won’t you just leave me alone?” Emit pleaded.

         “I can’t leave you alone, Emit. I’ll always be here. With you. There’s no way of avoiding me,” it whispered.

         “You’re scaring me. Why can’t I just be left alone? I just want to go home!” Emit’s voice echoed around the room, jolting him awake. “Is this a stairwell?”

         “Yes, we’ve been here all along, Emit. On the steps of a spiral staircase. A staircase that keeps spinning and spinning, up and up, as far as you can see, a million steps.”

         “Why? Why am I here? What is going on?” Emit panicked. Standing up, he began to run like the wind. He ran up, up as far as his legs could carry him until he fell. Pulling his knees to his chest, Emit began to sob, tears racing down his cheeks in the paths already carved by tears that had come before.

         “Poor Emit. Maybe you’ll find some answers if you reach the top of these stairs. Not that you can make it up there.”

         “I can’t! I can’t get up there! I just want to be at home!”

         “But you can’t go home, Emit. Even if you could escape me, they wouldn’t let you leave.”

         “Who? Who wont let me? Why wont they let me?”

         “Hush Emit. Be quiet and climb these steps. Make it to the top and I will tell you. I will tell you everything you wish to know.”

         “But I can’t! You said so yourself!” Emit pointed out as he began to become infuriated. “First you tell me that I have to get to the top of these twisted stairs to get an explanation, then you tell me that I can’t do it, and now you’re telling me that I might make it. Make up your mind!”

         “You wan me to make up my mind, Emit? Make up your own! If you really didn’t want me to be here, then you would just make me disappear! If you really wanted to know about everything you’re asking me, you would search your mind for the answers! If I know the answers then you must too! For I am just a part of your mind! That’s all I am, Emit! A part of your silly little mind!”

         “No! If you were just my mind you would be gone! Shut up! I hate you!” Emit yelled and took off once again, up the stairs.

         “You can run, but you can’t hide. Hiding isn’t an option when it’s your own mind you’re running from,” the voice rang in Emit’s ear.

         “What can I do to get rid of you? I really just want to be in bed!”

         “But you are in bed. Silly boy, you’ve been in bed this whole time. Didn’t you know that? No? Well now all that’s left to do is wake up.”

         “How do I do that when I can’t even control my own-“ Emit was cut off by a blinding light shining though the room.

         “Emit! Wake up Emit!” A new voice called out. It was a man’s voice, rough and mean. “Wake up you fool!”

         “Sir, be gentle. His mind is fragile,” a woman’s voice urged and the light disappeared.

         “Be gentle? You do it then,” the man demanded.

         “Oh, okay. Um, Emit, um, Emit darling, you need to wake up. You’ve been screaming for and hour and it is disturbing the other patients. Emit,” the woman’s kind voice insisted, placing a small hand on Emi’ts shoulder. Suddenly he gasped, eyes wide open.

         “Where am I? Why won’t the voice leave me alone?” Emit demanded.

         “Whoa, calm down Emit. You’re at the hospital. The voice is in your mind. If you want it to leave the just tell it to,” the woman said, hoping to calm him.

         “Yes, Emit, if you want me gone, tell me to leave,” the voice mocked.

         “Shut up! I’ve had enough of you!” Emit screamed, shoving his hands over his ears.

         The nurse gently took Emi’ts arms and pulled them to his sides and told him calming things. All Emit could do was cry and pray that the voice would leave.

        “Leave. I’ve had enough of this. Please, God, if you’re there, please help me, make this voice go. Make it go, or make me go,” Emit pleaded.

         “Don’t be daft. God won’t help you,” the voice laughed.

         “No! Please!” Emit jumped out of his bed, pushing the woman out of his way, and running out the door. He didn’t know where he was going but he was almost certain he knew how to get rid of the taunting voice. He could get rid of the voice if, he could get rid of himself.