Short Stories Collection

I Change in the Night

Am I the only one who is said to change in the night?

Most murders and suicides seem to happen at night. People cut at night. People cry at night. People simply change at night. It’s true, I swear it. I’m one of those people. I, too, change in the night.

It’s subtle at first. It starts out as simple thoughts, clawing at the back of my mind and begging to be let out. Then the voices. Oh, the voices… they tell me to die, tell me to harm myself. They kick up the level and start screaming at some point in the night, and don’t stop even when I pass out from exhaustion. They continue into my sleep in the form of nightmares, they make me listen- or else people die.

Sometimes, they make me kill them myself. You truly do not know pain, until you’re the one holding the knife to their hearts. The hearts that you love and trust… the hearts that will stop beating because you can’t resist the screams.

Then, you wake up. The screams don’t start again until later that night. By that time you’ve forgotten the nightmares- all but the fear and pain that came with them.

I change in the night, said the murderer in fright. For, the murderer was a murderer in her own nightmares.

The screams made sure of it.