Voices

I once heard of an author that said, “Some people hear their own inner voices with great clarity and live by what they hear. Such people become crazy. Or they become legends.” That’s all well and good until you start hearing other people’s inner voices. Then the whole legends part goes down the drain.

One month after my supposed resurrection, I decided that I had enough of home and wanted to go back to school. Yeah, I know, it’s pretty stupid, but that’s how I felt. A lot of things happened over that month. My therapy sessions were an apparent waste as I never remembered anything about where I was even under hypnosis. My parents always left downtrodden, trying to encourage me, saying that I’d remember next time. As if. What I did remember, I wasn’t going to say, and what I didn’t remember, I just couldn’t say. My powers had developed greatly over that time as well. Since I learnt that my power was reducing kinetic energy, I realized that I could cool things to varying degrees instead of fully freezing them. I practiced every chance that I got, and soon, I was able to freeze things without even touching them. But every time I got excited, I would remember the ghastly painting. It was still under my bed. Part of me wanted to take it out and burn it, and part of me was too scared to even touch or look at it again. For the time being it would remain where it was. I actually couldn’t wait to get back to school. I had a new life now. Maybe school would be much better than it was in the past. There was definitely Erica now to look forward to. That alone was a big improvement.

I have always had a habit of going to school early. Hardly anyone was there yet, and it was a good time to get a few moments of stability before the general insanity of the day set in. Walking down the empty hallway, gave me a weird nostalgic joy. I stopped and opened my locker and started packing out all my stuff that had been there for the past month and a half. That’s when the whispers started. Softly at first, the growing in intensity, stronger then they’ve ever been. I covered my ears and scanned my surroundings. Where was it coming from? And why did it sound so familiar? Not a familiarity that comes from hearing something over and over, but it was as if I could recognize the voice that was whispering. The whispers stopped. I removed my hands from my ears and shook my head. The weirdness had started all over again. I slung my satchel over one shoulder and walked to my classroom.

On opening the door, I noticed someone sitting at the back of the class. The figure raised its head. It was Allison. She stared blankly at me for a second and then resumed staring at her desk. I blinked in disbelief. I hadn’t seen Allison in close to two months. I was expecting some kind of sassy greeting, not a blank stare. I walked slowly towards her. “Morning Allison.” I said hesitantly. She didn’t respond, and that’s when I noticed something more disturbing than her absence of energy. Her appearance. Allison had a reputation for being a neat freak. Now, she was completely different. There were dark circles around her eyes and her black hair was disheveled. The shirt of her uniform was ruffled and her tie askew. Her head rested in the palm of her hands. “Hey,” I said slowly, “you might want to fix that tie.” She looked down at her tie and slowly adjusted it, before resuming her former stance. I sat down directly in front of her, waving my hand before her face. “Hey Allison, is everything okay?” I asked.
She looked at me and said, “It’s quiet here, isn’t it?”

I was taken aback. That’s not exactly what I expected her to say. “Yeah,” I replied. “It is pretty quiet here.”

“When I’m here, I don’t hear them.” she said.

“Hear what?”

“The voices.” she replied, her eyes wide. “The voices in my head.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So it wasn’t aspirin in that bottle after all.” I thought.

She looked up suddenly. “Do you hear that? It’s one of them. It’s saying something about painkillers.”


“Well,” I thought “I think Allison has finally lost it.”

“There it goes again. It just said that I lost it.”
I
froze. I just thought that. Suddenly it struck me. While we were at the hospital, she kept on replying to everything I thought. I had meant to ask her about that, but apparently I didn’t need to. I thought for a second and decided to try something that I had seen in an old movie. “Allison,” I thought, “if you can hear this, look directly at Alex.” Slowly, Allison raised her head and looked directly me. “Now I want you to raise your right hand.” She hesitated for a second. “Come on Allison. You can do it.” She raised her hand. “Now, put it down and raise the other one.” She complied. “Allison,” I thought, “It’s me, Alex.” Her reaction was instant. Her gaze focused on my face, her mouth made a slight ‘o’. “Allison, you’re not hearing voices. You’re hearing my thoughts.” She stared for a moment and then suddenly broke down in tears. Her head dropped and her body shook with sobs. I let her cry for a while. She eventually stopped and dried her eyes. “You have no idea how good I feel to know that I’m not crazy” she said, sniffling.

“I can only imagine.” I replied, a bit sarcastically.

“Everyone in school thinks I am.” she said. Then she stopped. “How did you know that I was hearing thoughts? Why didn’t you think that I was crazy like everyone else did?”

“I didn’t.” I replied honestly. “I just guessed.”

“Why would you guess something so incredibly far-fetched?” she questioned, showing a bit of the old Allison.

“Because, I had quite a few incredibly far-fetched things happen to me over the past two months.” I said. I removed a bottle of water from my satchel. “Look at this.” I poured the water over my hand. It froze before it hit the ground. Allison’s eyes opened wide. “I’m actually quite incredibly far-fetched myself.” I replaced the bottle. “We have special abilities Allison.”

“Why?” she asked.
“
I really don’t know,” I answered, “but you have no idea how good I feel knowing that I’m not alone.” She gave me a small smile, which coming from Allison was as incredible as her power. “I’m going to the café. Do you want to come along?”She nodded and we got up to leave.

“You know, you’re being awfully trusting of me.” She said, back to her former self. “What if I go and tell everyone what I just saw?”

I smiled, “It doesn’t matter. They already think you’re crazy.”

She was about to say something when she stopped abruptly. “Two of what?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“You just said, I mean, thought ‘Two of them’. Two of what?”

“I didn’t think anything.” Without warning, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I glanced around the room. No one else was there. Why was I getting this feeling?

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Nothing.” I replied. “Let’s go.” We walked out the classroom. Yup, I thought, school had definitely changed. Whether or not it was better, only time would tell.