The Voice

“You shouldn't have done that.” I paused with the scissors in my hand and looked around the bathroom. No one. “It's probably that thing where you hear your name being called but no one actually called you” I muttered to myself. “Maybe it's a mimic” I chuckled, remembering the stories from the various paranormal podcasts I listen to. “Not a mimic.” I heard again and jumped slightly. I looked into the mirror in front of me. “this is new.” I said with a strained smile as I turned the tap on and watched the water carry the pieces of hair I had just cut down the drain “no it's not.” The voice said. I looked at myself in the mirror again and laughed. “I’m going nuts. People don't just hear voices out of no where.” “Not out of nowhere,” it said, “out of you.” It didn't sound like it as coming from around me, it didn't sound like an echo, the sound came from somewhere behind my eyes. Inside me. That was when my hands started to shake. Two months had passed since I first heard “The Voice”. It was surreal. It had a whole personality of its own, it seemed to somehow know things before they happened. It knew things I had never told anyone. At first it was like a quiet observer, just casually throwing commenting on mundane things that happened, then it began to say things unprompted. Unprovoked it would tell me little secrets about the strangers that I walked by. “That lady in the blue skirt, Maureen, she has a heroin problem.” I mostly ignored it. I didn't care to gossip with whatever this was. An alter ego? A split personality? I didn't know what to call it. I avoided speaking to it, but it had access to my thoughts and more concerning, my memories. “I am you, I come from you” it would say as I read through psychological disorders, trying to find a similarity, a connection. I hadn't told anyone about the voice. Not because I didn't want to, but become it wouldn't let me. Everytime I attempted to confide in someone, I would get terrible headaches and nausea. It took me five attempts to discover the correlation. I was stuck with a sentient opinionated voice that liked gossip and could give me crippling headaches. Not the shortest end of the stick I joked. “Susan’s going to die.” I paused. “what?” I said out loud. I was in the kitchen, working on dinner. “Susan is going to die” it repeated. I felt unsettled but I chose to ignore it. Up until this moment, I had always taken it's very detailed comments on people as idle talk, gossip. It didn't help that sometimes it would say these things in an amused sing-song voice and I had no way of confirming if these accusations we're true. There was no way they could be true, right? Susuan was the barista at the café down the block that I visited quite often. We were acquainted with each other, friendly enough that I had her Instagram. The voice was quiet that night but I had a strange tingling sensation down my spine as I laid down to sleep. “Hello susa— oh hello” I greeted the vaguely familiar face. “Good morning, what can I get you?” she asked. The tingling sensation returned. The voice chuckled. I grew cautious. “Where is Susan? This is usually her shift.” The girl's face dropped and she leaned in and said “she got in a really bad accident yesterday, we haven't gotten an update yet” My palms went clammy. “Just wait and see” I heard inside my head. I saw on Susan's Instagram three days later that she had passed. “This can't be true, this cannot be possible” I muttered in denial as I stared at the words on my screen, now all blurred together. “i told you.” It said in that annoying sing-song tone. It all went down hill from there. The headaches and dizzy spells became more frequent and intense, it spoke a lot more now, it's voice got louder and it would whisper to me at night. I stared to lose sleep, I couldn't eat or focus. I needed help, I needed to tell someone, anyone but everytime those thoughts crossed my mind, I would be riddled with immense headaches. The voice would tell me to do things, to cut myself, to cut other people, to steal, I tried as hard I could to ignore it, to block it out. It got meaner, angry, it's tone changed from teasing and passive to demanding and cruel. And then the blackouts began. Gaps began to appear in my memory, hours of the day I could not remember or account for. I began missing appointments, classes, with no recollection of where I was or what I did during that time. I withdraw from my friends and family, isolated myself, it seemed like the best option but it just gave it more control over me. I tried to drown the whispers and screams with noise. The television, music, podcasts, anything that might might be louder than it's malicious words. I awoke one evening from a blackout, no memory of what happened, the usual, when I felt a sharp pain down my left arm. My hands shook as I saw the red that soaked the long sleeve of my shirt. I slowly rolled the sleeve down to find a deep long cut from the side of my wrist down to my elbow. My breath became shallow and shaky, and my eyes blurred with tears as I looked around for a knife, a shard of glass, a razor, anything that could explain how I got that cut. I even searched for signs of a break in, that someone had gotten into the apartment. Nothing. I heard a happy hum from behind my eyes. The sound filled my head as i watched the red stream of bloody water fall to the floor and down the drain. “What could happened? Who could have done this?“ I asked myself “was it you?” I said asked. “Of course not, after all I'm just a voice” it snarked. That night I called my best friend Opie and asked if she could spend the night with me. I told her I had a kitchen accident and I didn't want to be alone. I obviously couldn't tell her I woke up with an elbow long gash on my arm after a bout of unconsciousness with no recollection of how I got it. She was at my apartment an hour later and she as she saw my sunken eyes, shaky hands and wrapped up arm, she insisted on staying longer than a night. That night the voice was extra chatty. “Go ahead, tell her about me. I won't hurt you this time” it said with malicious playfulness. “...Ellie” Opie shook my arm I had zoned out and my face was wet with tears. “What's wrong Ellie” Opie asked. I wiped my face and smiled weakly. “I'm just a bit overwhelmed from today” I said pointing to my wrapped arm. “I think I'm going to head to bed now” I said ams stood up. “Alright” she said giving me a sad smile “just holler if you need anything.” I didn't have a black out episode the next day, or the day after which was somewhat a relief and an annoyance. I figured Opie could fill in the gaps of what happens right before and during these episodes. I didn’t hear much from the voice those two days, and that bothered me more than when it wouldn’t shut up. Silence meant something was coming. On the third day, Opie stretched and groaned from the couch. “I’m running out of clothes,” she said, rubbing her face. “I’ll go home, grab a few things, and come back, okay?” Something in my chest tightened. “Don’t be long,” I said quickly. She gave me a look, half concern, half reassurance. “I won’t.” The door clicked shut behind her. The apartment felt wrong immediately. Too quiet. “Now.” My stomach dropped. “No,” I whispered, backing away. A sharp, splitting pain tore through my skull. I crumpled slightly, gripping the edge of the table. “You don’t get to say no.” Then world became blurry And then Nothing. Opie pushed the door open with her shoulder, a small bag dangling from her hand. “Ellie, I—” The words died in her throat. The bag slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. There I was. Standing in the middle of the living room. Shirtless. My skin pale, stretched My eyes wide open, glassy, unblinking. And my hand… My hand dragging a knife slowly across my stomach. Carving. Deliberate. Controlled. Blood pooled and ran in thin lines down my torso, dripping onto the tiles. Opie couldn’t breathe. “Ellie…?” I didn’t react. My lips moved slightly, but the voice that came out wasn’t mine. “You shouldn’t have come back.” Opie staggered backward, shaking her head. “No, no, Ellie, stop!” The knife pressed deeper. A wet sound. Another line. Another letter. B. I. T. C. H. Opie lunged forward, grabbing my wrist. “Ellie, PLEASE!” For a second, just a second, my hand froze. My eyes flickered. And then my body went limp. The knife clattered to the floor. White light. Beeping. The faint smell of antiseptic. My eyes fluttered open slowly. Everything hurt. My throat felt dry, My body heavy. “Ellie?” Opie. I turned my head slightly. She looked wrecked, red eyes, tear-stained face, fingers gripping mine like I might disappear. “What… happened?” I whispered. Her expression broke. “You don’t remember?” she asked softly. My stomach twisted, hot from pain, this time. From fear. “No.” She hesitated. Then: “You… you hurt yourself, Ellie.” Her voice trembled. “Badly.” I swallowed. “How?” Opie looked down at my covered torso, then back at me “With a knife,” she said. “You were… awake. But you weren’t.” My chest tightened. “I tried to stop you,” she continued. “You said something to me.” My pulse quickened. “What did I say?” Opie hesitated. Then, quietly: “‘You shouldn’t have come back.’” The room felt colder. I stared at her. “That wasn’t me,” I said. Opie didn’t respond. Because she knew. That night, long after Opie had fallen asleep in the chair beside my bed, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Listening. Waiting. Hoping. Praying. For silence. And for a while There was nothing. No whisper. No hum. No presence. Relief slowly crept into my chest. Maybe it was over. Maybe. “Do you really think a few stitches can get rid of me?” My breath caught. My body went rigid. The voice was softer now. Closer. Warmer. “You carved that so neatly.” Silence. Then a low, amused whisper: “Next time, we’ll make it say something nicer.”