Soundless

Ever since I can remember I have been able to see things that others cannot. I still remember the days of my infancy when I would, for the first time, sleep in my own bed, in my own room, and how the shadows of unknown beings would haunt my room. Or perhaps my head? All I know is that I saw things, and that, at least to me, these things were as real as the other things that other people were able too see and touch.

I can still play in my memory the ominous events. How I pointlessly attempted to sleep as the door of my wardrobe opened slowly, and always stopped just before I could be able to see what pushed it open, although it was already hard enough to see with one eye barely open just to be aware in case that whatever hid behind the door decided to come out.

As I grew older I came closer in contact with these things and I started to be able to sense them, feel them, and even smell them. The odor was not pleasant, it was a rotten smell, maybe even came close to smell like death itself. As time passed and I got more used to these beings, my senses were more effective, I could see everything, sense everything, smell everything, and be able to differentiate what was one of these beings, and what was something else shared with the rest of the people around me. However, as close as I came to these beings, I never could hear them. This made me feel so desperate. I knew they were there, I could sense them, I was able to tell they were there, but the missing noise provoked an immense fear. How was it possible that with everything these being were able to do they did not emit any sound? Seeing them, knowing they were there, but still, unable to hear them.

Soon enough people noticed my constant state of, as they called it, paranoia, and I was sent to a psychologist. I was not paranoid, I was simply cautious, I had to keep my senses always in full attention of what was around me, since I could not hear them, they could get closer to me at any time when my guard was down and do God knows what to me. Maybe convert me into one of them? maybe they were demons trying to drag my soul into the depths of Hell? Maybe they were angels of death trying to steal my life away?
I had refused to attend to said psychologist but I was dragged to his so called office, which looked more like his own apartment.

The visit was quick, he asked me all kinds of questions about my life and got me to talk about my personal life. I had told him everything about my past experiences with the strange beings that haunted me. Being 25 years old and having a long history of experiences like these, most accurately ever since I can remember, did not sound too well for the doctor and I was sent to a psychiatrist, whom after the very first visit prescribed pills for me. He explained to me that the pills would help me get rid of the beings and would help me feel less stressed and I would be able to maintain a more normal lifestyle. He did, however, warn me that those pills were not easily found, but that whenever l needed more he could provide me with them, and he also mentioned that the effects would kick in slowly, and that the more I took the faster they’d fade away.

After a month of taking said pills I could feel the difference. I felt more free, less scared, and the beings would stay away as long as I could take these pills. The pills made my life so much better, people around me would no longer call me insane or mention I seemed paranoid. All in all, whatever these pills did to me, I knew that the things I had seen were not a product of my imagination. I knew they were real, and wherever they were when I took the pills they were just waiting. Waiting in the darkness of my ignorance, waiting in the silence they’ve always been in.
But of course, everything has an ending, no matter what it is. Everything ends eventually.

One day, approximately three years after my treatment began, I ran out of pills. As usual, this wasn’t a problem: all I had to do is go back to the doctor and ask for more. To my surprise, the doctor wasn’t there anymore, he had disappeared. An immense fear invaded me and I felt more worried than I have ever felt in my whole life, even when those things were around. Then it hit me; those things. Those fucking things took him, they knew he provided me with the pills that kept them away from me. I knew the pills were not easy to find, as the doctor had already said, and those things knew it as well. I had to find more pills, wherever and at any cost, I had to find more. Those things would be back again otherwise, and it might be sooner than later.

Days passed, and as they passed I started to see them again but luckily for me they started coming back slowly, as if they were reversely fading back into my life. I could see them again in the corners of my house, still hiding in the shadows, making themselves more evident as time passed. I could see them when I tried to sleep, creeping through the gap between the wall and the door of my room. I could see them again, and it did not take long for me to start feeling their presence again. Their odor came back, and in less then two months, in which I desperately looked for more pills and the doctor, they were back. Before this torture came back into my life I had noticed that the doctor’s disappearance was not just evident for me, the doctor had indeed disappeared. Police officers, along with his family, looked for the doctor or any clue that could drive them to him, but never found anything. In the meantime I slowly descended back into my long forgotten hell. This time though, something horrible happened.

The one thing that I felt before like it was the worst thing about being able to know these things were always there turned out to be a torture with no comparison. After the two months I could start hearing them. They became louder and louder every night, they were screaming. When they did not scream they whispered, when they didn’t do one or the other they simply talked to me. Requesting me, demanding me, to do horrible things. Out of all the things I could hear from them the whispers were the worst, because when they whispered, ironically, they were louder and clearer than when they spoke or screamed. They did not demand me anything when they whispered, they simply whispered four words that caused a frightening chill that traveled from the core of my bosom, throughout my chest, to the very tip of my fingers, and to my head. ”You cannot escape us”, they whispered, over and over again. At night these whispers rang in my head, freezing my blood and causing tears to come out of my eyes as if they were waterfalls.

After a few weeks of living like this, the screaming, demands, and whispers became more constant. Everyday and every night, haunting me, and making those around me fear for my well-being. Everything became so constant, all the demands of blood, the whispers that kept reminding me I could not escape them, the screaming and more recently the maniacal laughter, as if they enjoyed my suffering and fed from my desperation. I thought back when those around me used to say I was just insane and that it was all in my head, and I realized that if it were to be true, that all this was all just in my head, than it would be worth taking the risk. I ran to my kitchen and the screaming and everything else became louder with every step. They all started to shout, speak, laugh, and whisper at the same time as I rapidly grabbed a knife I had left on the sink. All the noise at once became quiet. Silence. The screaming and all that torture rapidly faded away as I could feel a warmth and a stinging yet relieving pain in my throat. The red spilled out of my throat, soaking my shirt in blood. I fell to the ground barely feeling the impact of the fall, I felt numb, and suddenly I felt a freezing cold.

As I lie on the floor, feeling my life slowly fade away, I can see and tell my life to you. You who have tortured me for so long, and that now at the edge of my life finally leave me in peace, you who I have been trying to get away from for so long and even succeeded for a while. To you I tell this. I did escape you, and although it cost me my life I can say it as worth it. Why even bother to live if my mere existence had become a torture?