A Friendly Reminder

I think it will relent soon. It has been going strong for a good ten minutes now.

It? She? I don’t even know what to call it.

Her whole body is swaying back and forth as if her ankles are tied to a spot that my eyes cannot meet. Her face looks more malicious every time she leans towards me: her eyes are widening, her mouth is taut by opening so wide, and her long fingers are reaching out, ready to throttle someone. People have mentioned that I have a pleasant voice more than once: maybe she will heed my request to stop screaming. I need the screaming to stop; it’s making my skin crawl. I can feel beads of sweat rolling down my back, as her scream turns into a maniacal high-pitched laugh. The sound of which, is no better.

Why are you here? What do you want?

I remember this laugh from back when I was nine years old. The face was non-existent back then; it was just the wicked voice inside my head. Those moments when this voice visited me were extremely frightening, given my age and the unfounded reason for it being there.

The face disappears just as suddenly as it had come to be, and the bed on which I am lying along with the rest of my bedroom comes into focus. I can see the bottle of water standing calmly on my side table. Every inch of my sweating, trembling body wants to reach out and grab it; chug every drop of the refreshing, trance-breaking water at once. The face reappears, rendering me immobile once again. There seems to be a steady fire burning inside of me. She gives in to screaming in a soundless manner now, her face contorted into madness, silent tears shooting down her cheeks, but I am calm on the outside save for the sweating and trembling. The dualism between my physical and my mental self is incomprehensible to my rattled brain. The lack of sound is deafening, much worse than the din from earlier.

Please leave me alone. I only wanted to lie down for a few minutes. I have a lot of work to do, responsibilities to attend to. Please.

Fifteen years ago, my nine-year-old self had explained the inexplicable presence of this voice to be a result of dehydration. I must not even have known the meaning of hallucination, but that had not swayed me from trying to make sense of the situation through reason. I had chosen to be logical over thinking that I may be losing my mind. Why is it that I am unable to do the same this time around? Why does the face and the voice belong to someone who I know to be as real as my own thoughts? What has changed?

Everything. You want something from me this time, don’t you?

My phone buzzes, and I pull out of my reverie, as if in slow motion. The blazing fire within me seems to dissipate just as though it may never have been. I pick up my phone and see a text message from a guy in my Logic class. How ironic, and timely. He is asking for the notes on the types of syllogism, which we covered in class today. Just as I am about to unlock my phone screen, to reply, I see movement right outside my bedroom window. This slight interruption from whatever is outside my window, allows me to drag myself further away from my reverie and stand up. As I slowly make my way to the window, I realize that it was just a shadow of a tree, illuminated by a car’s headlights flashing on in the nearby parking lot, dancing against the apartment building adjacent to mine.

I feel light-headed from what I experienced mere moments earlier. As my mind flits back to that demonic face, a feeling of despair spreads all over my body. I feel a battle raging inside me to let go of the image. The image starts coming back in waves; getting stronger with every comeback, making my knees go weak, making me grab on to the edge of my dresser. My eyes are barely able to focus on the framed photograph that stands tall on top of it.

Kill me now. Kill me. Maybe then you will leave me alone.

This has happened before. All of this has happened before, yet there is something distinctly different this time around. I am not scared of it, as I was fifteen years prior. I am curious; I am ready. I understand why she would want to be here now. She screams louder than ever. A sound like no other, conveying messages that I can barely register. I can feel my skin singeing: not from the heat of the fire burning inside of me but from that of the atmosphere, and I know that I am spared from her presence for some time. I am in my bedroom, alone at last.

Is it possible that my nine-year-old self had known what was going to happen in the future? How was I able to hear a voice that I had not even encountered in real life yet? Had her presence in my life, for a mere two months as a teenager, been so strong that I had felt it before we had even met?

My eyes search for the framed photograph on my dresser again. I see her smile, innocent and playful: an evil laugh escaping that face, impossible to imagine. How could my mind have betrayed me? How could I have strayed from my own promise to forgive myself? I walk over to my side table, pick up the water bottle at last, and take a sip from it. I feel my mind relaxing, letting go, and yet holding on tightly to a desire to understand.

Maybe it’s just the ongoing heatwave that made me hallucinate, or maybe she was here to let me know…

I am certain I heard the words, “You know what you’ve done. I’m only here to make sure you never forget” in between her screams.