TO THE ONE I TOOK.

(Content warnings: physical violence, mental health)

LETTER ONE: A MAN WHO HAD NO CHOICE.

Dear Stranger,

They say confession is good for the soul, yet no matter how many times I write this letter, I will always be a monster.

I see your face when I close my eyes, I hear your screams in any moment of silence.

People call me a monster, yet you are the one that haunts me.

So here I am again, writing a letter to someone who will never read it, to a ghost, to a person I took from this world.

These prison walls mock me, I haven’t seen sunlight since that day. The day I lost everything.

I lost my life and gained the hum.

I didn’t know your name, yet mine on your lips will be a sound I’ll never forget.

That’s the thing that haunts me the most, not the blood, or the weight of your body when silence took over. No. No I remember your voice. Broken and pleading.

You thought if you said the right thing or cried hard enough it would stop what was bound to happen.

It didn’t.

But I wish it did.

You stopped trying to fight, you stopped clawing and kicking, and then it happened.

A flash of a knife, and red was everywhere. It covered you and I alike.

Blood soaked into the ground like it was waiting to escape.

Your cries went silent, your body got heavy, and for me, the humming started as your breathing stilled.

I told myself it was for survival. I told myself that if it wasn’t you, it would be me.

That was a lie too.

But I was scared. I was young. I didn’t want to die.

I told myself killing you was the only way.

You were the only one that heard, the only witness to something I can never reveal.

I was terrified.

And you were the only thing between me and a peaceful life.

I didn’t know what it would feel life to leave your body lifeless, or to have your blood coating my hands.

I didn’t know I would forever be haunted.

Sincerely,

A man who had no choice.

LETTER TWO: THE MAN NEVER FORGIVEN.

Dear Stranger,

I see your face in everything.

That one guard who smiles too often. The patterns in bricks. Even in the food they serve.

You’re everywhere.

I hear your voice as well, in the conversations of passing prisoners. In the wind. In the whistles and songs that always cover the prison.

My dreams are filled of you, so I simply do not sleep.

My memories are the same as nightmares, so why would I fall asleep and willingly accept more into my mind?

I do not know how long this guilt will haunt me. I hope for the rest of my life. For the day I do not care, is the day I truly lose myself.

And even if the world calls me cold, or a monster, or sick, they will never know the truth.

They won’t know I regret what I did to you, and I will always beg for your forgiveness.

I’m pleading just as you did to me, please forgive me.

I’ve begged The Lord, yet I believe he turned his face away from me the moment I raised the knife.

The moment I was no longer a simple, innocent, man.

Why didn’t you run?

Why did you let me do it?

I hate you, for not running.

I hate you, for screaming my name.

I hate you, because I can still hear your pleads when I pray.

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you.

You ruined me.

Can’t you see that?

I am nothing because of you. You didn’t run! You didn’t fight hard enough, you didn’t kill me before I could hurt you.

Why not?

If you would’ve fought harder…

If you had known what I was planning…

I hate you, I need you.

I hate you, I miss you.

I hate you, I am you.

I plead for your forgiveness in the same breath I curse your name.

You won’t let me forget. I hear you. I still hear your screams, I hear you now, whispering things, I hear- Shut up!

You never let me think!

Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut-

I rock back and forth.

Back and forth back and forth, over and over. Like the ocean. Did you like the ocean? You smelled like it that night, it was on your skin, in your hair.

Back and forth back and forth.

Over and over, back and forth.

The hum won’t quiet. Why won’t it stop?

It’s dull and constant and I hear it every moment of the day, like you just can’t stand to let me forget.

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

All day.

No rest.

There ain’t no rest for the wicked. Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

You still talk.

All day.

No rest.

They think I talk to myself, but you’re there. You’re. Always. There.

They just don’t hear your whispers.

You scratch the walls so I cannot sleep. You sit in the corner to watch me when I’m awake.

I see you now.

Your hood is always covering your eyes, but I know what color they are.

In fifty years, I will still know what color they are.

Green.

I hate the color green.

A pale, dull green. Like grass refused of sun, or anything else that sickly shade.

I remember how they flashed, then filled with fear, and then tears. I remember how they then turned dull and lifeless.

I see those eyes in everything. But they blink wrong.

You think the hood covers you, you think I cannot see.

I can.

I yell at you, I scream until the guards take me to a little white room with cushions on walls.

A place where I cannot write to you, and I think I’m safe.

Liar!

I’ve always been a liar.

Always always always…

SHUT UP.

Back. And. Forth.

Over and over.

Ocean.

Salty skin. Sick eyes.

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The walls bend… Or maybe the floors bend? Everything bends. Everything but you.

Never you. But it’s not you.

The eyes are yours, but you blink…Wrong.

Twice, then none, then three, then none, then twice again.

Over over over.

I hear your screams still, no. No that isn’t your scream.

Just the humming.

Hummmmmmmmmmmm.

I don’t remember your name. Did I ever even ask?

I think I knew it once.

Maybe.

No. No I didn’t.

It would forever be burned into my sick mind if I knew it.

Are you even real?

Helloooooooo.

Doooo youuuuu hearrrrr meeeee?

I hope I haunt you as much as you haunt me. Maybe I’m just haunting myself.

Ha.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-

No.

Shut up.

I’m glad you dead.

I’m glad your sick eyes dulled and you breath stopped.

Now you know what it feels like to be invisible, don’t you, Stranger?

Always yours,

The man never forgiven.

LETTER THREE: US.

Dear Stranger,

I didn’t scream today.

For a moment, when I was rocking back and forth back and forth,

I forgot your face.

That scared me more than remembering.

I didn’t hear screams. Only humming.

Hummmmmmmm.

Alwaysssssss humminggggg.

I saw you across the yard today. You smiled.

I smiled back.

I waved. You didn’t wave back.

You turned and walked away.

Someone called you Sam. That…That isn’t your name.

They acted like they knew you.

They don’t. They don’t they don’t they don’t they d-

Not like I do.

They don’t know how pretty you bleed, or how it feels when your body finally goes heavy.

They. Don’t. Know.

I lied.

I said I had to kill you because you witnessed something you shouldn’t.

That’s a lie.

Liar liar, tsk tsk tsk.

Noooooooooo, I killed you because I was told to.

Voices.

Before you came into my thoughts, someone else was there. Telling me to do terrible things.

I did them. I liked them. But you were the first person I turned into a ghost.

I turned you into one of us, didn’t I?

You are now more than a phantom.

You are the humming.

You live forever.

You should thank me.

Now you can rock. Back and forth back and forth, over over over.

Rocking sea.

Sick eyes.

Did I kill you, or did I just imagine it so many times it became true?

Are you dead? Or are you just dead to me?

Maybe you’re not dead. You could be the humming, you could be the tilting floors and the man who blinks wrong.

You could be everything.

You could be me. Wouldn’t that be funny.

It would also be fair.

Ha.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

You’re what you always hated!

You’re me. I’m you.

And we together can be everything.

They say confession is good for the soul. But we were made without one. We are the hum.

Hummmmmmmmmmmmm.

Yours in humming and darkness,

Us.