The Voices

(The story contains sensitive topics of mental health & self-harm)

Every day I awake I see her. The woman who stalks me in my home who will not flee. As often as I’ve tried to evict her, she refuses to leave my property. Her presence was comparable to being stranded in the middle of a somber ocean. My home was the immense obscure sea, and I was a helpless person. Stranded in what was now her territory. She was here from dusk until dawn. Around the clock, she never stopped. Hovering over me like a ravenous bee harvesting from a gracious flower. She made herself comfortable in every part of the house. From the bedroom to the kitchen. The bathroom and the basement. Even in the halls when I tried to create some distance. She was still there. The family room was where she was most active. Wanting to dissociate from the pressure of her watchful eyes, at times I become enthralled by television. Incandescent images smoldered my eyes, but I couldn’t look away. I knew she stood behind me with patience. Waiting for my next move so she could accompany me anywhere in the house. My peripheral vision could see her sitting beside me. However, it wasn’t just her she always had company. There were always extended versions of her. The Voices was what I called them. That was presumably why she adored the family room. It was one of the few rooms they were all efficient at getting to surround me with their torment.

One version whispered to me. “Shouldn’t you be more productive? It’s lazy of you to watch television all day.”

I’d glance at her, my eyebrows drawing towards the bridge of my nose. My eyes would be full of disdain and so were hers. We watched each other like one of us was waiting to rat each other out. 

“Relax, she’s trying to withdraw from reality by ingesting a life that will never be hers.” Another version teased.

My neck snaps as I turn to look at her. The corners of her lips turn upward as she gives me a sinister smirk. I watch her with menacing eyes, flipping her off in the process. In unison, she does the same to me. 

“Why can’t you all die out?” I blurted. They all mock me. Imitating me flawlessly. I cover my ears, tightly shutting my eyes like there were microscopic weights on my eyelashes. Another version could still be heard over my shielded ears. Except this time, she was behind me. “You cannot vanish from reality. Just when you start to believe you are content, life comes back to remind you it’s not fair,” she says. Her tone was snarky and vile. She knew she could get inside my head. She was powerful and manipulative. My enemy. The little devil sitting on my shoulder. She continues, “Content will never be enough. You’ll never be enough.”

Droplets hit my legs as a stream of tears released from my eyes. I claw at my ears, aching for the woman to just leave me alone. I felt like I was having heart palpitations. My chest caves at the feeling of sorrow. Why did she hate me? Why did she belittle me? A pool of questions floods my mind. I keep asking. Why? I’ve done nothing to her. Peeking up from staring at my tearful thighs, they all watch me. Every inch of the room was filled with The Voices.

“You slouch, sit up straight.” One nitpicked.

“Is that how you want to be perceived?” Another scoffed.

“Stop crying, it's for the weak!” Another shouted. 

My head whips around listening to each of them banter me. They were everywhere. Next to me, beside me, behind me, in front of me. My vision goes blurry as I sob tremendously from the overflow of voices disapproving of me. I fall to my knees, feeling the frigid floor on the palms of my hands. I was weak, I was not enough. She was right, they were right. I could feel them watching me as they also kneeled around me. Copying my every move. The hairs on my neck stand up when I get the sense of them watching behind me. Clawing my fingertips onto the floor I scream, hoping that I could stand my ground. Hoping that I could shut them up. Each one of their voices haunts me. Unfortunately, they were not threatened by my screams. Instead, they all did the same. Screamed with me, clawed at the floor with me until our brittle fingernails chipped off. I look up from the floor studying the one version that copied me. Her eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears just like mine. Her shoulders move up and down just like mine as I try to collect my breath. 

“What do you want from me!” I shout. 

She shouts the words at the same time as me. I scan the room, seeing each one of them analyze me with the same doe eyes as mine. 

“Stop!” I begged.

Another version of her speaks. “There’s nowhere to run. You have to face us.”

I belted out a scream that felt as if it resonated from the soles of my feet. The Voices scream with me. I jolted up pushing the TV from the stand and letting it crash onto the floor. 

“No more escaping from your dreadful life.” One badgered. 

“My life is fine! I’m grateful for what I have!” I shout at them. I stand there my fist clenched and eyebrows furrowed. My jaw tightened as I watched one of them. She stood there the same as I.

Another voice speaks from the left of me. “Please, tell another one.” She chuckled.

They all laugh together and the sound pierces through my ears. I twist and turn around the room hearing the laughs grow louder. 

“Grateful for what? This life of yours can’t be what you speak of.” One asked.

Another from across the room joins in. “Too bad you're stuck in the same place you’ve always been. Never moving, never growing.”

My head whips around as I hear another voice. My face reeks of panic. “You’ll always be here.” Another says. 

“With us.” They all say in unison. 

I step closer to one of them. “I will not be consumed by you.” 

One of them from another side of the room disagrees. “It’s too late you’ve already been.”

Storming from the family room, I rush up the stairs. Skipping stairs in the process trying to create a distance between them and I. Frantically, I run through the halls, but I hear them right next to me. They laugh hysterically as I attempt to free myself from their negativity. I burst through the bathroom door slamming it shut and pressing my body up against it. My chest rises and collapses as I try to gain control of my breath. 

“Look at you. You’re worthless.” A voice beside me says. It was her. The woman who stalks me. She watches me and I watch her. I lean onto the bathroom sink as we narrow our eyes at each other. Hate was filled in our iris and despair accompanied it in our pupils. 

“You are worthless,” I say. She says the words at the same time as me. 

I backed away from her digging my fingers into my face. I couldn’t take her degrading words or any of the voices' words. They felt like a piece of gum stuck to my shoes. I couldn’t get rid of them. They were cemented in my brain. I couldn’t help but admit to their words. 

The woman concentrates on me. Her eyes glared into mine. “Succumb to your misery.”

Angrily, I punched the woman. My hand bleeds from the sharp impact. I look down into the sink and watch small crimson-red droplets fall into the pearly white sink. My heart descends to my feet when my eyes see the mischievous woman's face scattered all around me. She was on the sink and on the floor. “I’m still here.” Her voice echoes in the bathroom. 

Rapidly, I grab hold of one of the pieces of her. Clenching so tightly my hand begins to bleed. I look into her eyes, and she looks into mine. My body feels with rage and defeat. I couldn’t endure any more of her and the voices. They consume me with agony and irritability. Anguish and hopelessness. I yearned for them to leave me alone. For so long they’ve invaded my space, my mind. At this moment, I feel defeated. They have won. They were right. I could no longer accept this life. I looked at the woman and her eyes filled with tears. The small tear sits in her eyes until she finally blinks, and it trickles down her face. Traces of maroon-red blood glide down my hand as I squeeze the piece of her. Wiping the tears from my face, I close my eyes. 

“This ends here.” I murmured. Driving the piece of her into my flesh I groan at the intense pain. The sharpness that dug into my soft abdomen. I drop onto the brisk bathroom floor, feeling a warm liquid form on my shirt. I begin to feel dizzy, and my vision starts to form a vignette as I lose consciousness. 

I squint in confusion when I see fragments of my bathroom mirror spread across the floor. Weakly, I pull one of the razor-sharp pieces of glass towards me. The woman was gone. My stomach tightens from the unbearable pain and a waterfall of tears runs down my face. I stare back into the blood-streaked mirror. Words can barely escape as I stare in disbelief. 

“The woman is me. The voices…are me.”