Chapter 6 The Whispers
The letter of the day is I. I is for Insanity.
It’s hard to remember when exactly they began talking to me—the spirits Nana told me about.
But their voices were so much more noticeable after the beating and after I started having dreams of people entering my bedroom from behind the tapestry.
After the beating, I only recalled waking in the middle of the night to countless different male voices whispering random things. They never went away.
Clockwise circle eighty-nine and forty-three back then one,
a raspy deep voice said.
Wake up… Wake up… Wake up…a high-pitched woman’s voice repeated as if she were playing a game.
I groaned at how much they were bothering me, wanting them to stop.
“Hello? Is someone there?” They’d returned to the constant low-pitched whispering among each other.
I didn’t understand what they were saying, and they refused to answer me.
I’d get up, turn the light on, scan the room, and not see anyone.
Not behind the tapestry, in the bathroom, under the bed, or in the hall, but the sound wouldn’t cease.
Sometimes, they’d get louder, as if I was nearing them, but they were nowhere to be found.
I’d massage my ears, and nothing would change.
With all the talking, I hardly got any sleep.
In the morning, inside the bathroom, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror.
It was horrifying how dark and deep the shadows under my eyes had grown.
I looked as tired as I felt, as if I were becoming a skeleton.
By the time I’d arrive at the solarium in the morning, he would be gone and Mum would be coming down way past breakfast time.
“Were you partying all night long, Killian?” Her tone held mirth.
Which would normally pull a smile from me because being teased was always better than being ignored, but my mood was horrible from the lack of rest. I did manage to hold my tongue though.
At the same time, even though she was only a few meters away at the arch of the door to the solarium, her voice was so far.
With so many people constantly talking, I couldn’t hear her.
I winced, bent my ear toward her, and leaned forward a little, bringing myself closer to hear her.
Instead of clarifying her question, she said, “It’s almost lunch time. You should get ready. The instructors will be here shortly.” She walked away, not noticing my struggle to hear her.
The servants brought my breakfast, and I ate alone. It had become the usual.
After falling asleep again in my room, a pounding to the door and calling of my name woke me. “Sir, the instructor is here.”
In my uncomfortable business suit, I rushed, sliding my butt off the high bed to meet the tutors.
It was lesson after lesson half of the day.
The first instructor was a young bloke. He was nice to me, would throw a joke or two to keep my attention, but the late afternoon lady was this tall old hag who read everything off a book and hit my hands or face with a ruler to wake me when I’d doze off.
Wake up…
Wake up…
Slowly, I opened my tired eyes. After weeks of not sleeping enough, there was a heaviness and soreness to my every muscle. Sometimes, I’d get dizzy.
“Let me sleep,” I whined, slowly kicking at the sheets to get them off me. It was scalding hot and muggy in my room.
Wake up, Prince of Darkness,
the unrecognizable female voice giggled.
Defender of the vulnerable
Annihilator of evil.
They are coming.
Eat the rich, a man said.
Kill your uncle.
Kill your Mum.
Kill them aaaaallllll!
Clockwise circle eighty-nine and forty-three back then one.
I heard boots drumming on the wooden, as if there were hundreds of soldiers marching through the room.
They’re coming.
Go to his room.
He's hurting her.
He’ll eat her liver.
Clockwise circle eighty-nine and forty-three back then one.
Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up.
I sat in the pitch-black darkness. “Who’s there?” I yelled, but they kept talking.
Clockwise circle eighty-nine and forty-three back then one.
Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up.
Time to kill.
The voice chuckled.
Ticktock. Ticktock. Tiiiiiicccck… Tooooooock!
Hyperventilating, I covered my ears, trying to massage away the pain the last word had wrung into my ear.
“Who are you?”
No one answered. Instead, they whispered among each other.
Needing to confirm that Mum was okay, I slid off the bed in my new satin pajamas.
The hall was only slightly lit by the moonlight bleeding through the flower-shaped window at the end of it.
Slowly, around the corner to my left, up the staircase, I listened for her.
Although I’d explored every corner of the house I was so confused.
The voices had me turning everywhere and suddenly the house was like a maze that shrunk and turned right and left as if it were a worm.
In my hurry to get to her, I started opening every door.
She’s DEAD. Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
“Mommy.” At first, my call was a whisper, but the more they repeated the word, the more convinced and terrified I got that it was true, so I shrieked, “Mommy!”
I opened the first door in the hall to my right, only to find a small closet full of cleaning supplies. The second door was an empty bedroom. By the time I arrived at the next one, my body was covered in sweat and tears.
“Mommy!” Why did this house have so many doors? Another empty room. As I ran to the next one, out of breath, the door behind me slammed shut, but I didn’t care because I needed to find her.
Dead.Dead. Dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.
Dead.
Dead. Dead.Dead.
The next one was locked. She had to be in there. “Mommy!” I repeated.
The man I’d met in the garden after the wedding opened the door from inside the room. His smile was too wide as he nodded once then walked back to the foot of the bed.
“Killian,” he called, waiting for me to enter. From the front pocket of his suit, he took out a pocket watch. “Tick tock.” His forefinger hit the glass on the watch, then pointed to the bed.
He seemed to do everything in slow motion.
Was this some kind of a dream? I didn’t have time to figure that out, with hundreds of white skeletons of all sizes climbing onto the bed and choking my mum.
Mum was kicking and fighting them as I struggled to get onto the bed, grabbing skeleton after skeleton and pulling them away from the center where she lay dying.
“Muuuuummmm!” I yanked one off but more climbed on.
It was an unending cycle. “Ahhhhh! Mum! Mum!”
“Killian!” I scarcely heard my uncle call my name. The bloke in the black suit hooked his hands under my arms and hauled me away as the bed sank in the middle into a deep dark hole. Everything was falling into it while she hung on to the edge, screaming in fright.
“Ahhh! Killian!”
“Let me go!” I yelled, kicking and crying for her. “No! Muuuuummmmmm!”
“Killian,” she called, but all I could see while fighting to be released were the skeletons climbing and jumping into the hole that had once been the bed. I wailed, wanting to save her. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
For the first time in weeks, all the whispers disappeared. The room started disappearing in blotches. “Muuuuum!” I cried, my heart about to give out from how hard it was pumping. I couldn’t lose her too. In fighting to get to her, to save her, I’d exhausted myself.
“Let him go,” she said to the man in the suit.
“He’s hysterical, Star.”
“He won’t hurt me. He’s my son. Let him go.”
“Mommy…” I cried. Her voice from so far away made me miss her even more.
My heart ached. I wanted to die too, to fall into the hole with her.
Even if it was hell, I wanted to be with her.
Why did I keep living when everyone else died?
I didn’t want to be here by myself. I wanted to go after her and stay with her.
The infinite loneliness slipped into my bones, chilling them.
I needed her arms around me, but she was gone.
She was gone. “Not my mommy, please. Moooommmmyyyyyyy!”
“Sir… what can I do to help?”
“We need a doctor. He’s obviously hallucinating.”
“Mummmmmm!” I sobbed.
The skeletons disappeared, and she sat up on the bed, talking to me, with black holes in place of her eyes. “Killian, can you hear me?” Her body was ripped to shreds, exposed organs pumped blood. My head throbbed horribly. The sight of her made me nauseous. Everything became black.
The stinging on my cheek woke me. “Killian? Killian, wake up,” Mum called.
“We can take him to the emergency room,” Uncle Ricard suggested.
“Baby,” she called, pushing sweaty hair strands of hair away from my forehead and caressing my cheeks as I opened my eyes. It was a struggle to keep them open for long. Scratches on her face were bleeding. The skeletons must have hurt her. Still, I was so relieved to see her alive.
“Mum…” I whispered, too tired to vocalize anything else.
“Killian, are you all right? Can you hear me?”
“Is that really you?” I lifted my arm and flattened my palm on her cheek as she nodded. “I had a terrible dream, Mommy.” I wanted to beg her to never leave my side again. If she left me behind in this world, it would be a fate worse than death, but I didn’t have the energy.
“Everything is going to be okay.” Her reassurance was like a balm to a wound that had been growing since we’d ended up in that house.
Her forehead rested on my shoulder while her arms held me up.
I tried to hug as much of her as possible, but my arms fell from her body.
I’d never felt so tired and weak. With every breath, my chest burned in pain.
I couldn’t breathe deep. In her arms, I dared to dream that she was telling me we would leave soon.
It was the only way I could let go of all the tension, stress, and agony.
Maybe Da isn’t dead after all. As I fell asleep, I pictured the big ship that would take us around the world.
She rocked me while soothing me by humming a song.
Mum said I had a very violent hallucination.
I had been uncontrollable and had kicked, screamed, cried, and scratched both their faces.
No one other than the two of them had been in the room according to them.
Although it didn’t make sense to me after, at the time, it had been completely real to me.
For two weeks, they put me through machines, collected my blood and pee.
Finally, on the fifteenth day, after a million annoying questions, the three doctors gathered Mum and me in an office.
“It appears your son is very tired.”
“What?” Her eyes widened. Despite all my efforts, my giggling burst out. Even I knew there was no way all this was happening because of exhaustion. “I don’t think you understand the severity of what we saw,” she said to them.
What a bunch of idiots.
Well, we fooled them.
Good news, little man, we’re not going to a nuthouse.
I burst out laughing again.
A nuthouse would have been better than our present home.
“Killian, for God’s sake, stop laughing. What’s so funny anyway?”
“Sorry, Mum.”
“The scans are showing exhaustion, lack of sleep. Insomnia can lead to hallucinations, violence, and all kinds of disturbing behavior.” I sat there listening to him talk about how important rest was.
“So, what do we do?” she asked.
“This prescription should help with sleep. If that doesn’t work, we’ll talk again.”