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Thursday, January 22, 2009
Chapter Zero
If you're one of the people who's read this, skip it.
Chapter Zero
Temporary Insanity
WEEK 3
“Hey, hey, when are ya gonna start talking to me?” The voice again. The strange, alien voice that invaded her mind.
Brown eyebrows tilted downwards dramatically, Nell's face turning into a frown as she helplessly plugged her ears and attempted to block out the strong, harsh voice that was currently making itself at home in her head. Hah, like plugging her ears would help. Of course, she was reasonable enough to understand that the voice really was coming from her mind, but natural instinct compelled her to continue shoving her fingers in her ears in an already failed attempt at making it stop.
What the heck? What is this?!
A few of her classmates turned their heads toward her, throwing questioning glances at the stressed, overworked redhead as she let out a frustrated growl, oblivious to their questioning gazes. The knuckles on her doodled-on hands were turning white as she pressed her fingers harder into her ears, shutting her brown eyes tight.
Am I going crazy?
“Please, shut up.” Nell said pleadingly, and her voice was low enough so that only she could hear herself speak, desperate and frustrated.
“Shut up? Why would I do that? I’m bored, and you’re taking an important test. That means you get to entertain me.”
It really was happening again. The voice in her head was talking for the fifth time this week, and it was only Monday. It had presented itself to her quite presumptuously one day a few weeks ago, declaring itself as ‘Isa’ and alerting her that it would be using her head as a permanent residence until she decided to do something about it. It was obviously surprising and quite unnerving, but Nell has gone continuing to believe the theory that somebody had spiked her water bottle with LSD. Or something.
Moreover, the voice refused to listen to her questions, assuring Nell that her hallucinatory voice was quite stubborn and evidently unyielding to requests. It had stayed, appearing from time to time, frustrating Nell as it attempted to make small talk; commenting on the weather and how bored she was.
She's really pissing me o- Wait, she? Great, now I'm calling it a she - that's almost like acknowledging that the freaky voice exists. Ugh.
Continuing to ignore the voice, which was currently rambling on about how mean Nell was, the redhead cautiously unplugged her ears, tensing her shoulders and gripping her pencil tightly as she scribbled down a few complex-looking math formulas into the blank of question number eighty-six. Just a few more questions left, and she could leave here, and rip her hair out while screaming curses at the voice in her head.
Great. I really have gone crazy.
Getting across half the school to reach her dorms was usually a breeze for Nell, and she could spend the time walking pondering something or trying to ignore the voice, but today, as the end of the SAT's, the hallways were crowded and bustling, filled with cheering students preparing for parties and congratulating each other. The trip through the school was certainly difficult, if not impossible, to manage in under an hour, but Nell wove expertly through the crowd, her small figure slipping through without notice from the celebrating high school seniors. Not many really payed attention to her anyways, even if it was any other day; her frail appearance and naturally buoyant demeanor didn't fit well with the school of football jockeys, cheerleaders, and overworked geniuses, and her financial situation wasn't of any help to her popularity either; her crumpled, secondhand uniform screaming “Look here, my parents are poor!”, and her schoolbag and books hardly anything to brag about. Of course, she wouldn't complain. Her hardworking, loving parents worked three jobs week after week in order to manage to send her a few hundred dollars a month for tuition and food. Nell worked three jobs as well, spending every waking moment juggling her schoolwork and underpaid handy-woman jobs as a coffee-shop attendant, waitress, and personal seamstress.
The girl had just circumvented a particularly large, happy trumpeter when her dorm appeared ahead of her, an air of seriousness permeating through the open windows. No sane student would possibly be spending their time at their dorm right after testing. Ignoring stares, Nell just pushed her way through the remaining crowd, giving a silent thanks to God for the situation. That was a few seconds less of pushing through bodies that she had to deal with, and more time for her to relax. As she stepped foot in the doorway, her patience ran out and her calm pace turned into a brisk run, speeding along the whitewashed halls, eager to get back 'home'. Her roommate payed no attention to her as she jumped through the doorway, not bothering to turn her green-streaked head towards Nell even for a scornful, laughing glare - the girl was a raver, she wasn't even at her dorm ninety percent of the time, leaving Nell practically the whole room to do as she pleased, with no worries towards the other's belongings.
A loud, squeaky creak resounded through the room as Nell flung herself onto her old, rickety bed, sighing in relief and enjoying her silence as the voice in her mind remained silent for just a little bit. Maybe.. it was being nice? The voice, deciding to take notice of somebody's needs (other than it's own), and letting Nell have just a smidget of warmth and comfort in her life again? The silence comforted her, she lay with the books and junk on her bed pressing hard into her back, her eyes staring up at the leaky whitewashed ceiling, her mind forming pictures out of the dirty stains. There was the cute little dog-like splotch, made by that little dabble of mold connected to the brown water stain... and the brocken paintbrush, and the..
“AGH! This iss sooo annoying!”
Despair, despair as the voice screamed in Nell's mind, it seemed that the cavalier attitude of the girl had worn off, left with pure, raw, anger and insolence at being ignored. Her normal life really was shattered, shattered, by the stupid, stupid, stupid hallucination. Time to enter insanity.
“Um.. what do you want.. um.. voice?” She was talking to it. Omigosh. Omigosh. She was conversing with the crazy hallucinatory voice. Maybe it would help if she spoke to it rationally. Maybe she was going crazy, and needed to confront her insanity in order to appease it. The idea sounded stupid even in her mind. But no, the voice just had to continue speaking, and respond to her stupid idea. Omigosh.
“Oooh, so you've decided to pay attention? I feel loved!” Now the tint of sarcasm in the voice rose to the surface, and, no matter how crazy she thought she was, Nell couldn't help feeling guilty about ignoring the voice, no matter how much pain it has caused her this past month.
“Um... yeah..” Now this wasn't awkward or anything. The redhead was sitting on her bed, talking to herself. Did they have cameras in the rooms? Nell wouldn't feel particularly good about herself if her conversation with the voice was recorded, or, worse, distributed. But, nevertheless, she sat calmly, awaiting the reply of the voice inside her head.
The seconds ticked by, and Nell waited, fingers tapping against the worn bedspread. Oh, definetly, the voice chose a great time to be silent. Now convinced of her own insanity, she proceeded to bite her lip in consideration, meekly asking the air, “Why aren't you talking?”
A few more seconds, and Nell swore that she could hear a very sarcastic voice snickering in delight, receiving pleasure from the show of attention. But no voice came. It was quite, quite unnerving to hear that insolent laugh, while Nell was doing her best to cooperate with the crazy hallucination and receiving absolutely no positive results.
More time passed, at least an hour, every few minutes Nell trying again, saying sorry, pleading, wondering, asking the voice to talk, but still the silence continued. After a while, fatigue washed over the girl, and she, already starting to get annoyed with the stoically silent voice, angrily made one last statement before changing swiftly and flicking off her light switch, letting her head drop onto the pillow and a fitful, angry sleep overtake her.
“And I actually thought I might be special.”
WEEK 8
Actually, Nell considered herself quite the stubborn personality. When she latched onto an idea, she was more than reluctant to accept it, and she was not in any way flexible or a pushover, as her meek voice and gentle appearance would suggest. The was just introspective, uncomfortable with people. But her ideas were her life.
So it was understandable that she was very, very irked about succumbing to the voice and, after all her effort, receiving no response as a reward. Yet, when she changed her mind, she became just as stubborn as she was before, and now she spent most of her free time speaking gently to the voice or doing any kind of thing that would aggravate it and provoke it into talking. Because she was sticking to her ideals, and much to stubborn to change her mind again. But... it occurred to her at times that maybe, maybe she did just want to be special, and the short sentence she said a little bit ago wasn't just a bit of junk drawn from her imaginative mind. But then again, she was too content with life, her personality too shy and convoluted to want anything more from her existence.
Maybe the change was a bit dramatic, from ignoring the voice completely to dedicating her time to getting it to speak, but that was just the type of person that Nell considered herself to be. A person who could, if needed, make dramatic changes.
“Eh..don't get me wrong, I still think that you're a hallucination and that I'm going crazy.. but...”
She was on her bed again, laying down, hair splayed over her eyes and staring at the ceiling, wallowing in her own denied loneliness while she talked to herself – or to “her” voice.
“What if.. what if I said I was sorry?”
It wasn't because she wanted somebody to talk to. No, no, she was quite comfortable with the people in her class, she was just a bit too self-conscious about her social skills to speak to any of them.
“Hah. You're a persistent little kiddie aren't you?”
The pale brown eyes widened, either in joy or in shock, as the voice, sounding as cavalier and self-satisfied as ever, resounded again in her head. What had made the thing talk? Maybe it was tired? Bored? Deciding to accept the not-completely-heartfelt apology?
“Yep yep, at least you're stubborn. I kinda go for stubborn people, plus being quiet made me really really angry last week. At least I wasn't ignored. Heh. I win, I got you to apologize!”
If anything, Nell was perceptive. No matter how horrid her people skills, she could pick up that there was at least a bit of relief and joy at the apology behind the mask of egotistical motives. Maybe. Never know, maybe she was wrong.
“Y-yeah. I guess.”
“Don't get boring on me now. You were pretty entertaining earlier!!”
Probably because I didn't realize anybody was listening. But, really. How was she supposed to respond to this?
“So, um, Isa. Since now I've confronted my hallucinatory voice, shouldn't my insanity or whatever dissipate in light of my self-understanding?”
She almost laughed at how stupid she sounded, ranting to her little crazy section of brain about how her sanity should be restored peacefully. Really, she almost did laugh, she cold feel the little giggle bubbling out of her throat, before she was interrupted.
Apparently, Isa didn't think it was funny. Her voice was cold as a stone when she spoke, laced with anger.
“You think I'm a hallucination.”
“...I'm wrong? Nothing else is possible.” Her giggle had vanished quickly, voice quavered a bit on the last word, a tinge of fear added to the uncertainty.
“I'm going to show you something.”
“W-what?! I don't need to see anything.”
Nell shifted nervously, running her hands along the bedspread, and her eyes flickered side to side meaninglessly as she continued listening.
“Damn you. I, I spent two months. Two months, in solitude, talking to you, trying hard to get to to accept me, and you, you think I'm a goddamn hallucination?!”
She was raging, screaming, all calm composition lost, all of that charming, almost enchanting calm, self-confident demeanor gone in a second. Arms shaking, Nell bit her lip hard, bringing her hands up to her face as her body quaked, started by the sudden, shrill scream that echoed around the inside of her mind.
It didn't even seem like the despair was hers, she didn't understand why it would be brought on by the girl... but...Oh god. Let it stop, please, please God. Isa may be quiet now, but the scream kept bouncing around, repeating itself, the raw despair making unneeded guilt wash away all thoughts that the thing was a mere trick of the mind.
Let it stop.
“I'm sorry!!”
The scream of words was almost as shrill and Isa's was only a few seconds before, and this time is was filled with a frantic, panicking, quavering fear. The scream of anger had shaken her to no extent.
“Then let me show you.”
How had she done that? The previously shrill, raging voice had transformed back into that smooth, slick, roughly accented tone. She was calm so fast, while Nell's mind continued to spin with a combination of guild and panic, her body shaking and tears threatening to spill from her eyes. That scream had been so unnerving, so unreasonably, impossibly, horridly unnerving.
She almost didn't blame herself for blacking out. It was only natural, the stress and the impending thought of insanity combined with her very frail body and malnourished, fatigued senses.
The last thing that flashed before her eyes as the darkness moved upon her was a spin of lime green and a pair of dazzlingly angry brown eyes.
Life's courses
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Heehee..
Eheh.. long time no post, eh. Told you I wouldn't be consistant.
Posted by Isathara at 4:10 PM 0 comments


