Epilogue:

"Miranda!"

The voice was squeaking! She couldn't believe it – that voice had lost it's self-assured, egoistic tone and for the first time since she heard it, for the first time ever, it showed real emotions. The emotion of fear. It was afraid, deeply afraid, as much as she was, when it was talking to her. A smile crossed her lips as she realized – she finally had gotten a hold on it. For the first time ever the fight had taken another direction and she had gained victory, she had defeated the voice.

"What have you done? Good god, girl – what have you done!"

The voice was getting hysterical now and Miranda managed to laugh as she heard the trembling in it. Normally it was her part to tremble and their part to laugh, but the situation had changed. Now, she had finally managed to get a hold on her fear and desperation and had taken them down. She hadn't even believed she was able to do it – she had given up, but she obviously had been wrong to do so.

But she couldn't enjoy her victory after all – something was wrong, something was wrong with her. She felt weak and tired, but that was okay, it had been a hard fight for her. But there was something else – she believed her vision was blurry and she couldn't breathe properly. She didn't feel good – of course she was happy – but physically she felt like she had been hit by a train or something.

But she was happy – for the first time in months she was happy. She had almost forgotten how it felt to have this emotion, had forgotten how wonderful it was to feel like this. She just couldn't believe her luck, couldn't believe she had actually managed to get her life back. From now on she had an own life again – all for herself, never having to fear hearing these voices ever again.

"Miranda! Miranda? You can't do this! You can't treat us like this!"

She pieced a few words together – a sarcastic comment – but it was hard to do so. The words barely left her throat and she felt like something was wrong with her mouth, she felt a warm liquor inside that didn't belong there. But she didn't care – she could take care of that sensation later. Right now she just wished to spit back a sarcastic comment, to do what the voices had been doing to her for such a long time.

"I can do whatever I like and you can't do anything against it. Not any more!"

Miranda felt how she lost her balance, falling to her knees and not even able to hold her weight in that position, she fell to her back, breathing heavily and trying to piece together what was happening to her. She knew something was definitely very wrong, but she couldn't remember what had happened to her. And she didn't want to right now, she only wanted the voices to finally leave.

"Miranda. Girl, we are afraid. You can't do this to us. Please, Miranda, don't do this to us..."

She was unable to answer, to spit back a comment this time. She was too much focused on catching her breath. Why didn't she get air? What was that warm liquor in her throat? Why was her shirt stuck to her skin? And why couldn't she properly see? She had no answers to these questions and still it didn't matter to her – the voice was still there.

"Miranda. Miranda?"

She could hear the voice call her name over and over again and with each time the sound got more quiet and moved further and further away from her. Relief rushed over her as the voice finally died down and she couldn't hear it any more. She couldn't hear anything but silence. Never a night waking up and hearing them ever again, beautiful silence. As relief and joy rushed over her by the thought of that long missed silence, she closed her eyes and everything went black as she breathed her last sigh of relief.

Forever.