This might be the only chapter in the story that's from a first person point of view. Depending on how I feel as the story progresses, the rest could possibly be, and remain, in third person. I'm also considering this chapter a test run. I want to see how well it is received before I continue.
I'm also borrowing material from both games, but changing and altering them.
WARNING: The following chapter contains mention of unstable mentality, thoughts of suicide, thoughts of murder, and graphic descriptions of self-harm.
I hear them.
Every second of every day, I hear them.
Especially when it's quiet.
The voices whisper to me when it's silent. Growing louder and louder.
I used to listen to them.
I was never an "okay" kid. My mother was abusive, my father was dead, and my step-furher was no better than my mother. They'd take turns telling me how I'd never amount to anything, I was a pathetic daughter, and I would always be a waste of space to everyone.
The voices started just after my dad died. I was fourteen. It was a huge blow to me. To my mentality. And to my life. My father was the nicest person I'd ever known. He wasn't oblivious to my mom's abusive nature, but... There's only so much you can do with an alcoholic.
After every episode with my mother, my dad, William, would take me out for ice cream. We would go to my favorite joint and I would order the same thing every time. Cotton candy ice cream with pop rocks and chocolate syrup. Fucking diabetes in a cone. After that we would go to the lighthouse. William knew I loved to watch the waves crash against the cliff side. How the sun and its reflection would seem to meet as one on the horizon.
He would always tell me he was sorry. I didn't have to ask what for. I knew. He'd tell me how, as soon as he could catch my mom sober, he'd have her sign the divorce papers hidden under his suits in the box in the back of the closet and win custody over me in court. I would ask how much longer. It was always the same answer.
"Not much longer."
And now it's not at all.
He went out one day to pick my mom up from the grocery store. She found out about the divorce papers somehow (I swear, I didn't tell her) and tried to put more of an effort into being a good mom. So she went grocery shopping. Whatever went wrong with her getting home the same way she got out there, she needed to be picked up. Dad said he would. And he left.
Next thing I knew, there were police knocking on my door, my mother with them in tears telling me that my father was killed in a car crash.
Admittedly, I'd starting hearing the voices before that. But that moment really ticked them off. I'm not schizophrenic or anything. I don't hear the voice of God telling me to kill every impure woman on this earth to save humanity. I don't hear voices telling me to kill my family. No. I don't hear those kinds of voices.
I hear my voices.
See? There you go thinking I'm crazy before I explain myself. The best way to explain it would to compare it to hats. Yes, hats. I'm still not crazy. Just a bit, but that's besides the point. Everyone has a different collection of hats that they wear in different circumstances. You act opposite with your friends than you would with your boss, right? Right. That's how my voices work. Each voice is a different version of me.
One voice usually speaks louder than the others. He's been around the longest. Someone close to me gave me the idea to name him Thirio. "Beast" in Greek. Because that's exactly what he is. Bloodthirsty, lustful, demanding. He talks the most and he's the loudest.
I know what you're thinking again. Why is Thirio a 'he'? That's a little hard to explain. I always heard a male voice whenever he spoke to me. Being genderfluid, it didn't seem any stranger than hearing voices in my head at all.
He came around sometime when I was twelve. He was the result of so much built up aggravation, anger, and hatred. Way more than any child should be able to hold or be allowed to. It was because of my mother's abusive nature that it grew so much so fast. I had a lot of self control. He would tell me to do things, but I was stronger than him. For a while at least.
There were times when I would be sitting with my back against the washing machine in the garage, scared out of my mind and muttering to myself about how I'd "make them all pay for what they did to me" while clutching a kitchen knife.
Yeah. I was pretty fucked up.
You know how people tell you not to name a stray animal or you'll end up attached to it? That's how I felt about Thirio. Even though I wouldn't get the name for him for another five years, give or take a couple, I referred to him as "He/Him" or "the monster". That was my way of naming him. I didn't become attached to him the same way you would be to a fluffy bunny, though. It was much deeper, and darker, than that.
Thirio would tell me things, things like "the blades want to kiss your skin". I... didn't know at the time what that meant, exactly. Not until I gave in and listened to him. This was one thing my father never found out about. I couldn't stand to tell him that I was cutting myself. I had taken the blades from my sharpener and found myself amazed at how easily it was to pierce my skin. It wasn't until later on that the stinging of my cuts caught up with me that I cried over my mistake. And yet, it didn't stop there.
I wanted so badly for it to end. I begged myself to gain the courage to give in to the sweet release of death. This was driving me insane. I would glare at myself in the mirror and tell myself all the things my mother would tell me after she returned to alcoholism following dad's death. I was weak. No one could ever love me. I couldn't do anything right.
When I was fifteen, my mom met her now current husband and my step-douche. He came off as a nice guy at first. I thought I'd be able to get along with him. But David was a full grown army brat. Veteran, to be specific. He played no games and gave no fucks. I figured that, because of this, he'd be able to help my mom give up her drinking and be a good mother again.
Of course, I was wrong.
He blamed me for everything whenever something went wrong in the house. He'd say how my mother was "sick" and it was my job to maintain the house while she recovered. He thought I was fucking stupid or something. Sick is the kind of word you use when talking to a five year old and you can't explain what alcoholism is to them because they probably wouldn't understand. I was fifteen and had been watching my mother deteriorate every day. I knew she wasn't sick.
The only time I could escape my personal hell was in school. Most kids my age despised school and hated going there. But me? I loved that I had that excuse to get away from my house. I went to an arts school, which was the best thing about it. My art was Visual Arts. You know, drawing, sketching, painting. All of that was a doorway to my quieter state of mind. I had my own private collection made up of drawings that represented my darker thoughts. I never allowed anyone to see them. Why would I? So they could think I was insane or homicidal and lock me away? No thank you.
Some of my drawings featured Thirio, which I would never admit to anyone if they saw them. I'd pass it off as a ghost I saw as a kid or some bullshit like that. But never would I tell them that it was the monster that possessed the first voice in my head.
You heard me right. The first voice. You'll meet the others. Eventually.
Like I said, Thirio has been by my side for years. There were plenty of times I begged to a God that I'm not sure I believe in to rid me of him, or rid me of this earth. The world didn't need another potential maniac, right? I just knew I was going to become another statistic on some detective's white board. No one needed that. I didn't want that. So I prayed. I begged. I pleaded. And his voice was the only one that would answer.
"So pathetic... You think you can get rid of me?"
No. I didn't think I could. But I wanted to believe it was possible. For once in my life, I actually wanted to believe that there was something I could do to help myself. Was I wrong? Yes. Did I care? Not really. Well, in a way I did. But it didn't make all the difference. Thus, I lived with his voice speaking to me from the back of my mind for years.
It wasn't until my junior year of high school that he started to quiet down. And that was because I'd fallen in love with someone. Someone a grade above me, but positively beautiful in almost every way. Or, at least that's what I thought at the time. I wouldn't say I put her on a pedestal, but I did admire her. This... "love" would last for several months.
Her name was Rachel Amber. She was in the theater department of Blackwell Academy, the school I attended. It was the closest she'd get to being a model at the time. That's how she put it. She could've been a model, too. But her acting was great. I remember attending Blackwell's rendition of The Tempest, where she played Prospera. You know, the female version of Prospero. She was amazing.
We'd only hung out a few times but I valued any moment that kept Thirio at bay. I took every second of blissful silence I could get. Of course, I never told Rachel all that she did for me mentally but I appreciated it deeply. She could never know, anyway. She'd just be another name on the list of people that already think I'm crazy. They're not wrong, but I'd never confirm it if I didn't have to.
Unfortunately, like every good thing that comes my way, Rachel left me. Well, she didn't leave me. She was never mine. In my mind I saw our possible future together. I saw us going on dates, acting like goofballs, having mind-blowing sex... But all the effort I'd put in to try and turn it into a reality was burned at the stake. She "found herself" in a guy named Frank. That's how she put it, anyway. And I was happy for her. Still, that didn't keep Thirio from coming back stronger than ever. His voice echoing louder in my thoughts than it had before.
"You don't deserve happiness. You'll only destroy it."
That's what I was doomed to believe. It was almost like what Hannah Baker told Clay. I would ruin anything that showed love to me. I was - I am - too self destructive to find someone, something, that could handle everything I kept inside. Thirio was acting like he was protecting me. He wasn't. I knew that, and he knew that I knew that. Still, once Rachel was no longer an option, I started to see some of the ways as to why our relationship would not work. Even if I didn't have voices in my head, even if I was a normal kid with a normal life, it wouldn't of worked. Rachel wasn't someone you could tie down if she didn't want to stay down. She didn't want to with me. So I had to let her go. I never stopped loving her, though. I never will.
Anyway, I digress.
I went for months trying to find another outlet or distraction that would prevent me from losing my mind. I only had Thirio by my side, and he wasn't even on my side. I lived with the weight of my love for Rachel until July when I finally confessed to her. In that moment, it didn't matter to me that she couldn't be with me. It didn't matter that I was digging my own grave. It didn't matter that she was already with someone. I needed to let it out so I wouldn't have something else dragging behind me for the rest of my life. It took a week of on and off conversation to tell her. Of course she didn't feel the same. She told me she already kinda knew, too. I know I didn't make it seem like some big secret; I was pretty obvious about it. I just wanted to solidify it.
Since then, we've become better friends. And she's been there for me when she can be. But she doesn't have the same affect on Thirio and I as she did before. My affections towards her, albeit never disappearing entirely, were waning. And it took about three-four months before they started doing that. I went into my senior year at Blackwell with a thunder cloud raging over my head. Building the lightning until it was ready to strike. And strike it did.
Just... not in the way you're thinking. Or maybe it's exactly what you're thinking and I'm a jackass for assuming your train of thought.
The lightning struck on October 7th. It may be weird that I remember the exact date, but would it be weirder to not remember the day I met my soulmate?
Whoops. Spoiler much? Don't worry. That's not the biggest thing to come out of this story. In fact, it gets worse before it gets better. But that's just about everyone's experience, isn't it? Then there would be no such thing as "happy endings" or "happily ever afters". If you even believe in those things. I didn't. At first.
I've probably rambled on enough, huh? You want me to get on with my story. Alright, you got it.
And I don't say this often enough to the people I care about, let alone someone I barely know, but... Be careful. Okay? There's gonna be a lot of dark shit that I'm gonna tell you. So please. Be careful.
Here we go.
And that's where I'm gonna have to (unfortunately) end this part of the story. I know I should probably share more, but I don't want to get too into the onslaught of what this story is to bring. I'm sure you guys can handle a bit of suspense x3.
I'll give this chapter a week minimum to see the kind of response it gets. I'm still dealing with college, so don't be surprised if there isn't an update for a while. That's why my other stories haven't been updated. But I am working on them. Swear.
Last, if you've read Speak: Teaser, Thirio is not the same 'he/him" as the unknown character in that one. You'll find out who he, and the other voices are, soon. Slowly but surely.
CaptainVampireKing awaaaay!