The voice within

Jodie sits on her bed, her back resting against the dull grey wall of her bedroom, staring out across the room at the imaginary dot on the back of the cupboard door. She always sits still now; she knows that escape from David is impossible. She doesn’t quite know where he came from, but is sure that he has been there for a long time hovering in the back of her mind, making his presense known from time to time.

Ever since Jodie was a child, there had been something odd about her. She would occasionally be caught talking to herself in the playground, or violently shaking her head from side to side as if trying to block something out. Teachers were slightly worried about her strange behaviour, but put it down to her age. After all, what child doesn’t have an imaginary friend?

She wasn’t someone who confronted her problems, had no real friends, and had always been the timid, silent type. As time passed, Jodie had subconsciously been creating David, her hyper-aggressive alter ego. Consumed with all the pent up rage and hatred Jodie had buried for so long. He sort revenge.

David’s voice had become stronger and more demanding over the years, but had always disappeared after making him-self known. Two weeks ago Jodie awoke in a cold sweat, shudders wracking her body as the sound of David murmuring within her head continuously droned on for the first time in her life. Now, there was nothing left but to sit still, and listen.

A tired, defeated smile slowly crosses her pale weary face, as David murmurs his displeasure at being locked inside her body. Her smile grows painfully large, as her dry, chapped lips crack into hundreds of tiny splits, and drops of blood rush to the surface of her wounds. Seconds pass, and just as her face looks like it is about to break in two she begins to laugh hysterically. A laugh full of such sadness, but crossed between the helpless screams of a wounded animal, and that of a terrified, insane young woman, as she desperately tries to shake off the voice running through her head.

As quickly as it began her laughter dies down, and silence once again fills the small dormitory. As Jodie’s parents had given up on her a long while back, she had been admitted to ‘lakeside lodge’ a centre for teenagers with behavioural problems, so the outburst rose no suspicion in the minds of the other patrons staying at the centre. Jodie slowly rises from the bed and steps lightly over to her desk bathed in gentle sunlight from the window above, overlooking the beautiful fields backing onto the lodge. As the suns raise wash over her delicate features, she realises that this is the closest she has been to the outside world in a long time. Her once deep golden tan had become ghostly pale, and her beautiful honey-brown hair, had been transformed into a dark ashy colour that hung limply around her face.

Jodie slumps down onto the old faded recliner, and opening her diary to a fresh page, she writes:

Entry 1, 2nd June 1982: Taking the carers advice, I have agreed to start a diary to store my thoughts and feelings. I cannot rely on the people around me to understand what is happening inside my head, they try and tell me that I have created the voice, and others don’t even believe me, claiming that I’m nothing more than a troublesome child desperate for attention, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Jo

“ Lunch, people, get down here now,” screeched ...

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Jodie slumps down onto the old faded recliner, and opening her diary to a fresh page, she writes:

“ Lunch, people, get down here now,” screeched Laura, the managing assistant, dead on 1:15 every single day without fail. She was a middle-aged sickly looking woman, with long greasy jet-black hair. It was always scraped tight into a bun, pulling her skin so taut that it successfully stretched out the wrinkles beginning to show beneath her eyes.

Jodie closes her diary and makes her way over to the bedroom door, where she takes a deep breath, and slowly opens it. When every one has passed she darts along the corridor, but abruptly stops when she reaches the corner at the end of the hall. Peering around the side, Jodie looks over towards the spiral staircase and watches the flocks of people shoving each other aside as they all dash down to get their seats for lunch. When the bustle had died down, and silence had returned, she finally turns the corner, and carefully makes her way down the flight of stairs towards the huge dining room.

She stops to have a brief conversation with the manager Sarah McFarland, just to tell her that she has started the diary as she had promised, then walks into the hall. She is the last to enter, as usual, and everyone is already beginning to eat. Jodie never worries about where to sit. The single seat by the grand piano that stands proud in the furthest right-hand corner of the hall, had never been touched by anyone but herself, as it was a place shrouded in shadow, far from the crowd. Below the piano was a small photograph headed “The embrace.”

It depicts a man and a woman standing on an open little hill that overlooks a small lake. The black depths of the water beneath are highlighted by the full moon that hung low in the sky, creating silver ripples on the lake’s surface. The soft moonlight illuminates everything around them as they cling to each other in a lovers embrace from under the forest canopy, creating ghostly shadows and shrouding the world around them with an ethereal beauty.

From the moment Jodie first saw it she had been drawn into it’s depths, and would often stare at the peaceful expressions etched upon the lover’s faces. For as long as she could remember Jodie had always been bound to David, and had never experienced such emotion. Her eyes would often fill with tears at the thought of continuing her life as she had and living without happiness. When she looked into the painting, she could almost imagine herself there, lost within a world of love, and comfort. A place she knew David couldn’t follow.

From then on her legs would always steer her to that seat, and there she would sit at every meal, gazing up at the photo for the next five years. But not today. She picks up her cheese roll, and can of Pepsi from the canteen and turns. Alex Jefferson, an 18-year-old bully who loves to provoke fights, obscures her view and stares blankly down at her waiting for a reaction. David whispers to her, also trying to get a reaction, and for a few seconds Jodie stands still, fighting an inner battle she knows she will soon lose. She manages to ignore him, and only mumbles a quiet “Sorry.” As she steps aside for him, her seat comes into view.

A loud “CLATTER” sounds throughout the hall, and everyone turns towards Jodie’s tray, now spread out across the floor. They look at Jodie and follow her gaze, which lands on a small boy called Jake, only about twelve, who had just arrived to Lakeside early this morning. He was sitting by the grand piano in the furthest right-hand corner of the hall. Mumbles fill the room, as the boy sat oblivious, too busy eating his lunch on the small table. Jodie stands frozen, staring at him, and David once again comes into play.

“Well well well, look what we have here Jo. You know what you have to do. Can’t have him sitting there.” David taunts. “He shouldn’t be there should he; we need to teach him a lesson. Let me take care of him. We need to stop him. Let me out. Do it Jo.” David continues to push her towards breaking point, until finally she snaps.

Jodie lets down her guard as she considers what David had said, he takes the opportunity, and Jodie feels herself losing grip as David takes control of her body. She stares helplessly out of her own eyes, locked at the back of her mind, unable to move or speak, and is forced to watch David as he prowls over to where the boy is eating. Like a hunter after his prey, keeping his eyes fixed on Jacks head; he grabs it and, with an evil grin, slams it against the hard wood of the tabletop. A stomach-churning crunch is echoed through out the now silent hall, as Jack’s nose is broken. David continuously slams Jakes head against the mahogany, staining the dark wood with blood, revelling in the desperate cries of the child, but failing to hear the four orderlies quickly advancing on him from all sides. As they reach him, two of the staff members try to pull David’s fingers from the boy’s scalp, while the others try to immobilize him.

When he finally lets go from exhaustion, he is pulled to his feet and carried out of the hall by two of the carers, while the others help the child. Jodie desperately tries to drive David back inside, and gain control once again before turning her head to see what damage he had done. She is flooded with guilt as she spots Jack on the floor, face covered with blood. She looks down at her blood stained hands, and feels bile rising into her mouth as she start vomiting. The orderlies release her, and she slumps to the floor. After emptying her stomach, she wildly looks around confused, searching for some reassurance.

She turns to one of the carers, Mark Williams, the first person she spoke to at the lodge, and someone she had learnt to trust over the years. The warmth reflected in his eyes had given her the courage to speak to him in the first place, but looking at him now, there was not a hint of compassion, just revulsion. His cold, hard gaze pierces straight through her, as he looks upon her face with disgust at what he had witnessed. Jodie finally brakes down, bursting into tears at what she had become, and what she lad lost as a result. She is lifted to her feet once more, and carried out of the hall to the safe room, passing through the lobby and the disappointed faces of the manager and her assistant.

“Doesn’t it break your heart, Sarah? Such violence” Laura sighs.

With a voice full of sorrow Sarah Replies “It's not the fits and rages that break my heart Laura. It’s the moments of lucidity, like when I spoke to her earlier. When I saw what could have been, if things were different.”

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Entry 2, 3rd June 1982: I need help. I feel myself slipping with every passing second, and I can’t help but think that this thing will soon replace me completely. I wonder how long I’ll be in here, with no company but my diary, and this thing inside my head. The only reason I have this is so they can recover it later to examine what I have wrote. That was the whole point of making me start one wasn’t it? Well, a bit late if I may say so, there won’t be much of me left to put in this diary soon. I need help. Jo

The door is finally opened, and Jodie is escorted back to her bedroom. She walks in silence looking up at the cheap, plastic clock on the wall, which reads 11:15. Eight long hours had passed. She walked expressionless as they lead her into her room, and close the door behind her, saying nothing as they walk off back down the corridor. She drops to the floor, as she takes in the view before her. All of her clothes, papers, and bedcovers were strewn across her floor, and all of her draws had been searched for clues of the outburst this afternoon. She sits thinking, her back leaning against her door. **The answer isn’t hidden in my room. God, do you think I would still be here if it were that simple. They are inside my head, swirling around, threatening to engulf me. This thing is gaining more control, and it won’t stop until there is nothing left. **

She scans the floor again, taking in the wreck that is her room. Desperately trying to ignore David telling her what she should do to those who searched her room. Jodie brings her hands up to covers her ears, as though the voice was coming from around her, and pleads David to stop. He doesn’t, only continues with a newfound energy. She can feel him braking down the last of her barriers, and that she cannot hold him for much longer. Jodie knows this is a war she cannot win, and looks down at the diary still clutched in her hands. She smiles ironically, and turns to a clean page. Can’t leave without an explanation.

Entry 3, 3rd June 1982: He’s relentlessly, taunting, teasing, and degrading me at every opportunity. Though no one can see or hear him, I am surrounded by his presence. From my subconscious he roams my mind, and in sleep my constant nightmares are filled with his desires to torment, and punish those around him. Whispering in my ear, polluting my mind with thoughts of indescribable agony, and images of people lying slaughtered at my feet. I try to outrun its grasp, but my legs soon weary and I have no choice but to submit to the voice within. Jo

As she gently closes her diary and lays it on her desk, she lets a single tear spill over her cheek, and silently drop to the leather case of her diary. She takes one last glance around her room before opening her door, and tiptoeing down the hall towards the staircase. As she reaches the first step, she closes her eyes, and remembers back to the photo above the grand piano, standing proud in the furthest right-hand corner of the hall. She memorizes every detail she can, and freezes that one memory of the two lovers. Keeping her eyes shut, there is a whisper of a smile before she leans forward, and falls.

As the sound of her tumbling down the stairs reaches the ears of everyone else, Jodie has already fallen to the foot of the spiral staircase, and lays silently, eyes still closed, with a small smile upon her lips. Her heart slowly stills, and the crowd who had gathered looks on as Jodie finally stops running.

When Jodie opens her eyes she is in shadow, but there is moonlight above her. She is in the embrace of another, standing on an open little hill that overlooks a small lake. She leans her head on the shoulder of her lover, still holding her smile, and feels no unhappiness, just peace. She surveys the surrounding over her lovers shoulder, and slowly raises her head…………… Only to look straight into the face of David, cruelly smiling down at her.

“Thank you Jo”

By Emma Raynsford 10D