Penitence & Therapy pt7
“Too soon.”
The voice buzzed across an absolute blackness of the kind that physicists only theorise to exist. The kind of darkness that cannot truly exist in real space and so only exists in the minds of those filled with a gibbering terror at the nadir of the mental trough they find themselves in. The kind of darkness that becomes the totality of existence for a suicide.
“Nonsense,” came a reply sounding of slate dragged against gravel, mortification, and centuries of undisturbed decay “there are seven to be taken by seven in the seventh month. We have done it annually since His Lordship straddled Earth and brought disharmony among men.”
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A third chipped in, speaking in a voice that demanded, created, assumed order in perfect gear driven lockstep. The words exact, precise and measured in a way that no human could utter but the best of computer simulacra could do charmingly.
“The. Seventh. Agrees. With. The. First.”
“You always agree with The First” sniveled a voice. It bespoke disparagement, as it the speaker was born with a sneer that became a smirk when they tried to smile. A voice befitting a pimp, or a gameshow host, or perhaps a career politician that desired powered but would never quite achieve it. The type of voice that would prefer to smash a tower down so that none may have it at all rather than possibly share it with even one other. “Always. Well, Seventh, you can stick it. We each have one to take.”
“Correct. But. The. Fifth. Takes. Out. Of. Order.” came the impossibly perfect reply.
“YES!” the snivel had somehow become a bellow “I am aware! I SHOULD HAVE BEEN NEXT!” the shrieking voice was like a gale. It tore at the ears of those who would have listened, if any could, but for the other Six. A volume that spoke of continents buckling, planets colliding, stars going nova.
“Ha!” Came the gravel slate voice of The Fifth “I merely took your vessel, yet now you seek to usurp my role! You know no bounds to your own, you wretched worm!”
“He. Lacks. My. Quality.”
Laughter, sickening and mad, issued forth from the darkness from six voices.
“Stop!” Cried the voice of slate and gravel and grave. “He listens to us!”
Harvey woke with a start.
He had an oddly disquieted feeling, the sort that only comes from a dream so surreal that the mind simply refuses to accept any of it, neither storing the tiniest bit of sound or imagery as it could drive the owner of that mind insane if they were to recall it. But it does not stop the nagging sensation that there was something that should have been, must be, cannot be recalled.
The sensation worried him deeply, and in a small way, angered him.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed before looking over at the clock.
A hazy, blur stood out on the dresser with a menacing red glare coming out of it, like some sort of projected gateway into the eye of some lower plane of existence that only allowed through the most baleful of light. Glasses, he thought to himself as his hand scuttled over the bedside table like a demented fleshy crab, one of its legs torn off, going by instinct to find its slightly concaved perspex prey. His hand struck a bottle, pausing momentarily as it crashed to the floor far too loudly in a sound that was barely audible at all. Zantac spilled over the floor, each little pill gathering a fine patter of dust and lint, rolling into small need little balls, all of which would no doubt run and hide under the bed come the morning light to create a breeding ground for mites and dust bunnies in whatever strange breeding patterns they took.
Shit.
He found the edge of the frames, and finger tips smudging the lenses, managed to bring them to his face without even bothering to undo the arms on either side and cram them over his face like some kind of protective shield.
With a satisfying pop of the neck, Harvey turned his head back to the dresser. The Hateful red belching of light came into a lens flared focus, beams of red stabbing out in random directions along the lines the oil from his own fingers had left over the lenses.
Thirteen after midnight.
Shit, I’ve got to get my head shrunk, because this is too fucked up. I guess I might start seeing the office councilor or something.
He threw his head back and closed his eyes and the darkest of greys, tinged with greens and reds and purples that his brain sought to put behind his eye lids for its own strange amusement, was all his world became other than the sound.
A high, monotonous C# whining that slowly began to dip and twirl like a demented piper was all he could hear before he drifted off again to a dreamless void that lasted no time at all.
You might also like to read:
- Penitence & Therapy pt8
- Penitence & Therapy pt6
- Penitence & Therapy pt5
- Penitence & Therapy pt4
- Penitence & Therapy pt3
Tags: NaNoWriMo, Penitence & Therapy
