Rae just kept walking. She knew it would be okay if she just kept walking. But deep down she believed that it would never truly be okay.

She had run away from home just a mere hour ago. It was now 12:30 a.m. and Rae was beginning to question her decision. She couldn’t go back though, not after what she had done.

Rae was 15. She would’ve liked to call herself normal, but that was in itself an impossible feat. Rae was mute. Never in her entire life had she uttered one word. And after many years of living without the ability to speak, Rae realized that not once had she ever tried. That left her with so many questions. Was she physically mute beyond her control? Or was her inability to speak just another dementing fathom of her forsaken imagination?

Rae was not only a mute, she was a smart mute. Actually smart doesn’t begin to cover Rae’s intellect. At age 4 she had tested at a genius level I.Q. and despite what all the scientists, doctors, teachers, and psychologists said was possible her I.Q. had only risen since then. Rae was a prodigy despite her condition. She could literally do everything. The only problem was that she didn’t want to. She did not want to be Rae: the girl who could not speak. Rae: the girl who surpasses Albert Einstein in intelligence. Rae: who at age 8, composed over 27 masterpieces on piano, flute, trumpet, violin, and cello. She didn’t even want to be Rae.

After trying for many years to remain in public school, despite her parent’s overbearing wishes, Rae was finally sent to homeschooling when she was in 7th grade. This was devastating to Rae. As her I.Q. grew she noticed herself drawing back, receding into the crevices of her perplexing mind. Going to school with peers was the only thing that kept her engaged. The only thing that made her want to stay here, with us, at some level of consciousness, no matter how meager that might be. At first Rae believed she could manage life without human contact, not counting her parents of course. She just needed to find an outlet for her emotions.

Art. Art was Rae’s passage way to a better life. At least it was better for her. Rae made extraordinary paintings of the things that she saw in her mind’s eye. They were truly beautiful. But once you looked past the glossy veneer of her artwork you then began to see the dark psychological depth that Rae’s paintings encompassed. Soon enough her parents began to notice. Initially, they were shocked and trapped in a state of disbelief. But then as the paintings became clearer to her parents they began to feel scared. Scared of the paintings and where they came from. Scared of Rae. Not knowing what else to do, Rae’s close-minded parents took away her art. They took her paintings, her brushes, her paints, and her canvases. In their delirious state of panic they even took every one of Rae’s pencils and pens. And every scrap of paper. Left with nothing it was then that the voices started.

Rae had always heard voices in her head. For as long as she could remember there were always the voices telling her right from wrong, good from bad. In recent years, though, the voices began to change. Their version of good no longer matched with society’s. Rae began to push the voices away. But the longer she resisted, the stronger they became.

By the time Rae was 15 the voices controlled everything she did. When she ate. What she read. When she bathed. What she wore. The voices consumed her. But Rae saw them in a different light. She saw them as friends, supporters. To her they were the one constant in her life. After being taken out of school Rae was confined to her house which consisted of her, her never-at-home father, and her severely bipolar mother. The voices were always there for her, always there to steer her in the right direction.

Therein lays the problem. Were the voices guiding her in the right direction? Or were they simply manipulating her in order to carry out their own selfish deeds? This is where Rae’s story begins.