Jess and I sat down in the seats that we sat in every day. We placed our lunch trays containing mystery meat that would not be eaten onto the table that was covered in a sticky residue. We noticed our matching disgusted faces and shared a giggle, the most interaction we would probably have the whole lunch. I stuck my earbuds into my ears and it muffled the rumbling sounds of the packed cafeteria. The two of us have never really been social people. I have a hard time making friends because I just never know what the right thing to say is. I think she has a similar problem to me so we just kind of stuck together since we both don’t have anyone else. I used to be able to talk to anyone when I was younger, but I have progressively gotten worse in social situations and being able to go out of my bubble.  So just like every other day, we sit next to each other scrolling through our phones with our earbuds in not talking to each other. I turned my music up so that I wouldn’t be able to hear the loud high schoolers being obnoxious around me. The music rattled through my head and then something caught me off guard. 

“Hey Carmen!” A voice called towards me. It sounded clear as day even through my music was at an excessively loud volume and seemed to echo inside of my head. I pulled out one of my earbuds and looked around the cafeteria with suspicion trying to see who wanted to get my attention. 

“What’s wrong?” Jess asked me with confusion in her voice because I was looking around so frantically.

“I don’t really know, someone called my name really loudly and I’m trying to figure out who did it,” I explained to her.

“Well, maybe they were calling for someone else and you thought they were talking to you,” she offered as an explanation. But I knew that wasn’t right. They called for me right towards me, almost like they were inside my mind. 

“Yeah maybe.” I decided to agree with her because I didn’t want her to think I was going crazy. I took one last glance around the room to make sure no one was looking at me. Around the cafeteria I just saw tables of kids, some talking, some eating, and selective groups of freshmen boys acting crazy, but no one was looking at me. It was probably a stupid prank and I should just forget about it. But something about the way the voice sounded gave me chills down my spine. 

The cafeteria cleared out with the sound of the bell. Jess and I threw away our cold  uneaten lunches and headed towards our next class together. I wasn’t the best student. I try to pay attention and do my work but I have no motivation to do anything. I start to do an assignment or homework and my brain seems to give up on me. So I just sit through class and just try to make it to the end. 

We made it to our classroom and I dropped my bag onto the floor and slumped into the old desk, creaking as I put all of my weight onto it. I never talk to anyone in this class, just Jess when we have to do group work but that’s it. No one ever seems to talk to me either, but for some reason today things weren’t going like they normally do.

“Hey Carmen,” the eerie voice sang to me, the same one from lunch. I looked around the classroom at the rest of the students all looking down at their papers. Trying to ignore it I started on the class work. 

“Don’t ignore me Carmen, I know you can hear me. And you’re going to do everything that I tell you to do,” the chilling voice warned.

My heart was nearly out of my chest and my sweaty hands were gripping my pencil so tight my knuckles turned white as I listened to the voice speak to me. 

“What do you want from me?!” I yelled without giving it any thought and instantly regretted it. The whole class went silent and everyone's judgemental eyes were on me, making my cheeks the brightest red they have ever been and I froze. 

“Miss Edwards I hope you have a good reason for interrupting the class like that.” the teacher spat at me, making me even more scared than all the looks from my classmates.

“Uhh sorry, I guess I was just daydreaming,” I resonated with her, not pleased with my answer but I couldn’t think of any other reason to justify my yelling. The teacher made me scared, but it was nothing like the dread I felt when I realized that no one else in my class heard who ever was speaking to me. 

“Well no more daydreaming in my class, pay attention and do not interrupt again. Do you understand me?” She spoke down to me. 

“Yes Ma’am,” I responded quietly, not really processing what just happened. I met eyes with Jess and she gave me a comforting look, being able to tell that there was something wrong with me. 

The bell rang ending the worst class period that I have ever had, people still giving me weird looks and avoiding me as we all herded towards the door. 

“Hey, what happened in there?” Jess asked me. 

“ I don’t really want to talk about it, I didn’t get much sleep last night so I think that’s just making me a little woozy today,” I lied to her, but there’s no sane way to explain that I heard voices talking to me three times today. She would think that I was crazy just like all the other students already did.

“Okay, well try and get some more sleep tonight because if that happens again, I’m pretty sure you would be getting a detention from that crazy teacher,” she joked. I faked a laugh, too distracted by the voice repeating its words in my head to actually be able to laugh. 

“Yeah I’ll try to get more sleep tonight, thanks. Well I’ll see you tomorrow, hopefully in a better state than I’m in now,” I responded and walked out of the school and began my walk home. It was nice to be done with that day, no more chances for humiliation.  I started walking down the street to my apartment building. The sidewalk was covered in crunchy leaves that I was stomping on giving me some stress relief on the way home. I entered my building, gave a small smile to one of my neighbors and dragged my body up 4 flights of stairs, down the hall, and finally into my family’s apartment. I layed down closing my eyes trying to erase the odd events of the day out of my head. My mind began to drift off to sleep but was brutally awakened by the sound of dance music coming from the people on the other side of the wall to my room. The bass was so loud it made my floor shake and the trinkets I had on my walls fall off the shelves they were on, onto the floor. My fist banged against the shared wall, yelling for them to turn it down. I got no response and there was no change in the volume so I jumped out of bed and marched over there. Approaching the door made the music sound twices as loud. I knocked on the front door with anger until they opened it. As soon as the door opened, the music was gone. Their apartment was silent.
“Can I help you?” My neighbors asked me with annoyance in their voice.

“Yeah, did you just have music playing? Because it was way too loud and you need to turn it down if you put it back on.” I said with more confidence than I have spoken with for a while. 

“Honey, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just got home and was just doing my crossword puzzle in peace until you started banging on the wall.” I could tell in her eyes that she thought I was going insane, and to be honest, I did too.

            “I’m sorry, I guess it was coming from somewhere else then, I didn’t mean to disturb you.” I responded slowly while wondering what was going on inside of my head. The door shut in my face. I walked down the old hallway looking at all of the pale yellow doors and wallpaper peeling off the walls trying to hear any music coming from any of the rooms, just to prove to myself that I’m not going crazy. 

“You’re not crazy,” I heard come from behind me. I whipped my head around and saw no one. My eyes got blurry as they filled with tears and I hurried back to my room feeling anxious that there was someone following me. Even though no one was there. 

I got into my bed, skipping dinner and homework not wanting to be awake to hear anything else. Then that's when the voice got really bad. It whispered things to me for hours and I couldn’t get away from it. It told me horrible things. The raspy dark tone of the voice scared me and the authoritative tone it used made me feel as though it was trying to take control of me, and I had no escape from it. It gave me instructions to do unspeakable things. It ordered me to hurt myself, my family, and my friends in the most gruesome ways. I flinched every time I was told something else. My head felt squeezed under the pillow that I was holding over my ears trying to block out any of the sound I could. It wasn’t working but I couldn't think of any other way to stop it. I spent the night crying and holding the pillow over my head and eventually fell asleep. 

~~~

The hallways were crowded and it gave me anxiety as I heard things from the voice in my head ordering me to start fights with classmates, push them over, stab them with my pencil and to do way worse things. I knew that I couldn't do any of those things, and of course I didn’t want to. But I had to be strong to resist that voice. I would never hurt anyone but I felt the urge to listen . 

“Hey, are you feeling any better today?” I flinched hearing someone talk to me because I haven’t it was the first time hearing a real person's voice. I looked over and saw Jess walking next to me. 

“I mean I guess I’m doing alright. I could be better.” I think she could tell that there was something really wrong with me. I know that it was clear that I got no sleep. My hair was a mess and the bags under my eyes were almost black. I looked over at her and the comforting look on her face made me want to break down. 

“Hey, it’s going to be alright, do you want to talk about what’s going on?” She asked, clearly wanting to know what has been going on with me. 

“I don’t know. I mean I’m not really sure what’s going on.” I said not wanting to tell her that I’ve been hearing voices. She’d probably want to run away from me. Especially if she knew the things that it told me to do to people. 

We walked down the hallway together and I tried to keep some small talk to just keep my mind off of the things going on inside my head. We got to the top of the steps and started to make our way down to our next class.

“Push her down the steps! Do it now!” The voice screamed into my ear leaving a ringing sound behind. 

“DO IT!” it repeated with so much hatred behind the words. I closed my eyes trying to block it out but it kept going on and I could hear Jess behind the violent screams talking about an assignment that is due. My heart was racing and it took everything in me not to act on the words that were being forced on me. 

I heard the voice say those words one more time and my arm lifted up and was placed on her book bag. I looked over at what I was doing and jumped away from her shaking. I looked down the steps and the long fall she would have had and felt instant regret of what I almost did. She looked at me with shock.

“Were you going to push me!?” She yelled at me with fear and confusion in her voice. 

“No it wasn’t like that. You don’t understand!” Trying to explain I sounded psychotic that I was actually going to push her. She ran away from me looking hurt that I was going to do that to her. People stared at me as they passed me sitting on the steps. I waited for the hallway to clear and I felt like my body was holding me down and I couldn’t move. I heard footsteps coming towards me and it made me look up. I saw a silhouette at the bottom of the stairs. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it wondering who was there and what they wanted. I assumed it was a teacher coming to get me. But they didn’t move. I took my eyes off of them for a second and when I looked back they were much closer than they were before. When they got closer I saw that they were dressed in all black, had dark piercing eyes, an angry and rough looking face, and they were so tall. I blinked and rubbed my eyes trying to make sure I was seeing clearly. But when I looked again they were right in front of my face. I could feel their breath on my face and we were looking dead in eachothers eyes. 

“You didn’t do it.” they said to me in the raspy devilish voice that I had been hearing. 

“Who are you?” I barely managed to get out of my mouth because I was shaking so much. 

“It doesn’t matter who I am. All that matters is that you haven’t been listening to me. Now jump.” They ordered.

“What?! I’m not going to ju-”

“DO IT” they interrupted me. And the last thing I remember from that moment was seeing the steps come straight at my face as I fell head first then blacked out. 

~~~

“Beep, Beep, Beep” the machine to my right woke me up and my eyes took a second to adjust to the bright fluorescent lights all around me. I saw my mom sitting in the chair next to me asleep. I had all kinds of needles and tubes stuck in me and a cast on my left arm. My body ached as I tried to sit up. The hospital room was made more comfortable with flowers, balloons from family members spread out around the room. My eyes scanned the room looking at all of my gifts. It was hard to move my head because my neck was so stiff. When I got to the chair on the opposite side of my bed than my mom was on, my heart dropped. I saw the man that made me fall down the steps. 

“AHHHH GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!” I screamed with fear in my voice and my body shaking. My mom shot up looking around the room for what I would be yelling at.
Hey! Stop yelling! What's wrong?” she questioned with concern. I pointed over to the seat at the man dressed in all black. 

“ Who is that? And what is he doing here?” I screamed at her. 

“I don’t kn-” my mom started to say until I interrupted her.

“ That's him! That’s the man that made me jump down the stairs!” tears were streaming down my face and my pillow was tight against my body as I held it for comfort. My moms face turned ghost white and she told me that she was just going to be out the door for a second. 

“Don’t leave me with him!” I begged at her. 

“Baby, he isn’t going to do anything to hurt you, I promise. I will be right back.” she reassured me and I believed her comforting voice. 

She walked out the door and was met with a doctor right outside of my room. I kept my eyes on them both because I didn’t want to look to see the man in the chair next to me and because I wanted to hear what they were talking about. I sat and tried to listen to their quiet voices talking to each other. It took a lot of focus trying to not pay attention to the man in the chair and to pick up on bits and pieces of the conversation going on about me. I realized how little energy I actually had and started drifting off to sleep. My eyes began to shut as I heard the word “schizophrenia” come out of the doctor’s mouth. I looked up and saw the devilish smile of the man's face looking right at me then I passed out.