She sees faces and hears voices, images blending and disintegrating. She can hear whispers…intangible, mysterious and derogatory.
She sees pointing fingers, scornful eyes and sarcastic smirks.
“Mom! Dad! Where are you?” She calls out to silence.
Suddenly she drifts to an abandoned island. There are no stars, only the full moon partially hidden behind a dark cloud. There is a gust of wind and she shivers in the cold, her tattered dress the only protection.
“Where are you?” She cries out again.
She hears a cackling, coarse laughter.
“Lost and scared, cry-baby?” Voices draw nearer…then an ominous silence.
“Help!”
“There is no one to help you here.” An icy voice.
“No!” She stumbles and gets up.
She scrambles away, trying to escape the voices. But the voices are ruthless, they won’t leave. They follow her, surround her from every side.
“You can’t run away from us…”
“Get away from me!” She shouts.
“We are you yourself kid…we can’t just go away…we are part of you!” The laughter echoes.
“No! I am different…I am not like you!” She yells. “I am good!”
“Accept it, you foolish child! Accept it!” The voices return.
“You think you are good, eh?” The tone of the voices is malevolent, triumphant.
“You are just another human being and they are all fools!”
“We are here to take you,” the voices announce.
“Come now, don’t fight us,” honeyed, coaxing words.
“I won’t let you take me!” She gasps, the cold getting into her bones.
The moonlight grows dimmer. She tries to run away but a strange force paralyses her…
“There is no escape. You can’t run away from yourself…”
“Come, come…all you have to do is accept us…”
She swoons, feeling a heavy weight descending upon her frame. The voices turn into murmurs, dying slowly. Everything fades into the blackness of night. In the distance, an owl hoots.
Night merges with the day. The cold gives way to warmth as the first rays of the sun rising from the sun falls on her face.
She hears the chirping of the birds and the singing of the cicadas. She opens her eyes slowly to a new day.
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