She did not understand why it happened. It just did, as many things do. Everything was good and happy. The world was round and nothing seemed impossible. Everything was beautiful and precious.

Peaceful.

Then They came. It first was sounds and an occasional whisper of things unknown. Fear and Doubt. They were easily ignored, easily forgotten.

Then the Child came.

Small and sweet, like fresh candy from the kitchen stove. That melts in your fingers before it enters your mouth. It didn’t know a thing. It understood nothing.

Nothing.

It could never understand how It had taken Her life as a price for Its’. Crushed beneath Its’ tiny fists of soft pink flesh. Innocent and ignorant. The Crying got louder and She wished to silence It.

To silence It.

They came without her calling, Voices. Almost gleefully they licked her ears with sounds of happiness and joy. The Voices’ slippery tongues whispered eagerly and spoke of better times and of peace.

But for a price.

The peace will come, but there is a wall. The Child. Though strong, It’s not impossible. Not immortal. It dies, like everything else. So very effortless.

So very easy.

The Voices grew louder and She could not resist. The apple in the Tree of Knowledge was just an arms length away. It was far too simple to pluck the sweetened fruit.

It was far too simple to Kill.

The screaming remained, echoing, after the soul was taken. The Voices screamed in return. Mocking Its’ strength to endure. Its’ will to survive. Its’ futility at fighting back. The Voices wanted more.

More.

The world slammed in around Her and Her own cries of terror could not suffocate the screeching horror of the Voices. They had Her, She was no longer Herself. They never stopped talking, talking of things no creature should ever hear. Then the People came.

The People asked questions.

Questions She knew nothing of. Questions She could never answer again. She could no longer see or hear of Her own free will. The Voices controlled Her with their sickly, oily tones. At times they would speak through Her. Her throat would get coated in a slimy fire that would burn unending. Her lungs would constrict the air when She tried to inhale the Voices’ breath.

It was the breath of Death.

The People moved her. The strange People outside of her own world. They put her in a White Room that blinded her sensitive eyes. The White People would enter this room frequently. They blended so easily into the walls; they shimmered in and out of Sight.

Just out of Sight.

Other People came. The Other People would tell her things. So very much like the Voices. The Other People told her things She wanted to hear. New Hope. New Life. New Beginning.

Redemption.

Then after the Voices would train Her ears to listen so closely. So very closely. To what the Other People said, just out of sight. Out of the White Room.

Madness.

Everything shattered and everything crumbled into fine sand. The Voices laughed shrilly, the cacophony of sounds was deafening. She closed away. Into a Separate Place. Where only She and the Voices could exist. She lived in that Separate Place with only the Voices mocking calls as Her company.

She was alone.

It was the day the Voices stopped to draw a breath, did She open Her eyes. The sight was only a second and then She was enveloped in darkness once more. With the Voices shouting angrily at Her.

It was enough.

She had seen the One. The One who could help her. The Old Woman with winkles of maturity and wisdom. The Old Woman whose aging hands spoke of years of work and toil.

Her Savior.

She could not be sure why. She just knew. She knew when the Old Woman entered the White Room; She would open Her eyes for the Old Woman. The Voices would rebuke Her harshly. Her eyes would burn and blister, but open they remained.

Just for the Old Woman.

The Old Woman said little. No reasons or answers. Or Questions. Hardly a word or an order and never a smile or a grin. But the Old woman once made eye contact with Her.

Once.

It was enough. She knew what to do. Touch. One little Touch and the Voices would be rid of Her forever. They would be forgotten, like the old North Wind in Summer.

Gone.

One Touch.

The Old Woman would not Touch Her. She would stretch Her arms out in anticipation, but the Old Woman would stray away. No. The Old Woman said. Not yet. The Voices grew vigorously; She would try to drown them out. But Her screams were not enough.

Not enough.

More and more She would try to get close to the Old Woman. To Touch, to feel. She couldn’t remember the last time She felt happiness. Peace. The Voices were merciless. Never before had She experienced such Pain. She could feel her eyes bleed a crimson stream and black mucus came from the corners of her mouth. The Pain was alive and it thrived in the Voices calls and chants. She could hardly look up as the Old Woman came into the White Room.

Free Me.

The words came so easily, like instinct at a time of danger. And quite suddenly, it was quiet. The Silence roared around her, searching for something to hide behind. Finding nothing.

Free Me.

Me. It was such a lovely word. She had forgotten about the word ‘Me’. That She was Her own person. An ‘I’ or ‘Myself’. Such delicious words of sweetened honey and warm milk. She (I) realized that She (I) had begun to think of Herself (Myself) as another person. A person among Voices. I am not a person among Voices. I have my own voice. Mine alone. Beautiful and perfect. My own.

You are Free.

The Old Woman had said it, but it sounded more like ‘I am Free’ And that I had said it instead. There was a crying noise. A whimpering pained noise. Of something lost and losing.

The Voices.

Their crying did not sound wicked or evil, as the rest of their sounds do. It sounded innocent and hurting. Like a wounded baby animal. Just like the Pain I had experienced not so long ago.

The Voices were Dying.

I see them in front of Me. Wisps of time and space. Threads of lives and Fruits of tenderness, I hear another’s cries among them. It is the Old Woman. Her tears do not fall upon her cheeks, but upon the Voices. Her body beings to dissolve and the Old Woman’s body melts before My eyes.

The Old Woman is a Voice.

I touch her last strands of fading grey hair as she disappears. My own tears cold on my cheek.

They are gone.

Forever.