Stygian: The Silence Of The Whisperers.

26. Popcorn Time For My Pain

(Rick)

I woke up and everything felt wrong; it was too quiet outside. My neighborhood was a boisterous one, one where at least a cat or pack of dogs would make noise every night. Fighting, scratching their nails over metallic junks, just doing anything to have us listen to the background noises during the nights. Today, however it was unnaturally as quiet as a snowflake. I look out the window and see the stray cats and dogs, including mice standing still, looking at my house.

My knees buckled and I pulled the curtains back, switching on the lamp on my bedside. I gulped down a glass full of water from the kitchen, going back to try to fall asleep.

This wasn't anything new. I do not even recollect when it began and why it did, but when I noticed it, it was after I came to know about the existence of the whisperers or specters. And it wasn't just one or two of these creatures that were always watching me but it was more than that.

They broke the record today. And I wasn't sure if it was me being paranoid or if it was a psychological after effect of the whisperer revelation, so I didn't babble about it to anyone except that I vaguely mentioned it to Martha and she tattled on me to mum. And while being grounded, that was the worst experience yet, I had only been fearful of clowns and never animals but they changed that in me. Now I have unlocked a new fear.

Yesterday after Marigold left, I had wished for Alfred to stay but knowing him he wouldn't because of his super big ego. I had had a good night's sleep at Marigold's lodging-room knowing there was a person with me, plus it was the B-PRO with the extra security.

"...and you think it's because they're ghouls you're being stalked?" Alfred pushed his hair up, after a bath in the morning when I went to ask him to check what it was.

I scanned his super tidy room. "You wouldn't know, babe, if you haven't experienced it. Tell me why was it they were all lined up like I was their master or something?"

He crooked a corner of his lip up, staring at me then began drying his hair with a towel. "It might be your psychic ability. To attract animals instead of people..."

"That sounds...plausible." I hooked my chin in my hand. That sounds like the perfect explanation. But what use would it be to attract animals? For smelling out danger. "The black cat! I think I talked to her! I mean, in the beginning...that case...the baby one." I fumbled through my bag to search every page of my books to find out the message I had scribbled.

Al sat on the bed as I threw him the book, his eyes widened. Ah, it does feel good to shake these kinds of people up.

"You were hungry and lost?"

"Huh? Not me. The cat. I think I had asked her if she was hungry or how she had come through the men's bathroom window. Then I took out a book and...wrote that. Isn't that strange? Why would I write that I was hungry..." I crunched on a wafer, replying to a text Marigold had sent last night.

Al did not reply and stayed glued to the bed. Has the time paused? And only I can move?

"Jane Thatcher. Your ability is similar to hers, only she can communicate with spirits Tor manes...those specters that take on dead people's forms. She can talk to them through spirit-writing." He gave me my book back. "I thought you were suicidal because of the things I found written in my notes with a pencil but now I think they're not your words."

What? But wait, Jane's last name is Thatcher...?

Al showed me pictures of his notes on his phone. There was pencil scribbling here and there that said how tiring everything around me was, about the perspectives of society and the urge to escape... and a lot worse.