Voices · Enoch O'Connor

04 | Strange

Strange
[streynj]

Adjective,
1. Unusual, extraordinary, curious or odd.
2. Estranged, alienated, as result of being out of one's natural environment.

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Strange, weird, obscure, odd all of these things are the only words that I could think of after I read the first page of the diary.

How could my grandmother be with them in 1943? She was a baby in 1945. And how would she have met them in the first place? My mom always told me that my grandmother was just like me. A loner. Always alone never with friends, not that she had many but still.

I don't know why, but I want to read more of the diary. Maybe she had the same problem as me, with the voices and the insanity.

I grab the diary and put the two pictures that fell out back into the diary. I closed the chest and took the diary with me. I walk back to my room and walk over to my bed, I lie down and stare at the ceiling, my head is pounding and I feel a strange feeling, almost like something bad is going to happen.

I put the diary in my nightstand and listen if my parents were still fighting. The entire house was quiet. That's strange, I look at the alarm clock on my nightstand. 5:00 AM. Weird, normally my dad has already gotten up and gotten ready to leave for work, I know that because I would hear the front door slam shut.

I walk downstairs and see no one around, The pictures, that were hanging on the wall, are lying on the ground. I pick up a picture that was lying beside my foot and see that my face has been scratched out.

I look up when I hear a loud growl. I look out the window and I see glowing red eyes. After a few seconds, the thing became clearer to see, it looked like some sort of demon. I scream as the demon-like creature jumps through the window.

I wake up and scream at the top of my lungs, I couldn't stop screaming. The voices in my head kept screaming at me that someone was going to die, the thought terrified me. ''Victor is going to die.''

I can hear someone run to my room. My bedroom door slams open and my mom runs to me and clutches my face in her hands. "Honey, Calm down, It's just a nightmare!" My mom was panicking I can hear it. I stop screaming but I can't help but feel terrified I know that the dream isn't real, but I knew the voices were telling the truth, I can feel it in my gut.

I look at the alarm clock on my nightstand, 3:43 AM. I don't know what to think or say. All I know is that I'm terrified and in pain.

l turn my head and look out the window, I see the bird again. It's looking at me like it was pitying me. I turn around trying to ignore my mother and the bird.

"Honey, are you okay?" I know my mom's worried about me but I wasn't alright, I want to cry or scream, yell that I'm not alright but I can't because she wont't understand, she'll think that I'm crazy. And that's the last thing that I want, I can't lose the last person that loves me just for me.

"Yeah, I'm fine mom, I just had a nightmare."

"Okay, try to get some more sleep." She stands up, kisses my forehead and walks over to the door.

"I love you, honey." She says gently, she doesn't really expect me to say anything back so she just turns and almost closes the door but I interrupted her actions.

"I love you too mom." I know she didn't expect me to say that. Her head turns back to me and smiles gently at me. She slowly closes the door and slowly walks away.

I look at the window and see that the bird is still there. It looks like it's trying to smile at me in a comforting way. I want to smile but I can't. One single tear rolls down my face.

I look back to the door and again back to the bird I then whisper softly.

"I'm not okay not at all." More tears roll down my face. I look at the mirror in front of my desk and again whisper.

"Nothing's okay, nothing will ever be okay." I look back at the bird and slowly got up from my bed and sit on the window seat and hold out my hand for the bird to jump in.

The bird jumps in my hand looks up at me and then looks in my room. I drop my hand with the bird in it in my lap, I lean my head back against the wall, closing my eyes. I feel a few more tears roll down my cheeks but the bird was calming me in some sort of way. I open my eyes and look back out the window and for some reason say to the bird, that's currently in my hand. "I feel powerless like I need someone here to hug me and dry my tears and protect me from everything. I hate that feeling. I want to feel stronger than this."

The bird looks content with my words and flies inside my bedroom. The bird sits on my grandmother's diary for a moment, then she gets off of the diary and flies out the window again. I stare at the bird as it flies away. I get up from the seat and walk over to my bed. I lie back down on my bed and slowly drift away to a dreamless sleep.