Altered Memories

Attack the Dark

The invasive voices echoed and repeated in Anti's head, swarming and bouncing off the walls of his mind as he sprawled all over the bed, tossing and turning while trying to wake up. The bed chained him up, restricting his movement as the nightmare takes their toll on him once again, coming back for revenge.

Opening his eyes to the sight of complete darkness, Anti found himself once again in the back of Seán's mind, a place he never thought to go back to.

The spirits had came back to haunt him after their almost three year hiatus, but they came back with a vengeance for locking them up all this time, getting louder and louder by the second. But it wasn't coming from his mind this time, it was swirling all around him, coming from all four sides the walls.

'Wait, walls?'

Anti recalled this place being infinite space, kind of like the void. Reaching his hand out in front of him, he blasted a ball of lightning towards the taunting voices, only to have the energy stop once it impacted to an invisible barrier about a foot away. He tried again from behind him and to his sides, only for the same result, confiding him in an invisible box.

The spirits are ensnared behind the wall...

The walls are screaming now; overlapping with echoed voices of his brothers' and friends' offensive phrases as a reminder of his wrongdoings. But there were a few that were louder than the others.

Not needing to press his ears to the wall, he can easily distinguish a voice that overlapped the other voices: Jackie's voice.

And even though Jackie, Marvin, Chase, and Seán all sound exactly alike, the glitch instinctively knew who it was.

"You caused all this. You just love making everyone suffer, huh? Making them miserable?"

"He's a murderer! I'm not letting a murderer into this house!"

Followed by another voice that fueled his boiling blood with his echo.

"Once again, blaming others for your wrongdoings. When will you learn? Why don't you tell me what's going on instead of glitching around and hurting yourself?"

"Maybe you're the one who caused all the memory alteration. Take your own advise and stop playing the blame game."

Then came the voice that broke him the most...

"Look at what you've done..."

"If it wasn't for you, Jackie and the others would be fine by now. I would be fine by now!"

"I am so done feeling like this because of you, Anti."

"I can easily erase you ..."

Past, present, and past dreams; all mixed into a cacophony of indistinct voices that haunts him to days on end.

Anti shut his eyes and gritted his teeth, covering his ears at the overlapping, migraine-inducing shouting, hoping to at least muffle the words, but the voices only got louder.

"S̷h̶u̷t̷ ̵u̶p̶!" He screamed " ̷S̸t̴o̴p̶!"

His plea echoed back.... mockingly.