27 Oct Invasive Thoughts

Part I

Henry Ashford sat alone in his small, dimly lit apartment, staring blankly at the television, though he hadn’t registered anything on the screen in hours. The dull, relentless whine in his ears drowned out any hope of following the plot of whatever movie he’d put on. He shifted uncomfortably in his worn recliner, one hand pressed to his temple. His head pulsed with exhaustion, his eyes bloodshot from another restless night.

It was hard to remember what silence felt like. Once a typical working man with an unremarkable job and a few hobbies, Henry’s life had slowly unraveled ever since tinnitus had begun to claim his mind and sense of peace. He’d tried everything—doctor-prescribed pills, meditation, noise-canceling headphones, even a white noise machine. But nothing worked. The high-pitched ringing remained, punctuating every quiet moment.

Over the past year, his friends had started avoiding him. They’d grown tired of his increasingly bitter mood, his constant complaints about “the ringing.” Even his family had stopped calling as often. On the few occasions he went out, he found himself caught in half conversations, nodding when he couldn’t hear, his thoughts too muddled to feign engagement. Socializing had become too much of a strain, and now he stayed home most nights, tired of explaining his situation to people who couldn’t understand.

Just as his frustration reached a boiling point, the screen flickered, pulling him out of his thoughts. A new commercial had begun, its jingle upbeat and saccharine, completely at odds with his apartment’s dimly lit, melancholy atmosphere. The screen lit up in neon colors, proclaiming a name that sounded like salvation: Ear-Ease Drops. He squinted at the small text running along the bottom of the screen. “Guaranteed relief from tinnitus—try it today!”

Henry leaned forward, enraptured. He watched the actors on the screen, smiling as they applied the product, their faces lighting up as if experiencing peace for the first time. They sat in their respective rooms, their expressions serene, seemingly filled with a tranquility he hadn’t known in years. The voiceover promised miracles, using phrases like “absolute relief” and “permanent solution.” Nervous with exhilaration, Henry fumbled for his phone to jot down the number on the screen before it disappeared.

“This could,” he stammered, already imagining the silence he had craved for so long. “This could be it.” The thought filled him with an urgent, unfamiliar hope.

* * * * * *

The drops arrived two days later in a small, nondescript box. He tore it open enthusiastically, barely noticing the plain label that bore no indication of what was inside. He unscrewed the cap of the tiny bottle with shaking hands, pausing only briefly to glance over the instructions. They were simple enough: apply two drops in each ear, wait five minutes, and repeat if necessary. The promise of instant relief outweighed any hesitation.

Henry settled onto his bed, tilted his head, and squeezed the bottle, feeling the cool liquid settle into his ear canal. He followed suit with the other ear, lying flat as instructed, listening to the slight squelching sound of the drops finding their way into his inner ear. A faint tingling began to spread, and he closed his eyes, holding his breath in anticipation.

Within moments, a strange stillness crept over him. The sound that had plagued him for as long as he could remember slowly faded to a faint hum, and then to nothing at all. Henry opened his eyes, sitting up slowly. For the first time in half a decade, there was no buzzing, no shrill whine. He listened to the natural, uninterrupted ambiance of his own apartment, savoring the lack of noise. His entire body felt lighter, unburdened. Free.

A grin spread across his face, tentative at first, and then wide with disbelief. “It worked,” he whispered, barely daring to believe it. “It actually worked.”

That night, he slept better than he had in years. When he awoke, he was refreshed, his mind clear, and for the first time in ages, he felt like himself again.

As he went about his day, he found joy in the smallest sounds—the soft rustling of paper, the gentle hum of the refrigerator, even the distant rumble of traffic outside. Each sound felt vivid, unfiltered by the persistent ringing that had previously dulled his senses. He went out for coffee, sitting by himself near the café counter, enjoying the gentle background noise of conversation and clinking dishes.

But as he waited for his coffee, something strange happened. A faint whisper drifted into his mind, so soft he thought it was someone nearby. He turned his head, but the shop was nearly empty except for the barista, who was busy steaming milk. The whisper grew louder, forming words that didn’t match anything he could see. He could hear the barista’s voice—clearer than he should have. He wasn’t speaking, and yet the words seemed to come directly from him.

“I can’t wait for this shift to end… I hate this job so much. God, that guy at the counter just keeps staring.”

Were they…talking about him?

Henry stiffened, turning his gaze down to his cup. He tried to brush it off as his imagination, but as he sipped, another thought crept into his mind—a feminine voice, crisp and critical, yet there was no woman near him. Still, it echoed, the tone unmistakable.

“He looks like he hasn’t slept in years. What’s he hiding?”

Henry’s stomach twisted, and his face turned red with embarrassment. The comments had been directed at him; he knew it. He hastily finished his drink, feeling more than a little unnerved, and left the café. On his way out, he passed a man on his phone and instantly heard him, too—not just his voice, but the thoughts behind his voice, the ones he wasn’t saying out loud.

“If I don’t get this deal, my wife’s going to leave me.”

The man looked directly at Henry, almost as if he’d heard him eavesdropping. Henry forced a smile and hurried on, trying to clear his mind. But no matter how he tried, the thoughts came in like waves from everyone he passed, random and intrusive. Rather than fade over time, they seemed to be getting louder and more frequent. Henry’s seemingly miraculous reprieve had been short-lived, and what had filled the space formerly occupied by his relentless tinnitus, he was afraid to admit, was worse. So much worse.

A chill settled over him by the time he reached home. For the first time since he’d applied the drops, Henry felt a stab of fear.

Was this…permanent?

Part II

Henry hurried back to his apartment, his mind still reeling from the unexpected invasion of thoughts he’d experienced at the café. He shut the door behind him, leaning his back against it, and took a deep breath. In the silence of his apartment, he felt relieved, hopeful that whatever had just happened at the coffee shop was a fluke. Perhaps it was a temporary side effect of the drops, or simply his mind adjusting to his new reality and playing tricks on him.

He walked to his kitchen and splashed cold water on his face. As he dried his face on a towel, he tried to convince himself that it was all in his head. The product is new, he rationalized. These things happen sometimes. But beneath it all, he knew instinctively that something was deeply, deeply wrong.

Even as he tried to suppress his lingering doubts, he heard the whispers creeping in again—softly at first, like the distant din of a television left on in another room. Though he tried desperately to focus on something else—anything else—the voices grew louder, words forming in his mind as clearly as if they were his own.

“When is he going to fix that leaky faucet? It’s driving me crazy!” came a woman’s voice, laden with irritation. Henry recognized it immediately—that of his neighbor from the apartment next door. And she wasn’t speaking aloud. As if carried on the wind, her unspoken, private thoughts floated into his mind. Henry’s pulse quickened.

He stumbled backward, nearly tripping over the kitchen mat, panic bubbling up in his chest. He wasn’t imagining it. The drops had worked to stop his tinnitus, but they had done something else, too. He gripped the edge of the counter, his knuckles white, trying to steady himself.

“Calm down,” he whispered to himself. He took another breath, desperate to regain control.

But control was a fleeting notion. As he tried to center himself, more thoughts flooded in, overlapping and crowding his mind. From somewhere in the hall, he heard a man’s anxiety about a job interview, replaying the answers he’d practiced for hours. Then, a burst of anger from others—distant frustration at a slow elevator, a taxi that hadn’t stopped, a spill on the carpet. Henry fought back the urge to scream as the thoughts blended, swirling together in an endless cacophony, threatening to derail his sanity.

The voices were coming from people he couldn’t see or identify, and yet they felt as close as if they were in the room with him. He clamped his hands over his ears, the futility of the solution obvious to him even as he did it. The voices weren’t coming from outside, seeping into his consciousness from everyone around him. It was useless.

“I have to get out of here,” he muttered, his voice barely audible amidst the crowd of thoughts filling his head. Once more, he staggered to the bathroom, turning on the faucet and splashing water over his face, hoping the cold shock would silence the invasion. But it was no use. The voices persisted, relentless, trickling in like water through cracks in a crumbling dam.

Henry peered into the bathroom mirror and realized with horror that he barely recognized the pale reflection staring back at him with bloodshot eyes. His hands shook as he reached for the bottle of Ear-Ease Drops he’d left on the sink from the night before.

The label offered no warnings, no hint of the nightmare he was now living. Just simple instructions to “apply as needed for complete tinnitus relief.” He recoiled at its absurdity, the promise of permanent relief that had not only been temporary but followed by this unbearable infringement. He clutched the bottle, wondering if more drops would silence the thoughts—or make them worse.

Indecisively, Henry paced the apartment for several minutes before ultimately sinking into his armchair. Gripping the armrests and pressing his palms into the fabric, he tried desperately to steady his breathing and ground himself, even as the never-ending barrage of interloping thoughts threatened to drown out his very intentions.

“Focus,” he told himself, but the word felt thin and meaningless. The whispers continued, filling the air around him, a cloud of unfiltered lunacy bleeding into itself.

He tried to concentrate on a single voice, hoping that doing so might bring him some control. He picked out a faint whisper from his next-door neighbor, her thoughts turning to a grocery list. “Eggs, milk, bread,” her voice echoed in his mind, “cheese, apple juice, lasagna…” But as soon as he managed to focus on her, another voice intruded, then another, until before long, it was once again buried under an avalanche of madness.

Already fatigued, Henry found the weight of the combined worries of countless strangers too much to bear. He cried out in agony as yet another wave of exhaustion washed over him, straining his tenuous grip on reality. He needed answers, and he needed them now. He had to find a way to shut it off, to make the voices go away. He pulled out his phone, searching online for any mention of Ear-Ease Drops’ side effects. But the internet was filled only with rave reviews and testimonials from people who had finally found relief. There was not a single mention of voices or hearing other people’s thoughts.

Frustrated, he flung the phone down, trembling head to toe and overwhelmed by anxiety. This was more than a side effect, Henry opined—it was a curse.

He glanced again at the bottle of drops. Sitting innocently on the bathroom counter, the medication seemed to beckon to him, challenging him to try another dose. What if it could somehow bring him control? Could more drops reverse the effects? He had to know—and yet, for some reason, the idea filled him with dread. How could the same medicine that made him sick make him healthy? It was preposterous. No, he thought. There had to be another way.

Henry’s eyes drifted to his front door, where he could still faintly hear his neighbor’s thoughts, a dull murmur bleeding through the walls. He’d heard enough. Maybe he could try leaving, escaping into less-populated areas. Perhaps, he thought, distancing himself from people would offer him some respite from the chaos. It’s worth a try, he figured.

Even as he rose to his feet, another disembodied voice drifted into Henry’s mind, sharp, accusatory, and somehow familiar. “He’s losing it… What’s wrong with him?” This time, the commentary seemed personal, directed squarely at him. Henry turned sharply, looking around as if he could catch whoever had thought it. But as usual, there was no one.

Getting out of town will help, Henry imagined. It has to.

With a heavy breath, he grabbed his car keys, put on his coat, and headed out into the hall, hoping against hope that he was right.

Part III

Henry stepped outside into the cold, praying the crisp air would clear his head. It didn’t. The voices followed him, as persistent as his own shadow. He realized then that driving perhaps wasn’t the best idea, or safe. He was exhausted and in no condition to operate a vehicle. Instead, he did what he could. He pulled his coat tighter and walked aimlessly through the neighborhood, seeking any sort of relief. All the while, the myriad concerns of everyone in his vicinity echoed in his mind, like the din of overlapping radio stations he couldn’t turn off.

He passed a young couple holding hands, and a sudden burst of insecurity hit him—“Does she even really love me, or is she just settling?” The thought came unbidden, embedded like a thorn. Then, the woman’s thoughts: “I should tell him, but what if he leaves me?” Their thoughts intertwined with his own, their fears mingling with his mounting paranoia, and he hurried away, heart pounding, clawing at his temples.

But as he rounded the corner, more voices hit him—an insistent, overpowering storm of words. And out of it, a passing man’s voice rose, remarkably bitter and laced with vitriol: “One day I’m going to snap… just wait!” Henry reeled as if he’d been punched in the gut and nearly stumbled into the street. He knew it wasn’t his thought, yet he could feel it undulating in his mind, dark and suffocating. The world around him was filled with people with questions and concerns, and for whatever reason, most of those coming to him were depressed, angst-ridden, obsessed, or downright homicidal. And though he knew they were independent of him, he couldn’t help but allow the thoughts to affect him, and the longer they did, the harder it became to separate them from his own.

He ducked into a nearby grocery store, clinging to the hope that the familiarity of routine could stabilize him, and snatched a nearby shopping cart. But inside, the onslaught only worsened. Every person he passed seemed to radiate their inner turmoil and buried regrets, all vying for his attention. The elderly woman picking up a carton of milk was caught up in a wave of grief, reliving a memory of a lost child. The cashier’s thoughts were muddled with fatigue, replaying a day she’d rather forget. The out-of-work single mother, clinging to the leash of her support dog, was on the verge of tears, imagining all the ways in which she had failed in life, wondering if her credit card would go through. Each of their thoughts felt strangely personal, and, one by one, they carved out space in Henry’s mind, blending with his memories and fears. As wave after wave of invasive thoughts mercilessly inundated his consciousness, Henry realized he could scarcely tell where their thoughts ended and his began.

Henry felt as though he was unraveling. He gripped the edge of his cart, struggling to steady himself. his voice lost amongst the relentless torrent of others’ emotions, doubts, and fears. Defeated, he turned and fled the store as if pursued by some unseen predator, and left his empty cart behind.

Nothing was working. The voices weren’t fading. Every corner he turned and every person he encountered only added to the noise. Horrified, Henry realized he couldn’t even remember what silence sounded like. For a moment, he even begged for his tinnitus to return. Anything but this.

He sprinted back to his apartment, slamming the door shut behind him, as if closing it would somehow block out the flood of thoughts. He pressed his back against the door, closing his eyes, willing himself to find a solution. But his mind felt fractured. His own thoughts were scattered, outnumbered by the chorus of others flitting in and out of his mind at breakneck speed.

After a few moments, he forced himself to breathe deeply, grasping for any sense of normalcy. He returned to the bathroom, grasping the sink. In the back of his mind, a faint whisper resurfaced, and he recognized it as his next-door neighbor’s frustration with her broken faucet—a voice he could not block out no matter how much he tried.

“Focus, Henry,” he mused aloud. “You’re still you. Just… focus.”

With shaking hands, he fumbled for a pair of earplugs, pressing them into his ears and hoping the soft foam would somehow resolve the issue. But the thoughts persisted, flowing directly into his mind, oblivious to any barrier.

Unsure of what else to do, he sat down in the center of his living room, clamped his hands over his ears, and squeezed his eyes shut, fighting back the rising tide of panic. He tried concentrating on a single, coherent thought—his thought—but each time he did, another pierced the barriers between them, shattering his illusions of control.

Desperate, he grabbed his phone and dialed his doctor’s office, his fingers trembling as he held the phone to his ear, listening to the ringing. Finally, after several agonizing minutes on hold, the receptionist picked up, her voice a welcome relief, something real and tangible amidst the deluge of negativity he’d been dealing with.

But as she spoke, he could hear her thoughts too, a quiet murmur beneath her words—“Another anxious patient… another long day.” Her unspoken judgment sliced through him, sharp and stinging, and he felt himself spiraling into a dark well of paranoia, as though everyone around him knew something he didn’t.

“Hello? Henry? Are you still there?” she asked, concerned, though her thoughts remained indifferent, her mind already moving to the next patient.  Henry hadn’t even realized he’d failed to respond.

“Yes—yes, I need to see Dr. Wells,” he stammered. “Please, you have to help me.”

The appointment was set for later that day, and Henry spent the following hours in a haze, pacing his apartment, trying anything and everything to manage the voices. He tried blasting music, wearing noise-canceling headphones, even wrapping a pillow around his head, but none of it made any difference.

When he finally arrived at the doctor’s office, he took a seat in the waiting room, struggling to keep his composure. The thoughts here, perhaps predictably, were worse than any he’d heard before—disjointed, multitudinous snippets of worry about diagnoses, regret over missed opportunities, anger at loved ones, fears of death and dying, infirmity, and financial devastation. It was a stew of raw, unfiltered emotion he wasn’t prepared for.

By the time Dr. Wells called him in, Henry felt like he was barely holding on. The doctor greeted his alarming appearance and clammy, sweaty hands with a polite smile and a firm handshake, but inside, Henry could hear the doctor’s private assessment of him, thoughts tainted with impatience and frustration.

“So, what seems to be the problem?” Dr. Wells asked, his voice professional, though his mind continued to whisper judgment that only Henry could hear.

Henry tried to explain, stumbling over his words, desperate to convey the nightmare he was living. But the words felt hollow, as though they weren’t his own, fragmented by the thoughts filling his head. Were they even his thoughts anymore? Henry questioned. How did he really feel? Why was he here? Why bother? How was this doctor, already dialing it in, going to help him?

Henry did his best to explain what had brought him to the office, beginning with the tinnitus and venturing into a painful, wincing recollection of his experience with Ear-Ease. But even as Henry spoke, Dr. Wells’ mind filled with silent conclusions—“Possible anxiety disorder, perhaps psychosis…”—slicing through Henry’s last semblance of hope. Dr. Wells didn’t believe him; he thought he was crazy. And maybe he was. But it wasn’t his fault… or was it? Maybe everything was his fault. Inadvertently, Henry shuddered. Dr. Wells gave him a pitiful look, having already decided that a handful of pills was the solution.

Dr. Wells finally prescribed some anxiety medication, advising Henry to “take it easy” and “get plenty of rest.”

As Henry departed the clinic, he felt more powerless than ever. He stared blankly at the written summary of his office visit, his eyes glazing over at the sight of his alleged diagnosis. At the name, address, and phone number of the pharmacy down the street. Dejected, he crumpled the papers, tossed them into a nearby garbage can, and headed home.

Part IV

Henry sat alone in his apartment, the weight of desperation—and now depression—crushing him. The voices in his head churned, as filled with regret, ridicule, and hatred as ever. Every attempt to block them out had failed. His doctor had written him off, hadn’t even investigated his claims. He supposed he could call his friends, the few of them he had left—but what would he tell them, and what would they say, let alone do? They’d grown tired of his depressing condition months ago, and those bridges, he imagined, had been thoroughly burned. His family wouldn’t be much help, either, each of them dealing with their own demons.

Henry had a mind to find every one of the people whose thoughts were flooding his mind, complaining about their lots in life, their insignificant problems. Who cared if their relationships didn’t work out, and their proposals were rejected? So what if they didn’t get that raise they wanted, or their fathers didn’t love them? And if they wanted to kill someone, they ought to just shut up and do it already, so long as it meant he didn’t have to hear them whine and cry about it anymore.

In fact, Henry thought, his patience and empathy eroded under the pressure of everyone else’s anxieties, everyone would be better off if they killed whoever was causing their problems. Or better yet, themselves. He sneered. Yes, he thought, a disturbing sequence of fantasies unfolding vividly in his mind’s eye. If everyone was dead, then it would finally, finally be quiet. 

Fortunately, Henry had no real interest in hastening the demise of the innocent men and women whose worries had destroyed his life. They were victims, too, caught up in the maelstrom created by his desperate attempts to escape his problems. He was no different than they were, not really. And he was certain that if they could hear his thoughts, they would be equally as disgusted. In the end, Henry thought, they were all in this together.

No one causing him this trouble was truly to blame, and none of them were hurting him on purpose, or even aware of it…

Except, Henry realized, someone was. Lost as he was in the haze of others’ thoughts, Henry wasn’t surprised he hadn’t thought of it sooner.

Ear-Ease. They had to know, someone had to know. Someone sitting in a lab, or an office. Someone collecting a paycheck in exchange for destroying lives. Someone was responsible for what had happened to him, Henry realized, and they were real—and accessible.

Then and there, a plan took shape in his mind. A reckless plan, wrought in the mind of a desperate man pushed too far, for too long. He would travel to the Ear-Ease headquarters and confront those responsible. They must have known what the drops would do. This couldn’t be accidental. Someone had to have answers, and he was willing to do whatever it took to get them.

Even as Henry grabbed the knife from his kitchen drawer and slid it into his coat pocket—and deposited the bottle of Ear-Ease drops into his pants—the gravity of what he was about to do became clear. The weight of the blade in his hand did nothing but steel his resolve. Without hesitation, he left his apartment and got in his car, driving toward the company headquarters. It was over twelve hours away, and every nerve in his body was on edge—but he didn’t care. This had to end, and he would do anything to ensure it did.

Henry gently patted the hilt of the blade concealed in the jacket lying on his passenger seat.

Anything.

* * * * * *

The hours on the road passed in a blur of mental torment. Every car around him brought a fresh wave of thoughts, each passing driver filling his mind with a cascade of their personal insecurities, frustrations, and silent monologues. He could hear it all, every intimate detail of the strangers surrounding him, driving all semblance of rational thought further into oblivion with each passing mile.

By the time he reached the city, Henry was writhing in agony, pleading for an end to the anguish. The voices, having previously haunted him innocently, had now become a shrieking, inexorable chorus, demanding answers. Unable to escape the din, he’d been reduced to little more than a barely contained bundle of nerves and anger, even more determined to end his suffering, by any means necessary. The crowds, the traffic, the enormity of it all—it was too much. Even as he raced toward what he believed was a solution—the only solution—he teetered on the brink of madness.

Finally, he reached the sleek, towering headquarters of Ear-Ease’s parent company. Twitching and fidgeting, disheveled from the drive, he pushed through the glass doors and headed straight for the first-floor elevators. As singularly focused as he was on his goal, Henry hadn’t concerned himself at all about his looks. A security guard, however, spotted him almost immediately, his gaze narrowing as he took in Henry’s appearance.

“Sir?” the guard asked, stepping forward. “Is everything alright?”

Henry’s paranoia sparked, his heart thundering in his chest as he impotently took in the guard’s internal monologue. “Guy’s got blood on him… looks unstable. Could be dangerous.” The guard’s eyes drifted to Henry’s coat, where what appeared to be the hilt of a blade was visible, protruding slightly from the pocket.

Henry could feel the guard’s suspicion growing, and his hand inched closer to his weapon.

“I just… need to see someone,” Henry muttered, but the words sounded foreign, drowned out by the noise in his mind. Slowly, steadily, Henry reached into his pocket, tightening his hand around the knife’s handle, the guard’s thoughts escalating in response, an emotional mixture of determination, doubts, and false bravado: “God, no, I hope he doesn’t try anything. I’m ready, and I’ll take him down if I have to. Oh, God, please don’t do it.”

Henry’s panic won out. Before he knew what he was doing, he rapidly withdrew the knife and lunged, plunging the blade into the guard’s side. Blood splattered across his coat and face as he repeatedly withdrew the knife and jabbed it back into the young man’s midsection, sending streams of crimson gore flying in all directions. The guard, unprepared for the ferocity of Henry’s assault, succumbed to his injuries. His weapon fell with a clatter as he slumped over and collapsed to the marble floor. A moment later, his dying thoughts filled Henry’s mind with broken fragments—“Addison, help me, I love you… It burns, oh God, it hu-hurts, what did I do… Caleb’s birthday is next month, he’s… he’s te-ten… What’s happening… Wh-why, what did I do?”

As the guard took his final breath and his eyes went dull and glassy, Henry staggered back, his breath labored, the knife dripping with blood. What he’d done hadn’t completely sunk in yet, but it would. The guard lay still, and a calm settled over the lobby. But even in the stillness of the aftermath, the voices continued. The shock of Henry’s actions faded, replaced by the relentless pressure of his need for answers. Even in his adrenaline-fueled daze, Henry knew he didn’t have much time.

Soaked in blood, Henry took the elevator to the top floor, his face grim with determination. As he emerged, employees turned to stare, their expressions shifting to horror as they took in the gore splattered on his coat and the crimson-coated knife in his hands.

Undeterred, Henry walked past the stunned onlookers, who backed away instinctively, whispering, their thoughts flooding his mind in a wave of fear and disbelief. He pushed forward, ignoring them, his focus narrowing to the office at the end of the hall. Inside, Henry’s chosen scapegoat, CEO Marcus Evinrude, sat completely unaware of the chaos unfolding outside.

Henry approached the office, his footsteps heavy, leaving a trail of bloody smears on the carpet. The CEO’s assistant sat at her desk, her eyes going wide as she took notice of the amount of blood on Henry and of the knife in his hand, registering what he had done. Her mind filled with frantic thoughts—“Oh my God, what’s happening? I need to call the police!”

Before she even reached for the phone, her internal panic rose to a scream in Henry’s mind. The sound was unbearable, an incessant wail of terror that clawed at the edges of his all-but-depleted self-control. Impulsively, he sprang in her direction, silencing her both inside and out with one swift motion, drawing his blade swiftly across her throat, and watched her flail helplessly before collapsing over her desk, clutching her wounds.  This time, he’d killed her so efficiently that she hadn’t even had time to think of her loved ones. Beneath the cold exterior of Henry’s blood-soaked countenance, a now foreign-feeling emotion welled up inside of him: sadness.  Shaking his head, Henry banished the thought and focused again on his mission.

Henry returned his gaze to Evinrude’s office door. Fortuitously, he found it unlocked and pushed it open, stepping inside. Blood stained the polished floor beneath his feet as he strode toward the object of his ire.

The CEO looked up from his desk, his face blanching as he took in the sight of Henry. Absorbed by a phone call and shielded from the sounds of the horror outside by soundproofed doors, Evinrude had been totally oblivious to his assailant’s approach, and to the danger he was now in.

It didn’t take long for Evinrude to realize his predicament. His fear was palpable, his thoughts a rapid-fire mess of confusion and terror. “What… who… is this man?” he thought. “What’s going on?”

“Why did you do this to me?!” Henry screamed, interrupting Evinrude’s reverie. His voice broke as he clutched the knife harder and stepped forward, repeating his demands for answers. “Why did you make those drops, knowing what they would do? Why, Evinrude? Why?!”

“I—I don’t…” Evinrude stammered. “I don’t—I don’t know what you—”

“Stop it! No!” Henry shouted. “You had to know! Stop lying!” Henry shook with rage, waving the knife at Evinrude. “Why did you do it?! Why?!”

The CEO’s terror grew, his thoughts echoing in Henry’s mind, each one a jagged edge of fear. “He’s covered in blood… Oh my God, I’m going to die, he’s going to kill me… Please, Lord, what’s happening? I don’t understand what he’s talking about!”

“Stop. Lying!” Henry screeched, furiously punctuating each word dramatically. Now within striking range, he took hold of Evinrude with his free hand, clutched him by his collar, and slammed him against the desk. “The voices won’t stop—they never stop!” As if on autopilot, Henry raised his fist and struck the CEO, hard, his anger and desperation boiling over, and then did it again. Over and over again, he drove his knuckles into Evinrude’s increasingly mangled visage. “You can end this! Just tell me the truth, you monster! Tell me!”

The CEO gasped, blood trickling from his mouth as he choked out, “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about! Wh-who are you? Why are you do-doing this?” He glanced at the bloody knife in Henry’s opposite hand, his fear giving way to shock and confusion.

With his free hand, Henry reached into his pants and retrieved the bottle of Ear-Ease Drops, his hand shaking as he shoved it into the CEO’s blood-covered, rapidly swelling face. “Look at this! Why did you make this? Tell me how to make it stop! There must be an antidote, some way to reverse it!”

The CEO’s eyes locked on the bottle, a flicker of bewilderment crossing his face. Through shallow, gurgling breaths, he rasped, “That… that’s not ours. That’s not what our packaging looks like. That… that’s our name, but that… that’s not… not mine.” Semi-conscious and reeling from Henry’s blows, Evinrude’s gaze drifted lazily toward a display shelf across from his desk, and he pointed in its direction. There, rows of sleek, professionally packaged Ear-Ease products stood in neat rows.

Henry’s grip faltered, his resolve withering as he processed the words. At first, he dismissed Evinrude’s denials as an effort to escape punishment or to avoid answering for his crimes, but then he glanced at the shelves Evinrude was pointing to, and knew instantly that they looked nothing like the plain, clinical bottle he held. He stared at the drops in his hand, and suddenly, a wave of terror washed over him, rivaling any he’d felt to date.

Realization dawned, cold and cruel, tightening around his mind like a vice. This man, this company—they had nothing to do with the product he’d been sent. He’d been tricked, led down a path of violence and destruction by someone else entirely.  Shaken, he stumbled backwards, peering at his blood-caked hands in horror.

Before he could comprehend the full extent of what he’d done, police and security guards burst into the room. Commands echoed around him, but Henry could barely hear them over the cacophony of thoughts flooding his mind—disbelief, terror, judgment, condemnation. There may have been other voices mingling in with the real ones, thoughts emanating from the many strangers rushing into the office, but for once, Henry wasn’t focused on them. All he could do was stare at the bottle in one hand, the knife in the other. As he stood there, paralyzed, a single tear welled up and rolled down his cheek, mingling with the blood of his victims.

“Put down the knife!” one officer shouted, his voice breaking through the clamor, but Henry couldn’t separate it from the storm in his mind. He remained frozen for a moment longer, before both his hands began trembling uncontrollably. As the anxiety overwhelmed him, he turned to face the crowd, absent-mindedly brandishing the knife, and opened his mouth to apologize.

Before he could utter a word, a single shot rang out, and then—at last—Henry experienced silence.

Epilogue

In a dimly lit basement, a man in a lab coat, face obscured by safety goggles, meticulously filled small glass bottles with a thick, clear liquid, carefully applying plain labels that read Ear-Ease Drops. He sealed one in a package, printed a shipping label with a recipient’s name, and added it to a stack of similar boxes.

Around him, artifacts lay scattered across a workbench—candles, strange symbols, and darkly inked manuscripts. Nearby, his computer monitor glowed softly, displaying a list of intercepted orders from the producers of Ear-Ease. Henry Ashford’s name was highlighted, recently marked in green with a note that read “Complete.”

With a satisfied smile, the man typed in the next name, his eyes glinting as he prepared his next shipment. Henry’s suffering had served its purpose, but his work was far from over.