05 Aug The Voices I Follow

Posted at 11:00h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 1 Comment

📅 Published on August 5, 2022

“The Voices I Follow”

Written by Dale Thompson
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 13 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 2 votes.

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Craving attention, sharply and peremptorily acting out. I have been disengaged from reality. I am in my own utopia, absorbed in thought, insanely agitated even with the least little distraction. A fan blowing the edges of my paper in a waving fashion makes me want to destroy the TV which has jumped from my show to another commercial. These advertisers must die. I’d rather not be the one to kill them because I cannot stand the smell of blood.

I’ve been experiencing blackout episodes or dark spells where I cannot recall periods of time. The doctor says it is not what I think it is, but I am sure it is a bowel issue with bouts of itchiness; even so, it produces no hives or scratches from my own fingernails. I suppose I am living abstractly in reproach of others but what do they expect? Their sins are my fetishes. Their crimes are my crucifixion; all swirled into a sweet little ball I kick the hell out of every chance I get.

Did I say I have a real burning desire to smash something into nothingness? I cannot reset to calm. The white coats say I am derisive, whatever that means. I once tried to comply, to cooperate, but the demons deep inside me tore at my intestines, enraged, provoked, until I bled from every orifice. These hysterical attacks of delirium from me, or should I say, out of me, achieved nothing good. This was subsequent to extreme agitation, which impaled me into a profound slumber. I know now, truthfully, it was the sedation. There is no cure, merely another episode explained away.

I have been told multiple times I am a resident of this facility. I am not ignorant! I am a prisoner here. In order to accept this fact, I tell people I am an occupant. There is nothing more intolerable in war than an occupier. Apparently, after raping and pillaging, they expect you to leave. I have decided to escape, and this time I am determined not to come back of my own accord, as I have done in the past. When I returned last time, I explained to the facility officials what I had accomplished. No one appeared impressed. I received an impertinent reception, and my medications were increased. They asked me a hundred questions, but I kept my ambiguity in check, and in doing so, I lost many privileges. This was when the realization came to me. There was nothing left for me in this place. I wrestle the same old devil, am haunted by the same ghosts day in and day out. I need surprises, a change. I had dreamed of escaping after I suffered through yet another indignant outburst. I thought about escaping for good at that point because the staff turned on me and vehemently declared their disapprobation and abhorrence against me since I embarrassed them by catching them unawares and slipping out. However, I decided a getaway, leaving more questions than answers, would be the most appropriate. My ingress and egress were closely monitored. I was labeled a flight risk, though the numbskulls never knew I had left the premises.

I do not elicit anything from anyone here. I like my independence. There are plenty of precarious individuals residing here. There are all sorts of disturbed men who possibly have had it worse than me. But as I see it, I am more sensitive than most. I mind my own business until my business is undermined; then I might just use my razor to inflict a gash, take a scalp, remove an eye or a finger. No one wants me as their antagonist or their perpetrator. Admittedly, I have tendencies impelling me to carry things too far. The hellish voices encourage me to do so. In my agitation, I go into a funk, as if I become this low-life delinquent and all get caught up in the circumstantial particulars. It’s like a tight hole I crawl into. I become stuck and can’t back out. How can a man rest with impious devils sitting heavily upon every nerve, causing an unbelievable sense of breathless failure?

My activities, or rather my sins and transgressions, make me guilty. I have never intentionally been obnoxious. I respect others until I am disrespected. I am a religious man, so I preach ‘an eye for an eye.’ However, it is the volume of my internal disturbances that push my buttons, allowing me to recapitulate. We are all big boys in here. I have nothing to prove, but I still maintain my honor. Let’s just, for the sake of argument, call my incarceration an audacious adventure. Audacity? That word is incomprehensible to me. I have character, and that is a huge difference on the street.

I plan on escaping tomorrow. I am cutting myself loose just a little after midnight. I cannot wait to spread my wings and soar out of here.

Maybe I’ll hitch a ride to Miami. I am not sure if I can travel the distance without hacking someone into pieces or committing some sort of unlawful act. The voices fuel my bloodlust. Maybe I will go to Michigan. The Great Lakes State is as dead as I am. I could disappear into one of many rundown, abandoned buildings in Detroit. Detroit is more my style. They have lots of violence. It might just feel like home.

I must exercise my free will while it exists. Thank God! I will be able to do what I want to do. It is essential for my mental vitality. I have always practiced an extreme form of existentialism, as an uncaring cosmos peers down at me, scrambling my thoughts. Murder is always wrong. I take umbrage for needless murder. Rage! Those maniacal demons are in my veins, swimming in the pulsating current of my blood, laughing, taunting, trying to convince me that without them, I would have no purpose. I have been called a madman. I have been called many hurtful and terrible things. I try to be a simple man, escaping what haunts me at any cost. I have a soul. It belongs to me. I will go to the extreme to protect it. I have murdered for it, lied, cheated and stolen to keep it safe.

No one knows what I have endured, what I have seen. Phantoms, the macabre, the evil that creeps, mostly unnoticed; I have laid my eyes on it, and it is not pretty. I have thought of ending it all, but what if Hell exists? Then I would spend eternity with the ghouls and monsters that frighten me the most. There is always a constant tapping on the walls. I hear it; no one else seems to notice. The fervent whispering of foreboding voices mumbling incoherently stifles all other sounds, other than the persistent tapping! The most frightening thing of all is I do not know where to look for redemption. There is a constant uncertainty hovering above my head. This obnoxious lingering oppression becomes annoying, like a headmistress at a boarding school who cracks knuckles for disobedience. I know it’s coming, the crack; I just don’t know when. But I have prepared a lifetime to recognize it.

Neglect. That is my diagnosis. No one wants to play with me anymore. I am encumbered in my discontent. No one finds me amusing, witty or entertaining. My fake foreign accent used to bring down the house. But ever since being rejected and being moved into the adult ward, everyone has lost their sense of humor. My acts of dissipation, as notorious as they were, excelled to expectations higher than I would have ever imagined, leading to mortifying consequences. I do not find delight in murder. It is the afterglow when there is ample time to reflect upon the deed, that sets my mind at ease.

I had invited two associates who reside here, asking if they had any desire to tag along on my final escape from this piss hole. I explained to them that they could experience the tangible world, discover external terrestrial perceptions, possibly get girlfriends. Some girls like pathetic men. I expanded my compelling argument by saying this is the indifferent cosmic outer world, the unseen, that which has yet to be revealed, unknown forces catering to our thoughts. I know if they had accepted, it would run a greater risk of me being caught. But I liked these guys and thought they might want their freedom, to familiarize themselves with the essence of externality. They contemptuously rejected the entire plan with trepidation. Their coldness and discouragement were unsatisfactory. The repetition of voices in my head chanted in unison, convincing me that these two were going to rat me out. All I can say is, regrettably, I left no loose threads, so with strong aversion, I dealt with them. After disposing of them properly, I noticed a profound change in my countenance, as if I had turned over a new leaf.

I am unquestionably myself, yet I exert myself, endeavoring to be me. Striving is not my strong point. It causes me detriment in the extremes of my contumacy, and in having such effects, I turn to look for redemption but always embrace what awaits. Damnation is obviously patient. I suppose my shackles and chains are because of imputation and my contempt of rules? I suppose, I reckon, I assume, oh screw it! I am not an idiot!

I recognize there is no ascertainable reason for my…wait. Ascertainable is not the correct word. I don’t know. I am loopy. Asinine medication keeps getting pumped into my everlasting collapsing veins; I will admit I am disconcerted.

I know. The word is not ascertainable. It is inexcusable. There is no… hmm…inexcusable is not the word either. I get lightheaded a lot like I am floating, drifting, even hovering over my own body. This is a contraindication due to being prescribed several drugs by three different doctors who obviously do not communicate with one another, or I would not be in such a mentally wrecked condition.

Give me a moment to contemplate. Okay, got it! There is no rational reason nor medical diagnosis which can pinpoint point, decisively, my true state of mind. Maybe I am the definition of a conundrum?

Some swear they see strange perversions at night, ghosts, specters, ghouls. I do too, but I also see their haunts in daylight. Monstrous visions of bastille forms, outside of the organic world, sharing space with me; there is no coherence. There are no rules to follow in these depths, only emanations of the grotesque, gangly distortions boring into my brain to feed it malignity and to insert age-old traits and characteristics of morbidity. Exquisite loathsomeness is now my companion.

The exaggeration of the moment has purposed my disillusionment. I have followed fallacious beliefs, leading to irreparable and unreasonable demands upon my sentimental side, causing weakness in my resolve. This is disproportionate to who I am. I masquerade as any unctuous person but am always delivered into the hands of the pallbearers. My insensibilities in the interim of days have afforded me the romance of cleverness and deception, paired with sententious encouragement.

I am tired. I am fatigued and bleary-eyed. The voices rail on me. They harshly whisper, “scoundrel, blasphemer, murderer!” They are there to remind me of the vile way I have lived. I have been uncontrollable in my licentious inclinations. Irrespectively, I have always acted with little to no forethought, and when I indulge, I indulge.

I have been able to escape this hellhole on numerous occasions without being detected. I am escaping again, and this time I will not, I repeat, I will NOT return. Every other escape ended up having me return, but not tonight. I will go down the hall, into the bathroom and will climb out of a window which I have managed to prise loose.

I am no more. The voices will lead me from the shadows, and I will progress into the light. The phantoms in my head have given me the knowledge to break out. The window was easy; now, I must manage the foreign streets. My destination is unknown. I must follow the voices.

Midnight has come and gone, and I am outside the facility where I was housed. I am doubled over in anguish. Sharp ramrods of stabbing pain have impaled my gut without mercy. I stumble inside a building. It is vacant; I am alone. There’s an elevator. I take the elevator because the voices said to do so. It doesn’t go to the top. It stops one floor short. I exit the elevator and make my way up a flight of metal stairs. I feel remote, disconnected. I am on the roof.

From the roof, I hear the sounds of my inner yearning. The voices speak to me in colors of defiant burnings. There are various coadjutive demons with lycanthropic malice molesting my hearing with detestable accusations. I feel I am burning in the flames of auto-da-fe with Abaddon himself ordering this enchantment. I have obeyed. Why am I in torment?

Although it is night, the sky holds a purple, bruised and blemished cloud with a smear of yellow light, fading as if a farewell was painted just for me. The stars are malformed blotches without their shimmering brilliance.

I hear a shot, a gun blast. Prompted by salutary fear, I dropped to the floor of the roof. Were the sights set on me? Who would want to assassinate me? I was in someone’s crosshairs, I think? The voices are telling me to get off the roof. Do I listen? Are these voices my salvation? Could they be the angels of Sodom? What they say is, “Do not take the stairs.” There is no other way down but the stairs, even to get to the elevator. Why do they want me to leap from the roof? I still have my sensibilities. I will disobey the voices. There will be hell to pay for my noncompliance, but I choose the stairs and elevator.

I am back out on the street, but much has changed. There are trees, swing vines, underbrush, plants and leaves in my face. What has happened? There is an alarm in my head, ‘Something insanely supernatural has occurred.’ I am in a pestilential swamp garden. Struck initially with a singular recession of fright due to the primitive nakedness of what I see before me, I assume this is not real. I must be exploring the arcane labyrinth of my own creation. My proclivities are in check. A rancid stench of urine mingled with decaying carrion has caused me to delay my breath. These noxious volumes of putridness are burning the lining of my nose. This fetid, mephitic, festering odor is otherworldly. A seething blur of sick revulsion has added more physical complications to this dire moment where infinity passes in the minuteness of time. I must desperately attempt to moderate my composure. In view of this weird fiction, more unbelievable still, are the thoughts of sin, lust, blasphemy and malice to the extreme, which bear down on me. These mixed emotions have given me an imperative desire to flee at once.

What do I make of this illusion? It is unequivocally real, or at least to me, it is. I see no one else here to ask. Have the spirits now manifested? The spirits, the voices, I hear? They are predisposed to seeing my demise, but I believed I had impeded them. However, I can hear them in the distance, howling and using vociferous cat calls, baiting me, luring me into intimacy with the devil. They are getting closer, pervading my senses, eating at me like a malignancy. I shall not profligate my time kneeling to their darkness. It is my prerogative to ease my perturbation using whatever extreme measure is necessary. My tolerance should be commended. My assiduities are strong.

Fear of the unknown has altered my perception. The environmental unpredictability, the possibility and infinite depth of the mysteriousness has polarized me. Psychosis is classically inherent. Death is a profound gloom that I cannot snap out of. I am seeing but not seeing. My sight is sorely limited to the black air of void; I scream in the face of death! I pray for death. Death is merciful, for there is no return from the grave. I cannot contain the terrors I call my own. Death would be my salvation. Unbearable collective visions of sardonic mockery plague me, and the gods are laughing.

Have I mentioned I am a gambler? I have always loved a good bet, especially when the odds are stacked against me. It is imperative I share this before the night is through. The votaries prophesied the world was ending, so I placed bets on its destruction. I ask, what is the point of living in this darkness? The insignificance of it wearies me terribly. I feel a nervous collapse coming on. The forest of my nightmare has grown out of my anguish. Why am I overcome with doom? I am trying to remember a time when I wanted to live. Regardless, when I am gone, I want to be buried with my parents. The contradiction, the seemingly counterintuitive paradox has become apparent. I have never been alone, but I desire to be alone. Will I be excused from my poverty? I am not speaking of monetary values and treasures. Can you not recognize the traumatic pain? I walk with an old man’s limp, not because I am aged, but because I am broken.

Moving from street to street, from place to place, from tree to tree. Maybe I am the cosmos? I am unknowable. I am so small, meaningless. I have no intellectual reassurances. I am uncaring, uncertain; what is important? May I destroy a perfectly good Lovecraft quote? “I am but a flyspeck on the back door of a microscopic universe.” Can’t you see what I see? Or, can I not see what you see? It’s all incomprehensible.

Where is the light? Why am I chronically surmounted by darkness? I am unable to correlate the contents of my soul. My essence is a blackened infinity. I wonder if anyone has noticed I am gone? The voices, the voices tell me no one has noticed. My absence has gone undetected. The voices are guiding me further away from those who have already forgotten me. I am the dinghy lost at sea, launched from a vessel going down into unfathomable waters, dragged violently under by a voracious maelstrom, where the laws of man no longer matter. This is a frightful revelation. I am Jonah running from my world, running from my universe, running from God. It is indescribably cold. My external qualities cannot be perceived. I have become an ungodly malady, poisoned by my own inventions, my own lies drowning in the foreign abyss unknown by the masses. Is there nothing left of me except identity? I am a tiny fraction of the whole. Is my world evil, or am I the evil in it? The ground crunches beneath my feet. I am stepping on the remains of dry, brittle bones. It is fallen man, scorched by that which has been predestined. How is it possible I remain? Why am I not counted with the dead?

Elder Things, Great Old Ones, Deep Ones, Outer gods, my curse is knowledge withheld from mortals. Am I no longer mortal? All is captive, encased, entombed under the gaze of surveilling eyes. I see the other side where the last of the changing winds push the final tides, erasing the faces of all who have gazed upward. There are no flowers in my dream, only twisted phantoms, unatoned. The voices are becoming clearer now. They speak to me of a gateway.

The voices must be those which have been flung from the stars that no longer burn, echoing in the confines of the earth for those who have ears to hear. I will never see the outer void unless I find the gateway.

Is this truly my creation, my invention? Are my thoughts spilling out onto the canvas of the world? How can so much darkness flow from one man? The voices lead me on. Meshed in a world that has avoided the truth, I fear, most assuredly, I am a contagion unto myself. I see through the glass darkly, obscured from any promise allotted me. As a small fragment from a scattered puzzle, I am the missing piece, never found, never fitting in, leaving the whole of the puzzle incomplete. Within the secret vistas, I traverse the alleys of despair and cross the bridges of no return. I never look back. These terrifying vistas of reality supply limited hope, no potential, only my own annihilation.

I am actually free. The voices have been my compass, leading me. For me, it is every bit unmemorable as I close the book of my life.

I see clearly the Eldritch things, ghastly, festering, putrescent gall rising in my throat. Diabolical, hideous monsters have come to receive me. Laconically speaking, they are scary. Someone has walked the earth in my shadow, leading me to the incomprehensible. Is this the dream universe created by an unconscious being, or am I the disorder lording over lesser deities?

I believe I have made it.

My thoughts are being extracted and are forming, materializing into solid form. Forbidden knowledge may destroy me, kill me, but I am the architect. My creation erected high may not stand long beneath the masonry of my delusion because it is disjointed within incomprehensible dimensions. The scope is abstractly endless. Outer darkness has stripped all of the colors away. I am trying to wrench myself away, to wake from the intangible pursuit. Now I fear definitely that I will be defiled with endless hours of burning oppression, being dragged into the gulfs where serpentine vapors pollute the lungs, strip away all inhibitions and demand control of my vertigo. It is inevitable, I will be precipitated into obscurity, into abysmal mesmeric destruction.

I apply mental resistance in the hopes of rendering the terror of insanity and threatening mephitic evil powerless. I am becoming unhinged. All before me is misshapen, and I see desolate abstraction and malignities consumed by the veritable appetite of absence. There is nothing.