Voices

• Alex Shergold, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2016

“Help me.” It whispered distantly. “Help me. Please!” It gargled, pain and terror laced through its voice.
“Please don’t do this to me.” Arlo mumbled under her breath, trying to persuade herself that it was not real. “I can’t . . .” It choked, struggling.
A grey hue had settled around the room, twisting and turning in a deepening fog, manipulating its traumatising tendrils into her head. Suddenly, silence consumed her.
It hung in the air as thick as the grey mist, clinging to her like sweat drenched clothes. Her eyes were burning as hot as lava. Tears stained her face with the dark, ashen colour of mascara. She knew what was coming. A terrified shiver danced through her, and she shut her eyes, bracing herself for the inevitable ending.
“Please don’t die!” She cried suddenly, surprising herself, losing all self-control. The deafening echo of clambering metal filled her head. It was relentless, endless, slowly turning her insane. She clamped her hands over her ears, bawling.
She couldn’t block it out.
Her eyes flung open instinctively, and a strange, curly metal sculpture flooded her vision. Underneath it was the voice. She was so beautiful. Her blonde locks cascaded out over the floor like a silky carpet, her hands and legs scrambling desperately to get up. There was trauma written all over her face, her outlandishly blue eyes wide and glassy with tears.
Arlo sprinted to save her but she wasn’t fast enough. She was never fast enough.
Arlo’s whole body convulsed in time with hers. She stood there uselessly as the sculpture crashed down on her. “Help me!” She screeched insistently, petrified.
Arlo didn’t see blood. There was never any blood.
“I tried.” She sobbed, falling into the shattered metal, scraping her hands raw trying to grasp at it, but it was too slippery, too sharp. The girl could be alive.

She felt a rough hand yanking her backwards. She couldn’t fight. Falling limp, she weeped, “I’m so sorry.” And watching the metal disintegrate into the ground, she started to scream.
She screeched and squealed until her throat bled, because she knew that one of these days someone was going to hear. And someone would come to save her.
The hands tugged her again and Mr Mahoney’s frightened face slowly faded into view, replacing the scene of the girl. She was sitting on the chilling, tousled carpet of the classroom floor, everyone staring at her.

Slowly, she got up. Careful not to alarm the hands restraining her, she nodded at a now concerned Mr Mahoney, and his grasp loosened cautiously. The heartfelt, sheltering arms of Missy’s immediately wrapped around her in a relieved embrace. Another sob raided her body.

Static filled her ears, and she was sure it was starting again, but before she could even get anxious, the unmistakable voice of the girl gently uttered, “Thank you.” and Arlo’s whole face light up.
Someone had heard Arlo.
Someone had saved her.
Arlo had saved her.