Hearing Things

• Grace Back, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2022

Madeline fainted. Her head seared, the pain she felt was indescribable. But the voices she heard were clear. Heard? She felt them. She could feel the voices, the whispers. Like screams in her ear, calling her.

Her parents were extremely disturbed. They didn’t know what to do, they were appalled when Madeline proposed she follow the whispers. Her parents made the rules extremely clear; Madeline was not to follow the voices; the idea was absurd. But she just knew she had to. Once again, she felt it. But she’d had enough of her parents, they didn’t understand, and she knew it. So, she flung open the door and ran.

She heard them screaming behind her. They cried out for her to listen, but she kept running. Eventually, Madeline collapsed. She couldn’t keep running, it was too much. However, what she woke up to made her wish she hadn’t stopped. Her parents were kneeling in front of her, talking to her. But she wasn’t listening, she realized where she was. She was sitting in a basement.

A small room, tiny if you will, half the size of a normal bedroom. She realized how manipulative her parents were. They told her that they just needed her to spend a couple of days down here. Some time for her to ‘come back to reality’ until she stopped talking about the whispers. This was insane. She needed to get out of here.

A few days passed, still down in the basement, Madeline sat. She cried half the time, her parents didn’t understand her and locked her up because of it. Occasionally, they would pass her food and it would take hours for her to finish. She didn’t want to eat, but she was getting too hungry to not take some of the food.

Madeline was broken, to put it simply. Her parents didn’t understand her suffering, she knew she was in this alone. After a while, her parents brought down more food. She wasn’t hungry, she didn’t eat. Because she heard something. She heard voices, that weren’t her parents. People had arrived. She just needed someone to hear her, screaming, crying, whatever to get them down there. She started to scream, but the walls were too compact. So, she gave up.

Madeline woke up from a half slumber to footsteps. Someone was walking around the place. Hope started to build up in her. She knew it could be her parents, but she pushed that horrid thought to the back of her mind. The footsteps became louder until they stopped in front of the door to her dungeon-like room. The person on the other side started to unlock the door, and Madeline assisted them.
Finally, they managed to destruct the door, and in front of Madeline was a stunning woman. She had glamorous, blonde hair, and an elegant red summer dress. She embraced Madeline in a protective hug. “Hello, I’m Olive,” She whispered to Madeline softly, “you’re safe now.”