Never-Ending Screaming

Please.

Help me.

For as long as I can remember, the screaming was always there. It was forever lurking behind me like a lion to prey, ready to pounce and consume me whole. When it did, it left nothing but a shattered, empty shell that once was me, but no longer. There was nothing I could do to stop the screaming. I would close my eyes and cover my ears from the earsplitting shrieks of little children, begging for them to stop as tears ran down the sides of my face, but it never worked. I could still hear them. Louder and louder.

After some time, I realized that no one could hear the screams. No one acted as I did when the screaming would commence. No-one stopped and asked me if I was okay. No one even looked at me. Whether they were children or adults, no one acted like I was there. They just went about their typical day and ignored my pleas for help and my begging for the voices in my head to stop. It’s not that I wanted the attention, but I felt alone.

I wandered the city lost. I tried to keep myself busy by going to a nearby school. It didn’t last very long because the same thing would happen there. I wasn’t looked at or talked to by anyone. I tried to speak with some of the students, but they ignored me. I eventually gave up. I just want to go home. Where even was home?

I can’t remember.

Of all the time I’ve been here, I’ve been alone. I can’t remember anything before waking up that one day all those years ago. That was the last thing I can remember: school. It was fourth grade. A giant bolt of pain came to my head, and I doubled over from the intensity. It was like my head was being torn apart bit by bit. I was trying to remember something. Memories from my fourth-grade school year came to and from me in quick movements to the point that the images became blurred. Figures without faces. Children running. Laughter.

When the memories finally faded, so did the pain that came with them. I had no clue what those memories were or why or how I suddenly got them. From that moment on, I decided that it would probably be best to try not to remember anything. For weeks, I pushed out any thoughts that might make me remember anything. Why would I want to? Any memories that brought physical pain were most likely memories no one would want to remember.

The time I spent at school was dull and unexciting, days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Over time, the children I saw got older and left the school, I never did. There was something about the school that made me want to stay in it. It wasn’t warmth. It was something; I felt stuck. Like I couldn’t leave. I always sat in the back corner the classrooms, next to a window, just barely paid attention to any of the lessons that went on, but no one cared anyway. I never did look outside the window, and if I did, I don’t remember it. When I turned around to look through it, I saw a sad, run-down playground that looked like it hasn’t been used in years. There was also an entrance into a section of the school that I’ve never come across. Maybe the school was remodeled over time.

I needed to get a better look at the entrance, so I adjusted my position and was face-to-face with a person through the glass. It was a young girl, roughly ten years old. I didn’t recognize her, so I waved. She waved at the same time. Could she see me? I felt this wave of happiness wash over me at the thought that I wasn’t truly alone. She never responded, though. She only mimicked what I did. Oh, it was just a reflection. It was my reflection. I didn’t recognize myself. Did I look ten years old? I brought my hand to my face and examined my appearance. I couldn’t possibly be ten years old. It’s been so long since I can remember, aren’t I supposed to be much older? It’s been about 71 months, right?

Once I snapped myself out of my thoughts, my reflection had left me, and I could see the old school entrance and abandoned playground clearly again. There was something about it, something that was pulling me towards it. I walked out of the classroom, navigating hallways to outside the school, walking around the building to the back. Everything there was destroyed. The small playground was a replica of the one at the new entrance. Its state was worse than what I saw from the window, broken and worn from the constant use all those years ago, and time was not on its side. The poster and banners were either on the ground tattered or just barely hanging on the walls. Parts of the walls were crumbling, and splotches of the remaining red paint were peeling off.

Examining the worn-out section of the school brought back the pain that I tried so hard to keep away. Flashes of memories that were long forgotten only brought more confusion and more pain. I saw the old playground become new in my mind as I watched my ten-year-old self play on the swings and go down the slides. As well as seeing my young self being dropped off for school by a woman smiling happily as she gives me a hug and watches me go through the front doors, heading to my classroom. I felt the tears forming and falling from my eyes as I relive old memories that were so happy. Why would I ever want to forget these? Why did I push away the memories simply because of the pain?

Why would such happy memories even bring pain?

That’s when the screaming started. The throbbing in my head of the children’s screams was louder than anything I’ve ever heard. It felt like someone was bashing my head open with a sledgehammer. I dropped to my knees, unable to stand, and put my hands over my ears, hoping it might do something. The screams just got louder, like they were mocking me and testing me to see how long it’d take for me to break. I felt a warm liquid on my hands and looked at my palms. Blood. I couldn’t silence the screaming. I never could. It may leave for a while, but it will always come back. Looking up from the ground, I see shapes, my vision blurring more and more as the screaming gets worse, but I can see it clearly now. Old photos of children and some who were adults along with wilted flowers with no sign of life and long gone out candles. Those were the last items I saw before I fell over onto the ground, darkness surrounding me.

“Bye, Mommy!” I shouted back to my mom as I walked through the front doors of the school. I was one of the few students that enjoyed going to school, and that was because I had the best teacher, Miss Winters. I made sure to get to class quickly and say hello before school started. Classes went on as usual, but shortly after lunch, there was a loud bang. The sound rang throughout the whole school. Following the sound was silence, almost as if no one knew what was going on or what to do. There was another loud bang shortly after and then another one. Miss Winters seemed very panicked as she urged everyone to go to the corner of the room, where no one could see from the outside. She left the room and locked the door after her, I don’t know where she was going, but it seemed urgent. For what felt like forever, it was just silence. From inside the room, I could clearly hear Miss Winters scream from the other side of the school, which was followed by an ear ringing bang and then a quiet thud.

Over time my classmates and I were still in the classroom, trying our best to remain as silent as possible. But there was someone at the door. They shot at the door handle and came inside. The man was wearing a mask, but you could still see his eyes and terrifying smile as he forced all of us outside the door, down the hallway, and into the gymnasium. When we arrived, the rest of the school was there, which wasn’t that many roughly a hundred or so students, and five people wearing masks just like the man who got us. Each one of them had at least two or three guns on them, fully prepared to fire one at any given time. The police showed up eventually and tried to negotiate with them, but they didn’t listen to any of it.

One of the adults tried to get one of the guns they had but was shot in the head almost immediately. The more we made a fuss, the more people got shot. Many of the children were screaming, most for their parents and others just from fear. I was one of them, and I ran. I ran from the screams and the other children to one of the exits. I knew that I probably wouldn’t survive, but I had to take the chance. I couldn’t see all that well through the tears in my eyes, but when I ran into something and fell back onto the floor, I knew that I was done for. I looked up at the person, and it was the same man as before. I saw him, and he stared down at me with this look in his eyes, that what he was about to do next would bring him joy. With that, I was genuinely terrified. I screamed my heart out, the tears in my eyes came pouring out as I tried to get back up and run. The man reached for his gun, aimed it at my head, and pulled the trigger all in the same moment.

It was too late to run for me.

As I gained consciousness and lifted my head from the ground, I saw blood from where I had been just seconds ago. I put a hand to my forehead and felt the bullet wound that appeared. I regained my memories, and I didn’t want them. All the pain and screaming were gone, and the screams I heard all along were my own never-ending screams.

I’m dead, aren’t I? That’s why no one interacted with me all this time. Why no one even noticed me. No one can see me or hear me or feel my presence, can they?

Aside from you... that is.

You just listened to me retell my whole story. You can hear me. You know that I’m real.

Please.

You need to help me.

PLEASE!

What? No. You can’t leave me...

YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME!

NO!

YOU HAVE TO STAY WITH ME!

DON’T LEAVE ME!

I WILL FIND YOU.

I WILL NEVER STOP LOOKING FOR YOU.

I will make you hear the screaming too…