The Voices Beyond
Emanuel Radici, Year 9
A wall. That’s how it started. A wall in my head. I could see it all around me. I could even physically touch the wall, but I could never get past. And yet, somehow, I knew the wall was just in my head. So why was it so… so real? That was the question I could not stop asking myself, for what seemed like an eternity. I had lost track of time. But then one day, out of the blue, everything changed forever.
I had traced my hand over every little crack, bump and fissure in the wall. I could feel the cold touch of stone, but somehow, I knew it wasn’t real. It circled me in all directions, up, down, left, right. Everywhere. Just this cracked, chiselled stone. I didn’t know why I was there, where my parents were, where any of my friends were. All I knew was the wall. And then one day, without warning, it started crumbling.
“Ell? Ell, can you hear me? Honey, it’s me. We’re worried. Please. Do something.”
I snapped awake from my dozing on the rough surface of the floor. The voice was coming from the wall. No, not from the wall. From beyond the wall. I didn’t know how, or why, but the voice felt familiar. I knew that voice. But how? I hadn’t heard anything apart from my own heartbeat in eternities.
“Hello?” I said.
My voice simply echoed back at me from the wall. Nothing. I sat back down, about to close my eyes, when I noticed something. A crack. A crack in the wall. It might not seem of significance to anyone else, but I had felt every fissure and bump in this wall. The crack was new. It was new. My heart raced. I had never seen anything new before. At least, not in this stone cage. I stood up, uncertain, and carefully traced my fingers delicately over the crack. It felt so… fresh, like an old scar which had reopened. Just touching it made my entire body tingle. Again, I didn’t know why, or how, but a feeling in my gut told me this was important. I sat down next to the crack, unwilling to leave this new, confusing streak on the wall.
“Ms. Shores? Ms Shores, can you hear me? If you can hear me, can you move your eyes?”
I woke up suddenly again, to a voice. However, this one was unfamiliar. Nonetheless, I moved my eyes around, hoping to hear a voice, any voice apart from my own.
“24th of November. Three months. Still no reaction. Sorry Ellie, but your parents and I think it’s time to pull the plug. Wake up. For their sake.”
The voice receded, and I was left once again in my own thoughts. I had no idea what the person was talking about. Wake up? How? I was encased inside the wall. How could I escape? What was on the other side? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to find out. There were too many questions. There was another fresh mark on the left wall now, this time where the new voice had come from. The stone there looked thinner and lighter, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Then another voice came into play. A woman’s voice. It was so agonisingly familiar, like I knew who it was, but couldn’t quite place it.
“Ellie. Please wake up. Please. It’s Mum.”
Mum. That one word that I hadn’t heard in ages. Suddenly I was flooded with memories. Me at six years old, my parents swinging me at a playground. The time when I was nine, throwing a tantrum over a Christmas present. But how had I ended up here? Was this a punishment? I didn’t know. My family. They were on the other side of the wall. I knew it.
“Mr and Mrs Shores, you don’t have to do this. We can give it more time – .” The voice was cut off by someone else.
“I’m sorry, Doctor. We’ve decided. It’s time to let go.”
The new voice cracked with emotion. I was unsure what to do. All I knew in this lonely life was stone, bumps, and cracks. Cracks. I remembered the newly formed cracks. They had seemed significant before. I hurried over to one of them. The stone felt weak. For the first time since being here, I pulled at the stone. Nothing. I grasped and scrabbled and heaved, until, abruptly, the stone slipped out. It wasn’t a big gap, barely the size of a brick, but I could see the other side. People, family, friends. Mine.
And suddenly, I was free.