Shared Topic: First Sign of Madness

If you gave your character a voice, how would a conversation between you and them go?

Here's my whirl at the the Shared Topic for February 8th.


She was used to disembodied voices talking to her. It was all a part of being a shaman, listening to the spirits. But, really, this was starting to get ridiculous. Not only were the spirits talking to her now, there was this giant disembodied female voice. Not a spirit, oh, no, she knew the difference between spirits and voices from nowhere.

And this. This was a voice from nowhere.

It had been said that the first sign of madness was talking to one's head. She wanted to know where 'hearing voices' fell. As an adventurer, she had seen much and done much. Killing her own severed essences had been bizarre, but the voice...

You know, pondering my existence won't make me go away. I'm you; your ponderings come from me.

So she was going insane.

My silly, lovely Kanta. You're about as sane as all of my characters. The voice was in her head now. Is this better, by the way?

Comforting. "Why now? Many years of my life have gone by, and yet you come to me now..." She wasn't sure if the having The Voice move to her head was better or worse, so she left the latter question unanswered.

Why not? I got asked to explore a character, I chose you.

'Who else did she have to choose from?'

As if the thought got plucked from her mind, which, from the nature of the conversation, if it could be called thus, seemed feasible, the voice replied, The others. You don't need to know about them though.

'So who are you?' If she didn't have to say things aloud, she wasn't going to. Nirkanta felt ridiculous enough to be talking in her own head without actually verbalizing her thoughts.

A writer. I create stories. You are a story. You live the tale that I write.

'Like a deity who controls our actions?' She was now more aiming mental questions at... her own head. It was too bizarre even for her. In this one conversation, her world was being turned upside down. Voices in her head, and a greater deity who could write, as any normal writer wrote, but in their hands was the power to change her life. Did that mean that nothing she did really had a purpose, and that all of it, all of her tough decisions, all the things she went through... everything was planned?

You could think of it in that manner. A laugh. Then, in a more subdued tone, Sorry about your eye, Kanta.

Her fingers reached up, beneath her curtain of hair, to touch the empty socket that no longer held an eye. She had become accustomed to not having it now, for many seasons had passed since that incident, and had learned to work around her changed reality. 'That was you?'

You never would have turned restoration then, nor would you have met some of the people you have if you stayed the way you were. The accident helped you learn many things... The Voice was regretful.

She was shocked and horrified at the news. "My family?" It was a whisper. "My memory?"

Laziness on my part. Now it was apologetic. You've turned out well for how little I knew of you when I started your creation. You were originally created for another purpose... A pause. I'm glad you're you though. Not all of my children would acknowledge my presence nearly as well.

What was she supposed to say to that? The Voice destroyed her world, and all she could say was that she, Nirkanta, turned out very well? A sense of fury was starting to build. One unlike those she had felt in the past. It was a combination of fury and sadness. Was it loss for the freedom of will she believed she had? Or was it a sense of forlorn? She couldn't quite tell. All she knew that there was an overwhelming feeling of something--

I'll leave you to your thoughts. You have much to meditate upon.

She nodded. There really was much she had to consider. If it was all a hallucination, then things would be good.

Oh, how she prayed it was.

If it wasn't... she didn't know. Could she live knowing that her life was being written out, that every action she performed was scripted as if in a play? That maybe her end had already been created, somewhere, just waiting for her to reach the right moment, the right act, the right scene? Or... what if The Voice got bored of creating, as many artists do? What would happen to her and 'the others', as the voice put it? Would they just... carry on, in stasis until interest was rediscovered? And if not... be stuck forever?

Maybe that alternative was better than dying... She didn't know anymore. She prayed, however, that The Voice was simply a voice in her head, a part of her madness, her insanity.

Maybe she needed to take some time off. Be alone. Figure out the cause of the insanity, for it had to be, after all, insanity that caused this discussion...

Yes. She would do that.

Her mind made up, she transformed into a ghost wolf, then curled up against the tree trunk, the conversation and her possible insanity plaguing her thoughts.

[Hope you guys enjoyed the story. I was bored during raid. Actually, I really needed a distraction, something that was going to save me from saying or doing anything really regrettable.]