Do You Hear Me Now?

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the line, "They made me do it."

Do You Hear Me Now?

“They made me do it! Can’t you hear them? The voices made me do it. Why won’t anyone believe me?”

Annie looked from one “pretend” face to the next. There were three of them in all. Men in white coats; all pretending sympathy – pretending they didn’t hear the voices. But she knew better. She knew they could hear what she heard. She knew because the voices told her so.

If only the voices would talk now, with everyone in the room. Then there would be no denying it. Sure, they could pretend not to hear; but she’d see it in their eyes.

One of the coats looked up from his clipboard and asked, “What do the voices say?”

A trick question for sure.

“Things,” she mumbled looking down at her shackled wrists and ankles.

“Come on Annie, we can’t help you if you do this.”

She ignored him; instead choosing to let her head dangle – a long string of drool reaching for the floor.

“Be reasonable, Annie. Can’t you se…” the coat was cut off in mid-sentence as the room shook violently.

The three men turned white as they looked for something to grab onto in the padded cell. A second violent shaking sent all of them to the ground.

“It’s an earthquake!” exclaimed one.

Annie sat in her chair which was bolted to the floor. Her head was still hanging down.

She lifted it up slowly at the sound of the deep rasping voices, each just slightly out of sync with the others.

“We are here for them; we are here to crush the unbelievers. We shall set you free, Annie; to do our bidding.” they said from the far side of the door.

Annie smiled, turned to her keepers and said, “Tell me you didn’t hear that.”

Word count 299



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