The Second Voice

The summer I turned fourteen, the cicadas stopped singing. Not in our yard, not in the whole of Harlow County. The air hung thick and wet, like the inside of a mouth, and the only sound was the hum of the power lines and the occasional crack of a branch from the heat. I remember thinking, ‘Even the bugs know something’s wrong.’ That’s when I started hearing it again.

It wasn’t like the first time. When I was six, it had burst out of me during a tantrum so violent that my mother had to pin me to the floor. She’d fetched the vial of holy oil from the kitchen drawer—the one she kept for emergencies—and dabbed a cross on my forehead. My screaming didn’t stop; it changed. A man’s voice, deep and old, rumbled from my throat, making my jaw vibrate. I watched my mother’s face go from terrified to something else, something I didn’t understand until years later: recognition. She’d seen that thing before, in her own grandmother’s fits. ‘It’s the second voice,’ she whispered, and then she started praying. The voice left, but it left a mark on me, a cold spot in my chest that never really warmed.

Now, at thirteen, I was a walking pharmacy of diagnoses: major depressive disorder, bipolar, social anxiety, PTSD. The insomnia had been a constant companion until this spring, when I suddenly started sleeping like the dead—literally, I’d wake up with no memory of dreams, which was worse. Because I knew, in that bone-deep way you know things in the dark, that something was using those hours. My hands would be sore in the morning, like I’d been gripping something all night. Once, I found a scratch on my forearm, three parallel lines, so precise they looked deliberate.

It was the internet that gave me the word for it: a site about dark entities, physical signs of possession. I read the list under the blue light of my phone, my heart thudding against my ribs. Uneasy feelings, yes. Nightmares of self-harm—there was one where I was standing on the edge of the old quarry, and the water below was black, and a voice from inside me said, ‘Jump, you little coward.’ I never told my therapist about that one.

But the site said the most telling sign was a change in sleep patterns. ‘The entity feeds on your rest, using the stillness to grow stronger. Eventually, it will try to take over your waking hours.’ I read that sentence a dozen times. Last night, I woke up at 3:33 AM. Not from a nightmare, not from a sound. I just opened my eyes, and I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, my hand on the faucet. I hadn’t walked there. My reflection was a second too slow to mimic my movements. And then it smiled.

I wanted to scream, but my voice didn’t work. The reflection’s smile widened, showing teeth that were too white, too straight. It spoke, but not aloud. The words formed in my head, in that same deep voice from my childhood: ‘You’ve been such a good host. I like this body. It’s so much better than the last one.’

I flung myself backward, hitting the wall, and the spell broke. The reflection was me again, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream. I stumbled back to my bed, pulled the covers over my head, and stayed there until the sun crept through the blinds. When I tried to get up, my legs felt weak, and I saw the scratch on my forearm was deeper now, seeping blood.

I think it’s not content to just haunt my dreams anymore. It wants to be awake with me. And I don’t know if I can keep the door shut. The cicadas are still silent. And I think that’s because they’re waiting to see who comes out of my house alive.