The Voice, part 1

After the intense politics of the last few weeks I feels I should do something a little different. This is the first part of a new story I'm working on. Overall it should take 3 of 4 entries of about this size. It's a bit dark and weird, but that's the point. Hopefully not too cliché?

He ran through the endless corridor. He knew there was no point, that it would catch him eventually, but he ran anyway. Every few second he had to slow to throw open the doors which blocked his way. He could hear the doors splintering behind him. It did not need to slow down to open them.

Sweat matted his hair and trickled down his face. He could feel a drop balanced on his nose, waiting to be thrown off as he ran. For some reason it was excruciatingly hot in the never-ending corridor and the further he ran the warmer it got. It occurred to him that he might burn to death before it got to him. Listening for the next crash as the doors exploded into splinters convinced him otherwise. With a grunt he tried to pour energy that he didn’t have into his flight.

“You can’t run forever, boy” the voice boomed. “You can’t run from something you created.” The voice was almost inhumanly deep. So deep that he could barely tell where it was coming from. It seemed to reverberate around the corridor, seeping from the whitewashed walls and ringing around eternity. It was so loud that it deafened him, burned his ears and pulled him to a staggering halt.

Collapsing against the next set of double doors, he closed his eyes and waited for death to take him.

His eyes snapped open.

The room was dark but for the thin shafts of light piercing through the cracks in the curtains. He could see the black outlines of the furniture, barely visible in the ill-lit room. He shivered, partly from the cold and partly from the memory that was, thankfully, already fading in his mind. He shifted on the bed and shivered more; it was cold with sweat. His hair was matted with the cold perspiration and his pyjamas clung to his body.

Sighing, he dropped his head back onto his pillow and stated up at the whitewashed ceiling, glad that his ordeal was over. It had been the same every night every since that day so many weeks ago. He had come to see it as his punishment; no more than he deserved he supposed. That did not stop him from fearing sleep.

Tonight had been different however; tonight he had lost the race. For the first time he’d stopped and it had reached him. For the first time, he woke up afraid.

“You should be.” The voice echoed around his head. His mind exploded in pain at the sheer volume of the voice. It was all he could do not to scream. He turned even colder.

“Who are you?” he asked the deathly silent room.

“Who am I?” the voice replied in that same painfully loud boom, but with a hint of amusement that was even more terrifying. “I don’t have a name. I’m just a voice inside your head. I’m you.”

“You’re not me. I don’t torment people, I don’t drive them insane. You’re–“

“Ah, but you do, don’t you? Don’t you think you’ve tormented Emily all these weeks? Don’t you think you’ve made her life a misery, driven her insane by what you did?”

“That… That’s different. I didn’t mean to, I…” he trailed off and the voice laughed as sleep took him again, tears rolled down his face.