Austerity's Appeal
A mysterious voice plagues Whitneyville. Can any one resident succeed against it alone?
Freedom leaves you alone. Bereft. Cast adrift on the winds of Fate. And she is a most mercurial mistress, is she not? Why choose to be alone? Why not, instead, choose community? Choose to protect yourself from the storms of chaos? Why not choose ... Us?
Displace yourself from the past, your woes, your lonesome drifting. Come here. Come to us. Come home.
The voice pressed itself against every crack and crevice in Ishmael's cranium, the dulcet tones of a velvet viper, its fangs already sunk deep in his flesh and mind, their venom suffusing his entire being.
He'd heard the rumours whispered under sheltered eaves. The health services were quietly panicking as complaints of phantom voices went from an almost unheard-of malady in Whitneyville to an epidemic in the community. And all of an exact nature. A charming soft call, pulling you somewhere in the city. He'd never dared to follow it, yet, but he'd heard it daily now.
Come.
This way.
We're waiting.
Don't you want to be home?
It was maddening in the worst way, as what could be done to rid himself of it? The voice had to be his imagination. A cruel joke on himself. Who would just come when called, like a loyal dog, to something they didn't know? And still, it whispered, pressing against him, an overbearing omnipresent push into his very being, his soul if such a thing existed. It only relented when he moved into town, dancing away on some streets only to come crashing back on others, railing against him whenever he thought of leaving.
Midnight
He'd had enough after yet another night of tossing and turning like a roast duck over a fire. He was going to find this damn voice and silence it. Even if it cost him a whole night of sleep, he didn't care. Getting rid of the voice would earn him his nights back forever. What's one night against a lifetime of peaceful sleep? And so, Ishmael went hunting.
He chased the voice along its dancing path for hours, a maze through avenues, parks, boulevards, alleys, and side streets. He once believed he could never get lost in his city. That he knew all of it so well, or near enough, that even blinded, he'd find his way. The waltzing path of the voice, however, proved that such delusions were incredibly wrong.
Eventually, just as the darkness first weakened, he found himself standing under a streetlamp of sorts, burning gas, not electricity. The voice taunted his ears, calling him into an immaculate alley, utterly untouched by the graffiti commonplace in Downtown, to a door most would dismiss as a fire exit. If not for the voice calling him through it, he'd never have seen it, let alone tried its handle. The door gave way without the slightest hint of resistance indeed it seemed... eager to open to his touch. As he crossed the threshold, the one voice became many, a cheering horde welcoming him home, their adulation deafening him to the closing door.
Only when its bolt was thrown home did the screams start, while a sickening wet laugh flooded his ears as he ran to the exit. The hall shifted as he turned on his heel, its opulence fading as gaslight morphed into white fire, wallpaper burning away to reveal stacked grinning skulls flanked by every bone of every shape, many too small to be an adult's. A wolf's howl echoed from the staircase he'd almost passed, cutting him off from the door as he heard the rattle of paws running up the stairs. Its mangy black muzzle entered the hall, immediately turning to stare him in the eyes, an enormous beast blocking the way, offering no escape but death.
Ishmael stared into its milk-white eyes and, perhaps foolishly, determined he'd rather die on his feet. He threw an uppercut into its jaw, the bones in his hand breaking against iron. The Wolf, unfazed at such feeble violence, bit down on Ishmael's shoulder as he held his flopping hand, pain flooding his body worse than the voice had ever been, as he was dragged deep into the basement, and never heard from again.