Chapter 57: Trauma.
"Do you hear voices?" Pablo asked without even trying to be a little careful with it... he asked it straight up, without thinking a lot about it.
"No, I just heard voices." Joseph looked at him. "For 8 straight years it spoke to me. Though I think it was because I began to lose my mind in the darkness, the first years were nothing but the 2nd year it all started, first with whispers from the wall, ceiling, floor, then the voice just became like a bubble around me, no... like a dome from all directions just echoing." He gestured around his head. "Then in the 10th year it just stopped."
As he finished, they said nothing, no, more like Pablo and Mirella eyed each other.
I might’ve said too much...
"To be true, I had voices too." Pablo began. "But I think for you it was inevitable, like 10 years in the darkness alone... though for me too it was inevitable as I think more about it." He said as he crossed his arms and leaned back, but Joseph noticed his leg shook too.
"What was yours?" He asked, but that moment Pablo just froze down a little, the shaking stopped and he just stared up ahead. "I mean if it’s okay to ask."
"Ohh it’s okay, I’m already good. I mean they gave me some drug for PTSD." He laughed about it, but it was an obvious fake laugh. "My second year at DAG we were deployed in Gundulf to kill a militia leader." He started as he leaned forward, putting his hand on the table and the signs of stress were immediate, his hand was tapping the table and his leg again started to shake. "He was a fucking monster... and well the voice I heard was more like screams."
"Screams?" Joseph asked.
"Yeah... well that fucker found out that one of his men is an informant to us and to retaliate he bombed the school of his son." He didn’t look at Joseph, just stared up ahead as his hand tapped more. "But it was not a simple bomb, it was a lot of fuel, maybe napalm too, and I witnessed... uh... children, small ones, maybe 9 years old up to 12, running out of the building on fire and just screaming as their flesh, skin just peeled off like ice cream, they were just running there on fire, screaming... and when I tried to help one I grabbed his hand but..." He leaned back. "As I went to pull him up, the... skin came off... I just pulled off his skin as I pulled his arm, and he just screamed more, and that smell, that burned flesh..." He stopped as he took a big breath. "Well, that’s it. The screams of him and the other kids just stuck in my mind and I heard it even day and night just screaming at me, but after that I got meds and it helped, it pushed the voice away." He gestured to his head as he finished, and when he looked up, Mirella was crying.
She was shaking by just hearing the story, and even Joseph was struck by the sheer brutality and what he went through.
"What happened to the guy?"
"Ohh, we set him on fire like a witch when we captured him." He laughed as he looked at Joseph. "We gathered a lot of rumble, and wood, and we just handcuffed him to a pole in the middle, and set him on fire, let him burn as he screamed... it was a scream that just gave me more strength... like maybe even his screams were the cure to the voice in my head as he burned to death. It was—"