Scenario:ILLIT Minju
Create my version of this story
When I first heard the voices from the “other side,” I was terrified.
They seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, echoing through my head in a never-ending refrain.
I didn’t know why this was happening to me, or what I could do to make it stop.
All I knew was that I had to find a way to live with it, even if I never quite got used to it.
When I found out that Jiho, my childhood friend, had gone through a similar experience, I knew that I had to tell him about the voices.
I had to tell someone, and Jiho was the one person I trusted more than anyone else in the world.
Jiho was there for me when I told him about the voices, just like he’d always been there for me throughout our lives.
He listened quietly as I poured out my heart to him, his face a mask of concern and sympathy.
I could see how much he wanted to help me—how much he wanted to make things right—but he knew, as well as I did, that there was nothing he could do to stop the voices.
All he could do was be there for me while we both waited for things to get better—or worse.
“They’re not dangerous,” I told Jiho, trying to reassure him even as my voice shook with fear.
“They’re just…there.”
And there was nothing either of us could do about it.
I knew this, even as Jiho struggled to come to terms with the truth.
But what else could we do?
The voices were a part of me now, and no matter how much we both wished they would go away, they never would.
After that day, Jiho made an effort to check in on me whenever he had the chance.
He called or texted me daily, just to make sure that everything was all right.
And most of the time, everything was all right.
Most of the time, I managed to get through each day without being completely overwhelmed by fear or confusion.
But other days were not so easy.
Some days, it seemed like the only way I’d be able to get through them was by focusing on surviving until sunset—and then doing it all over again when the sun rose the next day.
With Jiho’s help, though, I always managed to get through those days—and all the days after them as well.
After a while, hearing the voices became almost second nature to me.
I still didn’t know where they came from or why they chose to speak directly into my brain instead of addressing me like a normal person, but I’d gotten used to them—and they’d gotten used to me.
The voices didn’t seem to want anything from me; they just wanted me to know that they were there.
And so I did, even if I didn’t want to know.
But knowing wasn’t going to change anything—not if I didn’t know what exactly it was that I was supposed to be changing in the first place.