I Can Hear a Serial Killer's Voice in My Head

I frantically flip through the remaining pages of the diary, my heart pounding. But there's nothing - just blank pages staring back at me. The story ends abruptly, leaving me with more questions than answers.

"No, no, no," I mutter, running my hands through my hair. "There has to be more."

I start tearing through the boxes in the room, scattering papers and old photographs across the floor. My movements become more frenzied with each empty container.

"Come on, Dad," I plead to the empty room. "You must have left something else."

After what feels like hours, my hands trembling with exhaustion and frustration, I spot a small, leather-bound notebook tucked away in the corner of an old shoebox. It's different from the diary - smaller, more worn.

I open it with shaking hands, and my breath catches in my throat. This isn't a continuation of the diary. It's something else entirely - a record of my father's interactions with the voice in his head.

The entries are disturbing, to say the least:

"March 15: The voice told me to push my wife down the stairs today. Said it would be fun to watch her tumble. I gripped the kitchen counter until my knuckles turned white, fighting the urge. God help me."

"April 3: It whispered all through the night about setting fires. Showed me visions of the whole neighborhood going up in flames. The smell of smoke seemed so real. I woke up sweating, relieved to find the house intact."

"April 17: The voice is getting creative. Suggested I slip something into my coffee at the precinct. 'Imagine the chaos,' it said. 'All those cops, armed and hallucinating.' I called in sick instead."

"May 2: It's not just one voice anymore. There's a chorus of them now, all clamoring for attention. They argue with each other about the best ways to 'have fun'. Their idea of fun makes me sick."

"May 20: The voices showed me how easy it would be to take my service weapon home. Kept describing, in vivid detail, what would happen if I used it on my family, then myself. I left my gun at the station. I can't trust myself anymore."

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I slump to the floor, the notebook still clutched in my trembling hands. The weight of my father's suffering crashes over me like a tidal wave, and I can no longer hold back the tears.

They come in heaving sobs, wracking my entire body. I curl in on myself, pressing the notebook to my chest as if I could somehow reach through time and hold my father, comfort him in his darkest moments.

"Dad," I choke out between sobs. "Oh, Dad. I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

The room blurs through my tears as I imagine my father, alone and terrified, battling these monstrous voices day after day. How did he manage to keep going? How did he face each day, knowing the horrors that awaited him in his own mind?

I think of all the times I saw him when I was a child - his tired smiles, the dark circles under his eyes, the way his hands would sometimes shake for no apparent reason. All this time, I thought it was just the stress of his job. I had no idea of the war raging inside him.

"You were so strong, Dad," I whisper, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. "So brave. I wish I could have helped you. I wish I had known."

The guilt washes over me - guilt for not seeing his pain, for not understanding the depth of his struggles. Even though I know, rationally, that I was just a child, that there was nothing I could have done, the feeling persists.

I take a deep breath, wiping the last traces of tears from my face. My hands are still shaking, but I force myself to focus. I need to finish reading this notebook, no matter how difficult it might be.

I open it again, steeling myself for more disturbing entries. Most of them follow the same pattern - the voices urging my father to commit horrific acts, to give in to his darkest impulses. But as I near the end, something changes.

The handwriting becomes more frantic, the entries shorter and more cryptic. And then, I come across something that makes me pause:

"June 10: The voices have changed their tune. They're not telling me to hurt random people anymore. Now, they're fixated on one person: Choi."

I lean in closer, my heart racing.

"June 11: They want me to kill Choi. But not physically. They say I need to drive him mad, to break his mind. It's... almost poetic, in a twisted way."

The next entry sends a chill down my spine:

"June 12: The voices are teaching me something new. They claim there's a way to control someone else's inner voice. A 'demonic spiritual move,' they call it. They say I could use it on Choi, make him hear what I hear."

I pause, trying to process this information. Could this be real? Or was my father's mind so fractured by this point that he was losing touch with reality?

"June 13: They're getting more insistent. Showing me visions of how to do it. Chanting in languages I don't understand. Part of me is terrified. But another part... another part is curious.

What if I could turn the tables on Choi?"

I continue reading, my eyes widening as I come across a detailed description of the ritual my father was considering. The entry is meticulous, almost academic in its precision, a stark contrast to the frantic scribbles that came before.

"June 15: The voices have been... specific about the requirements for this 'spiritual move.' It's not just chanting or meditation. There are physical components needed. Ingredients, if you will, for this dark recipe."

I lean in closer, my heart pounding as I read on.

"Chief among them, bizarrely enough, is a painting. Not just any painting, but a specific work from the Renaissance period. 'The Torment of Saint Anthony' by Michelangelo. They say a reproduction is fine as well."

I pause, my mind racing. Why would a Renaissance painting be crucial to a demonic ritual? A sudden realization hits me like a bolt of lightning.

My mind flashes back to Choi's office, a detail I'd overlooked until now suddenly taking on monumental significance.

"Wait a minute," I mutter to myself, my heart beginning to race. "I've seen that painting before."

I close my eyes, forcing myself to recall every detail of Choi's meticulously decorated office. And there it is - hanging prominently behind his desk, a painting I'd noticed but hadn't given much thought to at the time.

"The Torment of Saint Anthony," I whisper, my eyes snapping open. "It's been right there in front of me this whole time."

The entry continues.

"The voices claim the painting acts as a conduit, a bridge between our world and theirs. Something about the artist's depiction of spiritual torment creating a weak point in the fabric of reality. It sounds insane, but then again, what part of this doesn't?"

The entry details other components - rare herbs, specific astronomical alignments, and bizarrely, a personal item belonging to the target. In this case, something of Choi's.

"June 16: I've located the painting. I'm trying to resist, but the pull is strong. What am I becoming?"

The level of detail, the specificity of the requirements - it lends a frightening credibility to my father's account. This wasn't just the ramblings of a tormented mind. There was a plan, a purpose.

I settle back into the armchair, my father's notebook clutched tightly in my hands. With renewed focus, I begin to flip through the pages again, scanning each entry carefully. My heart races as I search for any indication that my father actually performed the ritual he described.

Page after page, I read through his tormented words, the descriptions of the voices, the struggle against their dark urgings. But as I near the end of the notebook, a sinking feeling begins to grow in the pit of my stomach.

There's nothing. No entry detailing the execution of the ritual. No triumphant declaration of success, no anguished confession of failure. The last entry I find is the one describing the painting and the other components needed for the ritual. After that, blank pages stare back at me, maddeningly silent.

"Come on, Dad," I mutter, flipping back and forth between the pages as if new words might magically appear. "You must have written something. Did you do it? Did you not? What happened?"

But the notebook offers no answers. The abrupt end to the entries leaves me with more questions than ever. Did my father abandon the idea? Did something prevent him from going through with it? Or did he perform the ritual and, for some reason, not record it?

I lean back, closing my eyes in frustration. The lack of closure is maddening. It's as if I've been given all the pieces of a puzzle, only to find that the most crucial piece is missing.

Opening my eyes, I stare at the notebook in my hands. The absence of information is, in itself, a kind of information. My father, who had been so meticulous in recording his struggles, suddenly stopped writing. Why?

I sink back down onto the floor, my legs suddenly weak. This connection between my father's writings and Choi's office decor is too significant to be coincidental. It's a tangible link between the supernatural elements of my father's struggle and the very real, very dangerous world of Choi's influence.

"I need to see that painting again," I say to the empty room, my resolve hardening. I take a deep breath, steeling myself for what's to come.