PA. The noise pulls him away from his book. Thousands of lost emotions and irrational thoughts flow through his body, using his spine as the main route. Flashbacks of a past life of floating red faces, nothing-propelled elevated beds, and a blink’s worth of gray figures fill his mind.
“If you ever encounter a ghost”, he remembers hearing a callous voice saying on television “you are to ask it what it wants.” He also remembers what he was doing before something decided to yell half a word. He was lying in his bed, with a small, white paperback book in his hand (mind you, the book had nothing to even hint at haints), and staring off into it. The large, dirty window next to him spewed the usual cold, light, and noise onto his senses. Across the way from him was a large white wall, that seemed to curve inward. To his left, where he first heard the noise, was the rest of his room. All the walls were white and dancing with 2nd hand blue and red lights that came from the outside. He was a few minutes from closing his eyes for the night, and simply wanted to finish the chapter. The novel was about a man with a wooden skull, and though silly in idea, the man read in a serious only topped by the reaction to the noise.
“What?” came through his throat with every bit of strength it could. “PA.” came back out in a child’s voice. There are no children in this apartment, and there never were any. There was a time when the ones previous living in this flat spoke of summoning and probably fake rituals, and this idea makes the chills moving up and down his body speed up. In the moment of silence that followed, his mind is anything but. His dark brown eyes, sunken from years of something, shoot towards to door expecting to see a child there, saying this horrible word. Nothing appears, but it’s just as well for his panic.
Since birth he had this irrational fear. A blunt noise occurring in a brief amount of time, seeming to start just as quickly as it finished. The noise would be more full as a memory, and even then would only repeat without fade. The noise would contain every frequency, every color, and every amplitude he could imagine. Any noise could come this quickly and send him into this fear. Reflecting always on this irrational emotion, logic of the fear could not come to him. But he knew what scares him, though he could not reproduce knowing without proper reaffirmation. A sound that would start just as quickly as it ended.
PA. PA. PA. It echoed through his mind in the child’s voice. Please do not let the child be looking for his father he thinks, please do not let this horrible word mean how it sounds. “PA?” he asks out loud. “PA” a direct child answers. The emotions that once rushed through his spine at a recognizable level now speed to a steady hum. The hum freezes his spine and makes him as still as the rest of the room. The only movement are the bi-colored lights coming from outside, as even his shifting eyes are locked tightly on the doorway, awaiting the arrival of the child. “PA!” it seems to yell once more. The tone of the voice is just as calm and urgent as the first time he heard it.
PA. PA. PA. PA. PA. PA. PA. A sound that would start just as quickly as it ended. Resonates and grows stronger with each thought. To him, it’s the first noise he ever heard, and the last noise he will ever hear. It’s a noise that has always been present through his entire life, leading up to the present eternal unrest. Better to not hear at all.
