1

	Little Thomas sat crying in his bed. The voice was back tonight, and that meant that he 
would have to sleep on the bus and at school tomorrow. When the voice came, he never got to 
sleep. He was always too scared to close his eyes. There was something in that voice that 
made him think scary thoughts, he didn't like it. He heard it get ready to speak again, and 
he plugged his ears even though he knew that it would not help any. "The end is near; because
of Man." It was the same, simple sentence that it always was. Always in that old man's voice;
always the same pitch; always with a taste of bitterness when it said "Man"; and always with 
the hoarseness that reminded thomas of a man draggin a sewer lid on the wet pavement. Thomas 
shuddered. Little beads of sweat dripped down the side of his forehead. He was breathing in 
quick erratic breaths.
	Of course, he had told others about the voice. No one had ever believed him though. 
They all thought that he was an eleven year old with a far too active imagination. The 
eleven year old part may have been right, but Thomas didn't even think that he had an 
imagination. He told his best friend Richie about the voice and all he did was laugh. No one 
believed him.
	Thomas looked up at his fan which was turned on high, just like every other voice
night. He could remember a time when he thought that was soothing; but now, as he 
looked up at it, he thought he could almost see the face to go with the voice. He darted 
his eyes away as fast as he could. He heard the voice inhale again. It was about to 
speak. "The end is ne-", was as far as it got before Thomas screamed. He screamed so 
loud that he thought the neighbours would be able to hear him. He heard the footsteps 
running up the stairs, his parents were coming. He kept on screaming. He kept screaming 
when the world in front of him turned white, and kept screaming as he passed out. Just 
before he lost sight of everything, he saw the fan transform into a face.

                                    2

	Thomas opened his eyes and he was standing in a large, white room. He looked around himself;
nothing but white as far as he could see. He heard a whisper behind him and spun around. Nothing was there. He
spoke to nothing. "What?" It echoed throughout the space. "P-p-pardon?"
	In response came what he feared, the voice. "The end is near; because of Man." It boomed and hurt his
ears. Tears came into his eyes. He had thought that this was a safe place; now he knew that he was wrong.
	"Stop it! Stop saying that," he pleaded to the voice. But again, it repeated itself. He fell to his knees and
grasped at his ears. Tears fell off of his cheeks and splashed on the floor with huge reverberations. "What-what
do you want?" The voice took a breath in again, but this time it was somehow different. Thomas had always
pictured the owner of the voice as an old man who was both sad and really angry at the same time; but now, in
his head, he could see the man smiling.
	"I want to make you crazy, Thomas. I thought you knew that already," the voice replied. Thomas
realized that it wasn't a nice smile that he pictured. It was a smile with thousands of sharp, jagged, needle-like
teeth.
	"LEAVE ME ALONE!"
	"Oh, but Thomas, you know I can't do that." Thomas screamed in fear. He didn't know what to do or
what to say. He had already tried to act brave like the guys in the movies, but that voice had broken that. All he
could do now was weep, and try to withstand the treatment from the voice.
	"Who are you?" He could barely manage this between breaths.
	"I think that you know that too." Every word was spoken with a false kindness that was even more
threatening than the dronefull voice from before. Thomas shook his head fiercely and fell over because he was
dizzy. "Think really hard," the voice instructed him. But, Thomas couldn't think. He couldn't even stand. "Fine
then," the voice sounded bored now. "I'll tell you who I am. I am your every fear. I am all that you worry about. I
am every nightmare that you've had. I am, plain and simply Thomas, I am you." Thomas was even more confused
now. "I am your judge. You know as well as I do that you're never going to amount to anything. You know that
you're never going to be as good as anyone at anything." Thomas screamed again.




                               3
                                
	Inside of Thomas' room, his parents were standing around his body. He was speaking very quickly, but
every word that he said was pronounced as though it had been practised a million times before. "The end is near;
because of Man." His body was thrashing violently, and it took all of his father's strength to keep his shoulders
on the bed. 
	His mother was crying and repeating "Oh, Thomas. What's wrong Thomas? Wake up Thomas."
Thomas's eyes were open, but there was something wrong with them. As his father took a good look he saw what
was wrong with them. His eyes had burst. One was beginning to slip out of it's socket and dance on his cheek;
the other was entirely liquid and threw black splashes of liquid every time that he trashed.
	His father, in a state of shock, slapped the boy in the head and yelled "Wake up dammit!" but, of course
this had no effect. 
	Blood started to trickle from his ears and turned his white pillow a deep crimson red. Sores began to
appear all over his body, they too would start to leak blood. At the site of all this, his mother passed out. His
father was very near to this too the only thing that kept him in the real world was that voice. That horrifying
voice that wasn't his son's.


                               4
                                
	Thomas started to hurt all over, and he could see blood sopping through his white ninja turtle pajamas.
"I am the one thing that can save the world from you," the voice continued on as if it hadn't heard  him scream.
"You are simply a waste of space, and I was sent from your mind to destroy you. And then after that, I will be
gone. Because, when you die, so do I."
	Thomas began to get very dizzy. The voice started repeating it phrase over and over again, just like
Thomas's body was doing back in his room. Thomas felt his eyes burst inside of their sockets. He closed his
eyelids to stop them from seeping out, but it poured down his face anyway. He could feel something pulling at
his brain, plucking strings. And then, all that he knew was the voice. But now that he could focus on the voice
more clearly, he realized that he misunderstood what the voice was saying. But none of that mattered now.
Nothing mattered . . . .


                               5
                                
      An article taken from Pg. 7 of the Lambton Gazette:
                                
                  Tragedy from a normal house
                                
	Police arrested Peter Harnet today after receiving a call from Alice Harnet, Peter's wife. Alice called the
police at 6:13 this morning when she woke up on her son's bedroom floor and saw that he had been killed. 
	Sources say that Harnet first went in to console his son, Thomas, after Thomas had had a nightmare.
Then after Harnet could not calm his son down, he hit him, attempting to knock him unconscious. After the boy
would not pass out, Harnet hit Peter in the face with a nearby desk lamp. When Mrs. Harnet walked in on this, he
had attacked her as well. Then, either out of shock or exhaustion, Harnet passed out. 
	"I didn't kill him," Harnet told reporters. "It happened by itself." The minimum sentence that Harnet is
looking for is life with no chance of parole for 25 years.


                               6
                                
             What Thomas's mind was really saying:
               "My end is here; by mine own hand."