A man with sleepless eyes pushed himself through the gate, only to stumble like a drunkard and fall on the concrete floor. However, he didn't pay heed to the pain and simply collected himself, standing from the ground and continuing his journey under the night sky.
He bled at the centre of his forehead, but the hurt was nothing compared to the tumultuous anguish of his mind.
Screams.
He heard them—relentlessly as he advanced towards his residence, staggering like a zombie. The sharp sounds pierced through his ears, although only he could perceive them, and they warped his very perception of reality.
He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't deal with it any longer. He had endured for so long, but they only worsened each day.
Today, he was sacked for smacking his boss. He could also recall the time he strangled his best friend during a drink, only to snap to his senses mid-tussle with nothing to say.
All because of those atrocious sounds. Some high-pitched, some low, but all discordant. They were terrible sounds that he believed he hallucinated, and they caused him to do abnormal things.
Not even the medicines or the therapy helped. He now had only one goal in his mind—to go home and wallow in his depression.
His motion was forced and disorderly, but he made sure to keep walking. Shortly after, he reached the door to his household, fixed and turned the key, before waltzing into the apartment. The moment he did, a familiar, despondent air hit him, and he fell on a chair in silence.
The walls were painted white, and there were several photo frames hung proudly on them. They reminded him of his family—who had absconded previously in fear of his mental deterioration.
Or maybe they didn't; he wasn't very sure what was real and what wasn't. The voices messed with his mind, and they toyed with what he thought of as truth.
'It has to be supernatural..' he thought, 'but my life is over.'
The once brimming, lovable household was a mess. Sofas were torn, and their skins tattered, with holes that made it seem like they were stabbed with knives. The floor was messy, with broken vases, glass shards, and a damaged flatscreen TV strewn about on its cracked tiles.
There was the dining room further down in the distance, and it was relatively fine compared to the parlour. A white curtain hung over the wide entrance to the room, swaying peacefully in contrast to the chaos.
The man wept.
The sounds of his cries were very audible, but only to the hearing of a different person. To him, it was drowned by scornful bawling that enveloped his mind. And aside from his occasional low grunts, he could hear nothing else.
He continued shedding tears—as he had several reasons to. His life had fallen apart, and he had no hope of living.
One of the voices stopped in its yelling. Instead, it spoke.
It gave a suggestion. And he considered it.
He considered suicide.
Below his feet was a shard of a fragmented plate. A broken ceramic with a sharp side.
It looked particularly nice in his eyes. It was almost pleasing, like a saviour had descended into his pit of despair.
Voluntarily, he picked it up and examined it, scrutinising it closely with his eyes. His grip intensified, and his fingers pressed down on it, causing him to bleed. But he didn't mind the pain—it didn't compare to his melancholy.
"Ah…"
Crimson droplets fell from his palm, their pace increasing proportionally with his grip.
Then, he lifted his hand slowly, with tears overflowing the riverbanks that were his eyelids. The pointed edge, which was the sharpest point, was aimed at his throat.
It drew closer. Closer and closer to his larynx—till he stopped.
He had been distracted. By a knock.
Knock! Knock!
For the next five minutes, he only kept watching the door. It was still open as he hadn't closed it, yet someone was knocking as if too mannered to peek.
A hand stretched from the outside continued to hit the door with its knuckles. It was a masculine hand—an unexplainably familiar one.
Throwing away the 'lovely' piece, he called out to the unknown visitor. "Come in."
Then, he started rubbing off the blood on his palm as if that would make him look any less like a crime scene. Unfortunately, the gush was ceaseless, and he only got blood smeared all around him.
The unknown visitor walked in. And he froze in shock.
Him.
A doppelganger with a horn. Two crimson horns coated with the radiant red of blood. A mist oozed from them, darkening the air above his head in a scarlet shade.
'No, I'm seeing things again.' He thought as he retreated slowly, away from his seat.
The visitor spoke. "Have you been enjoying my melodies?"
The man was too dumbfounded and disoriented to respond. His cognitive abilities were shutting off, and he was in sentimental mode.
"Wh-who are you?" He asked out of trepidation.
"The Lead Singer," He answered. Then, pointing at his forehead, he added, "Those are my choristers."
Immediately after those words, it happened. But it was worse than it had ever been.
A blood-curdling scream. A shrill, guttural cry. An ear-splitting, nerve-racking shriek. Many of each.
They sounded all at once, forcing him to curl down in angst, horror, and misery. It was like the playing of badly tuned keys by a discordant orchestra but a million times worse. The oppressive screams and wails stabbed at his ears, and to his terror, they bled.
"Stop it!" He pleaded, pressing his palms over his ears in a futile attempt to quell the noise. Alas! Futility upon Futility—it only worsened. And it grew louder.
His pleading tone changed remarkably.
"STOP IT!!!" He screamed, eyes bloodshot with rage fueled by suffering. Veins bulged in his reddened eyes, and his entire body quaked with endless fury.
But his fight was too weak.
The volume increased even further. Only then did it dawn on him that speaking was pointless.
Instead, he resorted to immediate, practical means. Unable to cope any further, he chose violence.
His hands met the half-metal, half-wooden chair that he once sat on. And with a quick extension of his limbs, he hurled it at the unsuspecting visitor.
Of course, at that speed, it was sure to hit.
BAM!
The horned man stumbled backwards as blood escaped his face, where it had struck. The force of the projectile was so strong that it sent the chair flying in the opposite direction after impact while knocking a few teeth off his mouth.
But rather than exclaiming or escaping, the man only stood up…
And laughed.
He laughed even as more teeth fell off his bloodied gums, even as blood ran down his nostrils and the corner of his lips. His shoulders rose and fell in a frantic, inhumane manner as his eyes locked onto his attacker.
"HAHAHAHA!!!"
The Choristers responded.
They neither wailed, mocked, nor screamed.
In unison, they laughed.
The voices were aggravated, and the man could slowly feel his very own mind crumbling into the darkness that awaited him. The endless, clamorous jeering peeled away at layers of his mental plane—slowly but surely rendering him into something pitiful.
Misery stretched her hands and hugged him, whispering promises of inescapable despair. Fear screamed at the corners of his heart, giving countless warnings, all while it grew like a tumour within him.
"NOO!!" The man screamed. "NO!
'It wasn't enough' he thought, barely managing to think. Then he slipped forward, grabbing a glass shard from the floor and stabbing forward.
This time, the horned visitor could dodge. But he didn't. The shard sank into the base of his neck, and warm blood splattered forward.
The wound spat crimson on the attacker's face. But the man didn't care. He needed those sounds to stop. He needed the Lead Singer to die.
But the Lead Singer did not die.
Despite his obviously damaged throat, the horned visitor continued to laugh—even more loudly in his ears. His eyes were bloodshot and the laughter sounded progressively hoarse and forced each second.
Yet he never stopped laughing.
Even when the man knocked him down to the ground, raining a flurry of heavy blows on him. Even when he pushed his thumbs into his eyeballs, and tore off his ears, the chortles and cackles never stopped.
Till they did.
The man raised the chair he had flung earlier. And with all his strength, struck downwards at his unresisting opponent.
The silence that followed was quick. It was calm. It was perfect.
The horned man didn't move any longer, nor did he make a sound. There was no heartbeat in his chest, and his pulse read null.
'Finally.' The man thought. To his pleasure, the screams had stopped altogether.
Was it really over now?
He was too overwhelmed to wonder about that. Many things were going on in his mind, but not one included remorse for his homicide.
However…
Tap! Tap!
Footsteps. Light ones. They rang right next to the open door.
"Who is-?!"
But this visitor wasn't as mannered as the first.
He peeked in—with a grin.
It was a boy this time. But this boy was him—several years ago.
His child-version.
He was about 12 years old, which was the age at which the screaming had begun. The screams caused him to spend the rest of his teenage life in a mental facility.
"Guess who I am." The boy suggested.
"No…you…you…LEAVE!!!"
"Come on, guess."
"GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"
"Choristers!" called the boy with one, wicked clap.
And then came the laughter. Worse, more malevolent—crueller than ever before. The mocking was so intense that it forced images of jesting visages to occur in the now blank space that was his mind.
He was going to lose it at this point. No, he already had.
He didn't even think it much this time, when he lunged forward, moving the chair with one full swing.
But the boy was quick on his feet, and like a snake, he slipped away from the attack, and ran towards the curtains.
Unfortunately, the man who once attacked him was now a ruthless, killing machine without a mind of his own. He simply wanted his torment to end—and he would go to any extent to achieve it.
The boy had barely reached the curtains when the chair came spinning towards him at an intense speed. His shock was evident on his face as his grin vanished very quickly.
It hit. And his jaw broke.
The man was relentless in his murderous drive, as he immediately dashed towards the boy who was barely recovering from the attack. He grabbed his thin neck with his rough, heavy palms, pushing him to the floor before pressing his weight on him.
He was deliberate with his movements as he squeezed harder and harder, his own facial muscles tensing till they were static. The boy struggled for air, unable to laugh like the horned man, and suddenly the Choristers went silent.
Only when he passed out did the man release his grip, letting out a huge sigh of relief.
But the boy had feigned his defeat. The moment the man let go, he jolted upwards and tried escaping into the dining room.
Unfortunately, he was caught by the hair.
This man wasn't thinking anymore.
He pulled. His own hair was used against him, and the force of the man's hand caused him intense pain.
The boy held the back of his head and yelled in agony. However, it was already too late.
Something rough and sharp impaled his skin—precisely the back of his neck, digging deeper the more he struggled.
It was really too late.
"Go…away.." the man demanded in a flat, lifeless tone.
The boy's blood stained both the glass fragment and the hands that held it. It pooled on the glass front surface, before cascading down the sides.
Accepting his fate, the boy gave the ghost.
.....
.....
Later that night, neighbours had phoned in the police, giving reports of disturbing sounds emanating from a certain man's household.
When the police arrived at Little Havanna, they were guided to the suspected residence, and they encountered a murder scene.
In the centre of two lifeless bodies was a man with a dead gaze, constantly muttering "Go away" as he scraped his own skin.
The victims, however, were not those of a horned man or a boy.
Two people were identified as the deceased; Anna, the man's wife, and Carla, his 12-year-old daughter.