Some minds are strong, some minds are weak. However, all minds are human. Some things are much bigger than they seem. The jolting fear of what is in the mind is one of them.
It was summer and a hot Caribbean breeze was blowing, but Rachel Woods felt chilled to the bone. It was them again. The same couple who drove her to near insanity ever since she turned 10.
It started on her birthday. Her parents had organized a huge party to honor the occasion of their only child turning double digits. There were lots of people, lots of food and lots of music. But young Rachel could hardly enjoy herself. She hated the crowd. She liked peace and solitude, she liked to be by herself. Perhaps a set of new books would have sufficed for her birthday present instead of such a noisy and crowded party. She was sitting in distress in one corner when she noticed a young man and a young woman staring at her from a distance. They never blinked, only stared. It made the girl conscious, for she hated attention. But no matter where she went, she would always see them – albeit a bit far, but always staring at her.
And since then, she saw them everywhere.
She never learnt their names, for they always maintained their cool distance, sometimes, murmuring among themselves. She never knew whether it was intentional or not, but sometimes their voices reached her. They never said anything nice, and they made young Rachel miserable.
It has been 11 years since she first saw the couple, and she still cursed the day she met them in her 10th birthday party. Sure, they never harmed her physically, but they tried their best to make Rachel harm herself, and it was enough to unnerve anybody. The yet stranger thing was that they never seemed to age. More than a decade had passed, and yet, they still looked exactly how they looked on her birthday. She tried to run away from them, move to a brand new city. At first, her parents refused to comply with her wishes, arguing at the illogical behaviour of a girl barely a teen.
However, as time passed, they became increasingly worried about her. They claimed that she would be mumbling and muttering to herself. They never said anything about the abominable couple though. Finally, having had enough of the girl, her parents moved her to a brand new place, with only a single warning – that she is to not throw a fit about moving again.
But they found her. Of course they did, but they maintained their distance, and didn’t dare come close to her. Her parents, immersed in their work, couldn’t see the distress on their only child’s face, which had forced her to forfeit her college education. Her parents were enraged and still refused to see how terrified their 18 year old daughter was. It was just a teenage affair.
So she ran away. She tried her best to make money and friends, only to have to run away again. She never let herself stay in a place more than three months, and the moving was as taxing as her fear of the couple. As time went on, she learnt to make no friends, and lived a solitude life. However, much to her horror, despite the constant moving and shifting for more than 10 years now, they always found her. But it was only a month ago, she found a place that they could never find her. She sneaked out of her old home in Mykonos like a thief in the night and travelled all the way down to a quaint little village of Beausejour in Carriacou.
Yes, she was sure that they couldn’t find her here. It was too unknown, too less populated for them to come, for she always found them in densely populated areas like a pub, or a workplace. But here in Beausejour, she was sure they would never come.
And for a month, they really didn’t. It was almost as if Rachel had started a new life. No more intimidating couples, looming over her to drive her mad. She was free.
Of course, all good things come to an end. Standing on an isolated road, she realized her worst fears. The woman’s stare pierced her soul, as if she could see the deepest secrets. The man merely gave her a cruel smile. Suddenly they seemed closer, much closer.
Rachel couldn’t breathe.
Closer.
She wanted to move, to run away, but her feet seemed to be stuck to the ground.
Even more closer.
She tried to open her mouth to scream, but her mouth felt as though it was sewn shut.
A little more closer.
She could see herself reflected in the woman’s eye.
“What do you want?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
The woman ignored her and continued staring at her. She stood impossibly close, their noses almost touching, even though she was quite far away just seconds ago.
“You have been very naughty, Rachel Woods,” said a male voice from behind, close to her ear.
She shivered. Of course they knew her name, she wasn’t surprised. Their proximity was making her nervous, and the woman’s unwavering stare was making her even more nervous.
“What have I done to you? Why are you doing this?” she put her hands on her face, trying to avoid the woman’s stare.
“You tried to evade us, didn’t you, Rachel Woods?” The woman’s voice was velvety soft.
Rachel remembered the woman’s voice. It was this same soft, sweet voice that drove her to madness, it was her who whispered how incapable, how unwanted, how worthless, Rachel was to the world – even to her parents. It was her who made Rachel lose her job, for no fault of hers that too! It was all that woman’s fault. She would have been able to keep her jobs if it weren’t for the young lady whispering and turning the entire restaurant against her. She would scream at her to go away, but she never would. Everyone would be shocked, and made Rachel leave the job, they never said a word to that woman. They wouldn’t even look at her, only continued to listen to her, till they started to agree with her and fire Rachel.
“You poor little thing,” she laughed in her soft voice.
“You can never ever evade us, honey,” the man said menacingly. He sounded deadly.
It was then she heard footsteps, and Rachel looked up in hope. Her prayers were heard, two men were approaching them.
“Help!” she cried out, “Please. They will kill me. I beg you.”
The two men looked at her in alarm.
“Who is harming you?” asked the heftier of the two.
Rachel looked at them in disbelief. She looked straight back at the woman, who was still standing close to her. She felt the man standing right behind her. They hadn’t moved.
“The woman who is standing in front of me! The man behind me! What is wrong with you? They have been following me. They will kill me! Please!” she sounded panic-stricken.
The woman’s lips curled into a cruel smile at her words, as if she knew what would come next.
“Lady, you mad? You’re standing quite alone here,” the two men laughed.
“No!” Rachel thrashed, trying to push the woman away
“You cannot win this, honey,” the man said in her ear.
“No! I will win!” she whirled around, punching the man.
She thrashed around with all her might, trying her best to inflict pain on the two, but to no avail. They simply stood standing, not affected in the least by her aims. She seemed hysterical, as she continued punching and kicking wildly.
The two men stopped laughing as they looked on the scene.
The girl with blonde hair, quite pretty, despite being dressed in shabby clothes, she didn’t seem so bad. Except that she was punching thin air. They watched as she attempted to choke a person, only that there was nobody standing there. She flailed her arms around, screaming at an empty road to leave her alone. She sounded helpless and on the verge of tears.
“Best get out of here, mate. I think she’s mad,” one man nudged the other.
“No, wait. She genuinely believes somebody is there, standing right in front of her. Look at her. She may be mad, but then, it would be my job as a psychiatrist to at least look at her problem, Thomas,” the other man rushed to her.
As soon as the man started coming towards her, the woman gave a panicked look at her partner before both of them ran away in the opposite direction, getting lost in a maze of trees.
“Miss, what is your name?” the man asked her when he reached her.
“Rachel. Rachel Woods,” she said, panting, looking at him with wild eyes.
“I am James. Pleasure to meet you despite the circumstances,” he smiled warmly, “Who were they? That you were fighting?”
“I don’t know,” she said, still out of breath.
The other man, Thomas, approached the two hesitantly.
“Please tell us your story Miss Woods,” said James, with a worried look.
And Rachel did. She was so tired of holding it all in. She wanted to let it all out. So, she told them everything, from how conscious she felt the first day, to how they almost convinced her to commit suicide.
James only got more and more worried. He listened to her, observing her jerky movements, her abrupt stops, her sudden giggling in between even though she was saying something terribly painful and her disorganized speech in general.
He offered to drop her home, promising to see her again the next day.
It was only after they were safely out of earshot from the girl, when Thomas asked James, “What was all that about?”
“The couple she talks about – they seem very dangerous. She suffered hallucinations even today of them trying to kill her. I fear for her life, Tom,” James said with an air of concern.
“So today’s incidents were just hallucinations of prolonged torture?”
“No, Tom. It’s even worse. The man and the woman – they are both hallucinations. She has been seeing these hallucinations since a long time, to the point where they are almost incurable.”
“What?!”
“Tom,” said James gravely, “Rachel Woods is suffering from schizophrenia.”
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