Not Me

Introduction

This is for Jason “Jay” Benskin's Horror Story Prompt Challenge “ Face The Darkness Within” which you can find out about here:

The music is "Irreversible Neural Damage" by Kevin Ayers 1035

Not Me

I read about it in the paper, my best friend, bludgeoned to death with a block hammer. Then I noticed red stains on the paper, there was blood on my hands.

They said the weapon had not been found, it was on my coffee table. I didn't do this, but I was covered in someone's blood, and there was a bloodstained block hammer on my coffee table.

There was a banging, was it in my head? No, it was the front door. I opened it and immediately two policemen came in and cuffed ma and read me my rights.

I did not do this.

They bundled me into the car, and my house was taped off as a crime scene. Three men (or women) in hazmat suits went in, and I knew that they would see the block hammer.

I did not do this.

At the police station, they took my clothes and gave me overalls, and then put me in a cell.

This was wrong, This wasn't me.

But it was you.

Who said that?

Then I was taken in for an interview. I said I couldn't remember what happened.

They showed me texts that I couldn't remember sending, setting up the meeting, the place and the time.

Then they showed me the video from the CCTV.

My body walked to meet my friends and attacked him with the block hammer, bludgeoning him to death. It was my body, with my hammer, but it wasn't me. Why couldn't they see that I would never do this to my best friend? They were sure of my guilt, and my only defence was that I could not remember a thing about the murder.

Maybe I could say it was my psychopathic identical twin brother, except I don't have a psychopathic identical twin brother, I don't even have an identical twin brother, or even a brother, or any other sibling.

We know you did it, we made you do it"

Who said that? Who said that?

Then I was returned to my cell, alone but not alone.

I did not do this.

The cell was locked up, I was going to be here until the trial and my sentencing. I was going to be found guilty of a crime I did not commit.

I did not do this.

But you did.

Voices again.

I was not in the cell, I was in a curved room, the walls seemingly made of bone. I was in my own skull, and there were two black creatures of the dark, their rotting tooth filled jaws dripping black mucus.

I was hallucinating

We know you loved your best mate, so we set up the night out with you, him, and the hammer!!

Noooooooo

You are not real!!

Oh, but we are, if we weren't, you would not be here, would you, in your head, in the police cell, in the police station, guilty as hell, with video evidence, wanting to be sentenced, although it'll just be life imprisonment or some padded cell in some institution, maybe even a straightjacket!!

I did not do this, I did not kill my mate

As far as the world out there is concerned, you did, and there is nothing you can do to prove your innocence because we are just figments of your imagination, are we not?

GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!

That was a shout, and two policemen came into the cell and held me down while they injected me with some sedative, but although my body would be out I was now stuck in my head with two demonic malevolent creatures crawling around the bones in my skull taunting me with the evil that they had made me do and the consequences I was going to suffer, but my body was in a deep sleep while my mind was in an absolute firefight.

How could I escape from my own head, being stalked and bullied by two figments of my imagination that nobody else could see or hear?

I was in a nightmare, but can you go to sleep in a nightmare? And what if you have another nightmare when you go to sleep? When you wake up, are you still in that dope induced nightmare that you went to sleep in?

The nightmare creatures were gawking and creeping around the walls of my skull.

Maybe you could attack a policeman, or even better, a doctor, the headlines would be "Murderer kills doctor in Prison"

Because I was asleep, I could not even shout, except in my head, but that just provoked hyaenic laughter from the two dark demons, slobbering in their black mucus snot as they guffawed.

Did I need a priest? Did I need to be exorcised? I am sure somebody would do it.

The hysterical laughter and cackling went on and on.

My mind was awake, my body asleep. Was this a dream or a nightmare or was I awake (except I knew I wasn't)? If I were, I could get up and go for a pee.

I woke up, strapped to the bed, unable to move.

The doctor, with his needles and files and police protection, was there.

The doctor bent over to check my heartbeat, and I raised my head and bit off his nose, part of his face and shattered his right eye with my tongue and nose. He was dead.

The police truncheoned me across the face and throat, but the voices, the dark creatures, had made me do something terrible again.

I was sedated again, locked my skull with those dire beings.

See, we told you what to do, and you did it, you clever man!!

This was my life.

I would be institutionalised, of that there was no doubt, but the thing is....

IT WASN'T ME!!

It was the voices. They told me to do it.

It's not my fault.

I did not do this

And then the voices start whispering once again.

"Oh, but you did, you did, you did, you psychopathic murderer"