A long time ago I heard people whispering my name as I walked the halls of middle school. When I went into high school though I’ve been the way I was for so long that no one even finds me weird. Me being me is just a fixture of the small town. You must be wondering what I’m talking about when I talk about the way I am. Well, I don’t speak. No, I’m not a mute and I speak perfectly fine. It’s just that since I was eight I refused to speak. Only I know why I don’t, but why I first stopped speaking people started theorizing why. You should have heard the theories, they were laughable. The real reason I didn’t speak was because no one would listen anyway.
Ever since I was little I was easily ignored, even by my parents. My older sister Allison was always outshining me, and both me and my voice were extremely small. Very often when I spoke someone would speak over me, or no one would listen. What was the point of me having a voice if no one else heard it. By the age of eight I stopped talking completely. Everyone was confused why, but made no efforts to stop this. The lack of attention brought another thing about though.
It brought about an imaginary friend of sorts. Now that I’m older I see she’s a manifestation of my insecurities and paranoia. All the bad things about me bottled up in a big hallucination. She looked like the complete opposite of me. Where I had stick straight short blonde hair and ocean blue eyes, she had perfectly curled dark chocolate brown hair and eyes that were the color of pools of blood. Her teeth were pointed like they were meant to be weapons. As she refused to tell me her name and looked like the complete opposite of me, I took to calling her “The Alternate.” It seemed her favorite hobby was spewing hate and paranoia into my ear. That brought about my favorite hobby, listening to music. It was the only thing that mattered to me, because it was the only thing that blocked her out. Sometimes though, her lies would sink into my brain and infect it. She seemed especially happy about that.
That brings us to the moment I was fourteen. My fellow high school students were rushing out to the buses. I wasn’t in a hurry; I already knew my bus was late. It’s always late. Instead I decided to park myself on a bench out of the crowds’ way. Slowly the crowd thinned until it was gone completely. I was about to change the song in my earphones when two students came by holding boxes with what looked like masks and costumes inside. I knew instantly they were drama club and followed them to see how the play was coming along. As usual, they didn’t notice me. They set down the boxes in the auditorium and went onto the stage to join the other drama club members. I decided to look though the boxes when I found a mask. It was the tragedy drama mask, and the comedy drama mask was right next to it. I looked from it to my necklace, which was a pendant with the very same masks on it. I heard Alternate whispering, “They won’t miss them, you can take them as decoration.” Her voice started getting louder and louder, saying she’ll kill me if I don’t steal them. I knew she couldn’t hurt me, but her voice was so convincing that I swiped both of the masks no questions asked. With that I continued on walking around the school until my bus arrived.
It wasn’t but a few hours after that when my family was having dinner. My mother, father, and sister were all merrily chatting. Something seemed off about my mother though, it seemed like she wanted to say something. I ignored it as I was certain it didn’t concern me. We continued dinner until my mother slammed her fist on the table and looked at me. “Can you just talk for once Jamieson! What is wrong with you that you don’t want to talk!? And stop listening to that nonsense from your tablet” I looked over to my tablet where a new song was playing. Frankly, I was confused. Why would she want me to talk if she wasn’t going to listen? My head started to hurt from trying to figure it out so I ran to my room and locked the door. I knew she would calm down in a little while.
Suddenly I noticed Alternate’s presence again as I took off my earphones and threw my tablet onto my bed. She looked like she just found a gold mine. “You do know she doesn’t love you? No one loves you, except me. I’m the only one that knows the best for you. Everyone else is a villain, and they all want to kill you.” I tried hard to ignore her, but she persisted, “That was their plan all along. They found out you’re afraid of people yelling at you, and they’re using it to making you upset. They want to make you so upset you commit suicide.” Then she pointed to my tablet. The song that was now playing was called “Murder Melody”. I looked back up at her and she looked at me like I knew what she wanted me to do, and I did. Kill them before they kill me. She started saying it out loud, screaming it at me. She knew I was afraid of yelling. She knew she sounds so convincing…
I waited until it was night before I started preparing. I stole my mother’s car keys from her purse on the counter and started piling whatever I might need into the back. When they find them, they’ll start looking for it, but I can get to the next town with it for now. Then I encountered a problem. I’ll be the main suspect if I disappear, and that certainly won’t be in my favor. What if it looked like I was kidnapped though? I made cuts on my legs and smeared a little bit of the blood on my pillows, so it looked like there was a struggle. Then I planted a note on my nightstand in different handwriting than mine to make it look like I was kidnapped. I looked at myself in the mirror in my room. I was wearing black skinny jeans. It wasn’t obvious under my grey-blue hoodie, but I was extremely scrawny. If I got into a confrontation with any of them, I would die. So, I just didn’t have to get into any confrontations. Everything was covered, my hands were wearing gloves and my hoodie hid my hair. My face was still obvious though. That was when Alternate pointed towards my bag. I opened it to find the comedy and tragedy masks I stole. It was like she planned this. I only needed one mask, so I took the tragedy mask I put it on. Now I looked like how I felt, a serial killer.
The door to my parents’ rooms creaked as I opened it, but the sleeping bodies didn’t stir from the noise there or the song playing from my tablet. Before I could second guess myself, I slit my father’s throat, and my mother soon after. I didn’t feel emotion towards them, Alternate had fully infected my mind with her lies. I wasn’t planning on killing my Allison as well, but things don’t go as we planned. The music must have woken her up, and I quickly hid as she opened the door. She was so horrified by the scene in front of her that she didn’t notice me sneak up behind her. I slit her throat as well and she crumpled to the floor. Alternate’s voice came back into my mind. “If you’re going to have a new life as a serial killer, you might as well create a trademark and name for yourself.” I had to admit she was right. The name Jamieson isn’t an option as I could be found out easily by that. Even if I used my preferred nickname Jamie I still would be suspected. She pointed back at my tablet, and “Murder Melody” was still playing. I dipped my gloved hands into my sister’s blood and wrote a phrase on the wall, “I don’t give a f**k what you think about it. I might as well kill you today.” It was the first part of the lyrics to the song. Under it I signed it with the words Murder Melody. It was fitting to be named after the first song I used. Even when I went through the lyrics and moved on to a different song, Murder Melody would always be my name. Once I was done me and Alternate headed out to a different life, and a new victim.
