[Michelle]

Voices, whispers, taunting me as I returned to the one place I thought I'd never have to come back to. The one place I thought I'd left behind forever, but I was wrong. Now I was back and I could hear those echoes again.

"I thought I told you not to do that."

"What did you think you were doing?"

"You're so useless!"

"Honestly, do you never listen to what you're told?"

"I despair of you sometimes."

"I don't know what I'm going to do, I can't deal with this any more."

"Right--that's it. That's the end."

"You can't stay here."

The voices from my childhood followed me as I looked around the small room. Did I really live here for nine years? It was hard to believe that I had so few memories. Those that I did have, however, weren't ones I was keen to recall.

The room was pretty bare, but that was how I left it. The walls were still painted beige, with a few smears from my dirty, childish fingers. This wallpaper contrasted strongly with the midnight blue bed covers; the furniture, like the desk and the wardrobe and everything, was all white.

The floor was plain wood, with a nail or two sticking out. They'd been like that for years. I once cut my toes on one, but Mam didn't care. She said it served me right. I got that kind of thing a lot when I was a kid and by the time I reached seven or eight I was used to it. I did wonder, though, whether everyone got that. It couldn't be just me, could it?

And then when I was nine everything changed. In some ways it got a lot better. I didn't have to live with my parents any longer. The room was safe, colourful and well equipped. I wasn't neglected. But in some ways it got a lot worse.

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Michelle - now eighteen, with brown hair, yellow eyes and pale skin - tells the story of when she was sent to live in a mental home at the age of nine by abusive parents who couldn't deal with the voices she heard in her head.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She was leaving behind the lifestyle she hated and it changed her, probably for the better. But that wasn't the only thing that changed.

There was something about the home she went to stay in which unnerved her, and made her feel cautious. She couldn't relax there. Because try as she did to block them out, the voices just got stronger.

And they weren't just talking to her. They were watching her, too.

One day, everything changed. She knew things she had never known before and seen things she had never seen. But the Voices had other plans for her, and Michelle had to decide whether to run or whether to fight.

updated Jun 30 '10 by delorfinde