"Thoughts Unmasked"
By Evan Minto

	It was just past 12 AM, and a light still shone in a little window on Owlia Street.  And if one was to stand just outside the window, the fervent scratch of pen on paper could be heard from within.  The essay was finished, the newly written words gleamed on the paper: "The Significance of Communication During the Industrial Revolution."  Samantha Higgins skimmed the lies she had written, disgusted at what she had to do to succeed in this world.  Her teacher wouldn't accept the girl's opinions.  Only when they were carefully crafted to meet her demands could Samantha get the grade she was looking for.
	So she placed the finished paper back in her tattered book bag and slipped into bed.  Samantha stared up at the posters on her ceiling and walls, the myriad of things that made up who she was.  Slowly, she drifted into sleep, preparing to throw it all away for her trip to school tomorrow.  The world didn't want to see the real Samantha Higgins.  Her classmates hid their real selves behind the faces that others wanted to see, and she was forced to do the same.

	A quiet girl walked into school the next day.  Her long, dark brunette hair was tied neatly in a ponytail, and her face, though far from ugly, was not particularly good-looking.  Her clothing was dark and unassuming, her figure thin and of medium height.  Samantha was like a ghost, gliding in without a single person batting an eye.  She walked in without a smile, without a group of giggling friends next to her.  She walked in the door, and right up the stairs to her locker.  Invisible.
	In her homeroom class, Sam found her seat in the back corner of the class, and waited for class to begin.  She stared across the empty seats, scanning the room until she reached the gaggle of students standing and talking.  They laughed and talked about all sorts of meaningless things:  a movie they saw, something someone said on the phone last night, their plans for the weekend.  Sam saw this every day.  These people, they just covered their real selves up.  In this world, to be accepted, they had to be someone else.  Samantha, too, kept her real self covered, never speaking to her peers, knowing that they would only ridicule her for her interests and ideas.  
	She noticed one girl turn her head to look across the room at her.  Samantha felt those critical eyes on her, and she wished she could tell what they were saying.  She wished she could see past these facades people put up in front of their true thoughts.  The other girl finally turned away and continued to talk to her friends.  The teacher soon made the group sit down, and class began, just as it had every day before.  

	It was just past eleven, and Sam sat down for lunch.  Her friend Nicole had just gotten up to buy her lunch as Sam sat down to eat her own.  To her left were a bunch of kids gossiping again.  As they talked about their meaningless topics, Sam finished her lunch and sat staring at her tray, bored.  She felt eyes on her, and glanced up to see the other students alternatively turning to look at her.  They had obviously finished with some mean comment about her.  She noticed the girl who had clearly just made the joke. 
	"Wonder if the little emo girl brought her razor today..."
	Samantha was just thinking how she wished she could hear what they said, and this whisper seemed to form in her head.  Had someone just said that to their friend?  No, it seemed almost as if the thought came directly from her own mind.
	"Haha, what an emo loser."
	This time she had just looked at one of the boys sitting in the group.  The words felt foreign, like a cross between a mental thought and a whisper.
	"What's got you so freaked out?" said Nicole as she sat back down next to Sam, who jumped at this jarring interruption.
	"I, uh, thought I heard something..." she replied quietly.
	Samantha started thinking about what had just happened.  It was almost as if...No.  There's no way she could have possibly just...

	Back in class, Samantha decided to try out her theory.  If this was really what she thought it was... this could be life altering.  So, while she was taking her math test, the teacher walked past, glancing at everyone's papers.  When he took a look at hers, Sam focused her mind on his thoughts.  It didn't take much.  She felt a flood of whispers, much more powerful than before. 
	And embedded in there was, "Number 18... wrong... answer is 3.6"
	She was right.  Samantha Higgins... could read minds.

	It was the next day.  Sam had already tried out her new power on her family, and learned some interesting secrets about their feelings.  Now, she was going to put this to use.  No longer would she sit alone in the corner.  Sam was finally able to truly connect to her peers.  She could tell what they were thinking.  What better way to really get to know someone?
	The ex-outcast walked past and then scanned the crowd of students until she found a group that seemed to generally tolerate her.  She walked up to the girls and started talking.  This was no normal conversation for this girl.  She could feel the thoughts and emotions of the others, and direct the conversation wherever she pleased.  Before long, Samantha had a thorough understanding of what was going on in these girls' minds, and had formed some new friends.    
	Next, she tried her powers in an academic setting.  When the teacher asked questions, all Sam needed to do was focus a bit on her, and she could discover all of the answers.  Finally, she could learn at a fast pace without waiting for all of these brain-dead fellow students to plod along with the teacher!  

	After long weeks of using her power, Sam had truly gotten to know every person in her school.  She had made new friends, but still they all held up masks over their true identities.  Still the world was a dark, furtive place where human beings were afraid to be themselves.  Samantha was glad to have some people to talk to now.  She was nowhere near as reclusive as before; now she could connect.   
	One Saturday, she got a call a few minutes before leaving to meet some friends.  
	"Hi, uh, Sam?  It's Nicole..." the girl muttered.
	"Oh, right Nicole!  How are you?" replied Sam.
	"Fine, I guess.  I just wanted to see if you could come over today or something..."
	"Well, I can't really do that, sorry.  I'm going with some other friends to the mall.  Maybe some other time."
	"Oh... sure..." replied Nicole sullenly.
	Samantha was curious about this strange difference in Nicole, so she read a bit of her mind before hanging up.  She heard something disturbingly unusual.
	"She... hates me... she's too popular now, and she doesn't think I'm cool enough."
	Her best friend hated her now for what she had done for herself.  After hanging up, Sam grumbled a bit about this change.
	"She can't just say that?  See, even people you think are best friends could just be hiding their jealousy."
	But Sam was scared.  What was her newfound power and popularity really doing to people? 
Just then, she heard a whisper of "I've got to vacuum the living room" followed quickly by "Where'd I put my keys?"

	Sam started!  She had just heard two different thoughts she hadn't focused on: her mom's and her dad's.  Every other time she had read minds, it was all about really focusing her mind of theirs.  But just in that moment, her concentration must have snapped, and she had picked up two at the same time.  Now Sam was really scared.  This had never happened before.  What did it mean for her power?
	When she went to the mall, Samantha hid her problem.  She acted like she did every other day, making sure not to show her discomfort over this turn in her power.  However, though her friends didn't know it, something terrible was going on inside Sam's mind.  Every time her group of friends walked past someone, his or her thoughts would come sliding into Sam's mind.  She couldn't keep them out, and though they weren't loud, they still got past her mental barrier.  Though she was used to it, she also heard her friends' thoughts while she walked as well.  Slowly, Sam moved to the back of the group so as to be able to better concentrate on keeping the thoughts out.  
	Still, others' thoughts just kept flowing in and out.  People's trivial problems and little mental comments were all an open book to Samantha, and her eyes couldn't help but be glued to the page.  Eventually, her friends went home, and Sam lay down on her bed to get some rest.  Luckily, her mom and dad were not nearby, so her mind was finally blank.  It was a long day, and Samantha dreaded when she would have to be near a large group of people again.

	Monday came far too fast, as it always does when one wants it to stay away.  Sam found herself back in school, walking in through those same front doors.  There she once again found the hundreds of students whose minds she had become so familiar with.  However, she knew that these minds would converge unbidden inside her, and she feared what would happen.  
"Test... girlfriend...homework...MySpace...friends...hatred...love..."
	All day, Sam's mind was filled with these thoughts.  Every student she passed had their thoughts broadcast across her own, and she was powerless to stop them.  Samantha felt the voices getting louder, but continued on with her day.  To the rest of the world, she seemed totally normal.  Inside, these minds were tearing her apart.
	In math class, Sam sat dreary-eyed, staring at the blank wall.  Her teacher noticed that she wasn't paying attention, and so asked her a question from the board.  She had the answer out before he even finished the question, without looking at the board.  In her ever-expanding mind, the entire class had screamed it as he asked, so the words had been instinctive.  
	"What...am I becoming...?" Sam asked herself.
	"Whi...1.618...Which of these thoughts...I forgot to take out the garba...which of these are my own?"
	They flew through, and Sam felt herself losing her own identity amongst them. 

	Finally, the bell rang at the end of the day, and Samantha bolted out the door to go home.  She thought that if she got away from all the people in school, she would finally get some peace.  However, as she walked home, the girl still heard voices.  They were getting louder even faster than before.  Her range had widened, and now she heard the voices of people who had to be from blocks away.   As Sam was walking over the local bridge over the river, thunder rumbled on the horizon.  Samantha looked up to see a dark sky.
	"Darn, that'll ruin my soccer game." she said.
	"AAAAHHHHH!!!" the girl screamed as the rain fell to the ground.
	And as the rain fell, so Samantha dropped to the ground, screaming for release from the prison of her own mind.  She heard more voices, more problems, more people crying out into her mind.  Sam looked over the side of the bridge.  The rain was coming down harder, and the river looked black and deep.  She felt drawn to the darkness, the kind of peace she was looking for. 
	"Wait, are these my own feelings?"
	"Who does he think he is...I have to drive in this rain..."
	"What am I?  Where am I?  Which of these thoughts belongs to me?"
	Sam stood up, and prepared for the jump.  She had to do this.  It was the only way to rid herself of these people in her mind.  She looked down into the black depths, and saw peace, saw rest.  Was that sound, that rushing, clamoring sound, the river, or her own mind?  There was no way to be sure.  As she leaned over the railing, one final thought pushed its way past all the others.  The voice was all too familiar.
	"Is...Is that Sam?"
	Samantha turned to see Nicole rushing over, and pulling her away from the railing.
	"What...were you...doing there Sam?" her friend gasped, "Were you trying to kill yourself or something?"
	"Behind all of the trivial troubles of the clamoring voices in her head, Sam felt here a genuine feeling, something her new friends had never given her.  Nicole truly cared, truly wanted to help Samantha.  She had to be told what was really going on.
	"Nicole, I've got to tell you something..." and with that, Sam explained her entire mind-reading ability to Nicole.  Her friend was stunned.
	"You...don't expect me to believe any of that, do you?"
	"I know right now that you got a call from your mother a few minutes ago saying that she would pick up your brother due to all the rain, and that right now you're thinking about how wet your clothes are getting." Sam told her frankly.
	"I knew you wouldn't believe me," she said dejectedly.
	"No, I believe you.  You've always been very serious, and I trust that you would never lie to me.  You know, I think its great that you told me all this.  You've always talked to me about how people keep their thoughts bottled up inside, and wear masks on the outside to fit the expectations of others.  No one can live with such a big secret stuck in them.  Eventually, it's going to overcome them."
	Sam looked at Nicole, and felt that she had finally found a true friend.  
	"Well, I should get home.  The voices are getting louder, and I need to get some rest."
	With that, Samantha left for home, and the two friends parted.

	She finally got back home, and slumped down on her bed.  The homework she had once diligently worked on lay scattered across her room.  Sam couldn't concentrate on any one thought.  Ideas, memories, dialogues, they all went through her head as she lay there.  The sound grew louder and louder, eventually drowning out all other sounds around her.
	Faintly, somewhere in the distance, Sam heard someone say, "Your father and I are going out to dinner tonight Sam, okay?"
	Were they her parents, or another Sam halfway across the world?  She realized from the varied languages and concepts she heard that her mind had encompassed much of the world.  She tried to listen to something, to one single thread of thought, but every voice cried louder than the last.  Every human voice weaved together, and in the din, Sam couldn't make out a word they were telling her.  
	Samantha sat up.  Was that silence?  No, whatever it was, it was getting louder.  It was a plain and flat sound that had overlaid on top of the voices.  A simple tone that drowned out everything else in her world.  
	"Ahh... Ow!"
	The sound was growing louder.  She could hear the voices occasionally burst out of this clear sound.  Random screams stuck out of the white fabric in her mind, but still the sound came clear.  She couldn't take it any more.  It was so loud, she felt like her head would explode.  Sam stumbled down the narrow staircase to the hallway, and ran out the back door into her backyard. The rain was still falling, now even harder than before.

	Even the lightning, blasting with all of its mythical force, could not break through the barrier strewn across Samantha's mind.  She could hear nothing but the infernal sound, blaring into her mental ears until it was burned into her brain.  Suddenly, She dropped to the ground, standing on her knees staring at the endless black sky.
	"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Samantha Higgins screamed to the world, "NO!  STOP IT!  MAKE IT STOP!  I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT ANYMORE!!!!"  No matter how hard she tried, Sam couldn't stop the deluge.
	Finally, this sound, this single concept, began to emerge as words in her head.  Samantha heard it in all of the tongues of the world. She could hear it repeated into her brain, and the deliverance was resonating and clear.

	"Listen to me."

	Every human being was calling out, and only Sam could hear.  No matter where they were, or what life they lived, every single person seemed to only ask one thing:  to be heard.  With this revelation, Samantha lost all of her remaining strength, and dropped to the ground.  Blackness was all she saw.

	And when she woke up, that's all she heard.

	She heard a voice come out of the darkness.
	"Samantha!  What happened Sam?"
	It was her mother.  Her parents had come home and found her on the lawn, passed out in the grass.
"I...I don't know," she replied wispily.  
	"You must have been sleepwalking or something.  Let's take you inside, you probably caught a cold."
	Her parents helped her up and brought her into the house.  There, Sam lied down on her bed.  As she listened, Sam found that she couldn't hear anything beyond the physical sounds of the objects and people around her.  The deluge had stopped.  She was free.
	"You're a little sick, and I'm sure you're shaken up by waking up on the lawn," her father explained, "You might as well stay home from school today.
	"No..." she replied feebly, "I have something to do today."
	Her parents agreed, and allowed Sam to go to school that day.  On a Friday, any student would love to take off, but Samantha had business to attend to.  Right before Sam got on the bus, she looked back at her parents, focusing her mind directly on them.
	As she stared into her father's eyes, Samantha heard the single sound she had yearned for so long to hear.
	"..."
	Silence.

	Sam walked back into those doors, the same simple girl with the ponytail from before.  The same girl who had walked in just a few months ago without a clue of what went on in others' minds.  She felt a pressing silence in her brain; as if something inside her own mind had truly disappeared.  She had lost that wondrous, beautiful, terrifying vision of mankind that she had held for that eternal instant.  
	She walked right up the stairs to her locker, and proceeded once again to her homeroom class.  Just as every day before it.  She searched out Nicole, but found it hard.  She felt like she had lost a sense.  Sight, hearing, all of those things weren't enough to identify a person.  If she couldn't truly hear Nicole, truly know who she was, how could she find her in this group of students?  Finally, she saw the sullen girl and sat down next to her.  
	"Oh, Sam, you're back!  Are you..okay, with that whole incident and all?
	"Yeah, it's alright now.  I just... I wanted to say I'm sorry."
	"For what?"
	"I had no idea what I was doing.  When I got my power, I just couldn't help myself, and I became the very masked faker that I had always criticized.  My power... It's gone now.    I've been freed."
	"Really!  That's great!  The voices are gone and everything?"
	"Yeah... Well, you know, this really... makes you value silence, right?"

	With that, the two girls got into their seats for homeroom class.  Everything went on just as it always did.  The lives of these students, who had had their minds opened up and read by that unassuming girl, went on without a care of the thoughts of others.
	It was eighth period, and Sam was sitting in her usual
 seat in the back of the room.  She looked out the window to see the rain still falling, though it was less severe.  As the teacher droned on about the same old things that Sam had already learned, she gazed out at the outside world.  The rain, pouring down, was like so many little people.  Each of them slightly different, they all seem the same in the grand scheme.  Falling, falling, to an inevitable end among each raindrop that came before them.  As they leave this place, each one leaves a message, that unending patter on the hard ground.
	And when she thought about it, Sam hadn't gained some supernatural power.  She had just relearned a skill many humans had forgotten how to use.  

Listen.

	So close your eyes.  Maybe, if you listen very closely, you can hear the clamoring voices of a billion different stories to be told.  Now that you can hear, the only question is:  Will you listen?


--Evan "Vampt Vo" Minto--

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