'Murderer' He Whispered

3

Megan couldn't sleep.

She stared blindly into the darkness for hours on end, gazing up at the patterns on the white ceiling that she could just barely make out through the black shadows of the night. But no matter how much she tried to force her mind to drift away from the horrors of the day before, sleep wouldn't welcome her.

When it felt like an eternity had gone by, Megan rolled on her side to face her bedside table and groaned when her digital clock read in dull, red numbers, '05:30'.

Finally admitting defeat, Megan sat up on her bed and checked her mobile whilst the light from her screen made her eyes burn as though they were on fire. She switched the screen to vision comfort and turned the brightness down as quickly as her fingers would allow her to, before she was finally able to see the screen without her eyes melting.

Skimming through her Facebook app, Megan sighed again when she saw that she had forty-two notifications, but knew straight away that all of them were of her name being tagged on countless vicious posts about her husband rather than friends or family checking up on her.

Marking all the notifications as read without checking any of them, Megan promptly closed the app again and placed her phone back on the bedside table.

Ever since Charlie did what he did, most of Megan's family and friends - including Charlie's - didn't want to hear about it and basically disowned her, acting as though the women had never existed. Even the girls had lost a lot of their friends and none of the cousins that were in Olivia's age group messaged her anymore. Whether that was by their own choice or their parents forcing them to, Megan didn't know. But it didn't make it sting any less.

Feeling tears prick at her eyes, Megan shoved the thoughts out of her mind and reached back over to the bedside table again. She pulled open the top drawer that held a bunch of miscellaneous items such as painkillers, a grey sleeping mask, her reading glasses, and a small radio. She grabbed the radio and switched it on, hoping there was something on it that she could listen to and make her forget her own thoughts.

Turning the volume knob down to level two, Megan began turning the knob next to it that changed the radio channels. In between bursts of static and white noise, all Megan came across were channels playing music as it was too early for any talk shows to be broadcasted this early in the morning.

With countless of classical tunes being played with the occasional rock song, Megan was about to switch the radio off again in defeat, when someone talking through the speakers grabbed her attention.

Relief flooded through her, glad that she could listen to people speaking on whatever topic held their interests that could take her away from her own life for a while. Although she was confused at why they were on at such an early time, Megan couldn't care less. It didn't matter why they were on so early or what they talked about it, she just wanted to tune into it whilst tuning herself and her problems out.

After a moment, she realised the voice talking belonged to a man that was bursting with so much static, that it made him sound as though he was speaking in the middle of a hurricane. Megan turned the knob ever-so-slightly from right to left, before the man's voice finally sounded clearer.

"That's completely horrendous!" another male voice boomed through the radio speakers that sounded a lot more posh than the other one.

"I know!" the first male voice she heard came through again. His voice was higher pitched than the other, possibly younger than the second man. "I've never heard of anything so awful in all my life!"

"I have to agree with you there. I mean, who does that, especially to a child?"

Megan frowned as she eyed the radio suspiciously. Yes, she wanted to listen to a conversation that would help her forget about her own life, but not something that could be just as bad - or even worse.