Sudden Voice

In the end, Max consumed multiple bottles of alcohol and became so inebriated that he eventually passed out on his couch while his television was still on.

Normally, anyone in this circumstance wouldn't wake up until the next morning, and then it would likely be with a hangover.

This is what was supposed to happen to Max or what should have happened to him naturally, but it didn't because Max woke up suddenly after only a few hours of sleep and it wasn't a natural kind of awakening. Max was startled out of sleep when he heard a voice, specifically a voice inside his head.

{***Ho..rus..***}

{***H..ori…zon***}

"What's that?" Max grunted as he struggled to sit on the couch that he was sleeping on and held his head with both hands from the sudden pain he felt when he shifted himself to sit.

The hangover came early.

Max had forgotten about the strange voice that had been going on in his head that had woken him up and had just attributed it to him imagining things since the voice had not spoken again after he had awakened. Instead, he was grunting occasionally as he massaged his forehead in a futile effort to get rid of his hangover.

Max was awake, but his eyes were still closed because when he had previously tried to open them, doing so had made his hangover worse.

The bottles that were strewn about on the center table in the living room were proof that Max had consumed a great deal of liquor, seeing as opening his eyes could have an effect on him.

The same voice, which Max initially believed to be his imagination, spoke once more in his head as he persisted in his futile effort to massage his forehead in an effort to alleviate his hangover.

{***H..o..r.u…s..***}

{***H..o.ri…zo…n***}

'Huh?'

This time, he heard the voice again, but just like the first time, the voice vanished abruptly after it appeared, leading Max to believe that he must be imagining things. However, there was also a nagging doubt in his mind, but Max did not even have time to consider it because doing so made his pain worse.

Max couldn't really focus on anything since he was suffering from a hangover and the alcohol effects were still having an impact on him.

For one thing, he wanted to turn off the television because he was at a point where he needed to start managing his expenses, but the energy to stand up and turn it off in his condition was non-existent. This all changed when it happened for the third time.

{***H..o..r.u…s..***}

{***H..ori…zon***}

After hearing the broken voice in his head three times, Max realised he wasn't imagining things or experiencing an illusion brought on by the alcohol in his system.

Since the voice didn't speak again after the first time, he could put it down to imagination. The second time it happened the same way, but the third time was definitely not going to be the same.

This caused him to suddenly open his eyes, stand up with shaky steps, and scan his surroundings for any signs of unusual activity despite the excruciating pain in his head that prevented him from moving.

In all honesty, Max was a little frightened, and he was unaware that each of the three times the voice spoke, it was coming directly from his head rather than the environment.

It didn't help matters that the voice he was hearing had a few peculiar characteristics.

For instance, the first time it sounded deep and rumbling, the second time it was haunting and ethereal, and the third time it was gravelly and rough.

{***Ho.rus***}

{***Horiz.on***}

The voice also had pauses between the words and letters, which gave off the strange impression that the speaker was disoriented or lost. This time, the speaker sounded eerily calm and slightly measured, but none of this particularly concerned Max as he was already on the verge of having his heart explode from fear.

"Who are you?" Max questioned his surroundings in a loud voice that was a little overpowered by the television's sound.

Max repeated his question loudly after receiving no response, but if one were to ignore the television, he would have been met with silence.

'Is it really just my mind playing tricks on me?' Max pondered for a while as he stared around him intently before his fear subsided when he realised he was the only person in the house and nobody else.

Max muttered, his hangover worsening as a result of his actions, "I guess I was just being paranoid," with a frown on his face.

Max approached the television a little clumsily, turned it off, and was on his way to the kitchen to get a glass of water when he suddenly yelled in panic.

Well, Max was supposed to yell, but there was no sound coming from his mouth. In actuality, there was no sound outside as not even the buzzing of insects could be heard.

As if things weren't bad enough, Max found himself unable to move his body. It was as if the entire world around him had become soundless while he had lost control of his body.

At this point, Max experienced a stronger return of his previously experienced fear.

Max had no idea what was going on or why it was happening, and he wasn't interested in finding out because all he wanted was to stay out of it.

Max's heartbeat continued to increase at a dangerously rapid rate, and this time, a strange sensation came from something that was around his neck.

It was a rope necklace with a black pendant shaped crystal.

Its origin was quite peculiar since the said origin can't be traced.

The necklace was given to him by his mother, who in turn received it from her father, who in turn received it from his own father, and so on. It was essentially an inheritance and much more than just a necklace. He even takes a bath with it since it's a leather rope.

Max, however, saw it as nothing more than a curse at this point because he knew that the necklace was to blame for everything that was occurring.

How did he know that?

Well, the inheritance necklace was hovering perfectly in front of his eyes and was emitting a faint white light, so that was a problem.

Even though everything was already at its worst, the previous voice simply had to return.

{***Earth?***}

The voice Max initially believed to be his imagination spoke with a tone he initially failed to notice for confusion, but it soon continued speaking in Max's head.

Strangely, it seemed as though the voice was unaware of the current circumstances, such as the fact that Max could hear its voice and that they were connected, or it may have chosen to ignore it.

Regardless, not many people—not even Max—knew what this day would mean in the future.

{No energy...Sleepy}

Immediately after this was said by the constantly changing voice, the dim light the pendant was emitting before suddenly emitted a bright blinding light that lasted less than a second and by the time it had disappeared, Max had his back on the floor and was apparently fast asleep.

Despite everything that had happened, the pendant's appearance remained unchanged.