The Angry Voice

A teenager has problems when a voice won't stop tormenting him, until it stops, kind of

For over a year, Ethan’s life was a nightmare. At sixteen, he was a quiet kid, a tinkerer who loved music production and coding, but the voice changed everything. It started one night when he was digging through a shady online forum, a rasping, vicious scream blasting through his headphones, calling him “useless,” “a fraud,” “a talentless hack.” The volume was unbearable, like it was wired into his brain. Sometimes, it threw in bursts of distorted music—screeching guitars or static at what felt like 11, leaving his ears throbbing. No matter what he tried—new headphones, wiped hard drives, even switching devices—the voice followed. It mocked his beats, his dreams, his existence. It wasn’t constant, fading for days before roaring back, unpredictable and cruel. Ethan’s grades tanked, his social life crumbled, and his parents thought he was losing it. Therapists didn’t help; the voice wasn’t in his head. It was real, tied to his tech, untraceable.


He endured it for over a year, retreating into himself. Then, one sticky August night, the voice snapped. Ethan was tweaking a synth track when it erupted, louder and angrier than ever. “You’re nothing! I never made a dime, and you’re raking it in? Thief!” it screamed, spiraling into a frenzied rant about “stolen fame” and “time’s revenge.” Then—a choked gasp, a heavy thud. Silence. Ethan, trembling, slipped his headphones back on. No insults, just… music. Not the usual noise, but something extraordinary: lush, cinematic beats with a lo-fi edge, the kind of sound that could score a blockbuster or fill a club. It was magnetic, perfect. For the first time in months, Ethan felt alive.


The music played continuously, a single track on a flawless loop. For three days, he soaked it in, sketching out its structure, humming its melodies. It was the kind of music he’d always wanted to make. But on the fourth day, the loop tightened, repeating relentlessly. By two weeks, it was maddening; by a month, it was torture, a beautiful cage. For nearly two months, it droned on, inescapable, etched into his mind. Ethan tried hacking the signal, but it was like chasing a shadow.


Then, one chilly October morning, the music cut out. New voices crackled through—two men, gruff and pissed. “Fucking rich idiots and their stolen time-peering rigs,” one growled. “Government’s gonna have our heads for this. Guy’s been dead for months—heart attack, look at him. Headphones right by the mic, feeding everything to that kid.” The other retched, muttering, “Smells like a morgue. These time-hopping psychos always leave a mess.” They cursed their jobs, “cleaning up after morons who snag classified tech,” for five minutes before the feed went dead.


Ethan sat back, stunned. His tormenter had been some bitter nobody, jealous of a future Ethan didn’t even know about, using a stolen government time-peering rig to scream across years. The music, though—that was something else. It was still in his head, every note, every layer. He opened his music software, hands shaking, and started recreating it. Bar by bar, he rebuilt the track, then another, then more. They poured out, each one better than the last. He posted them online, and they blew up—blogs called them “genre-defining,” fans begged for more. Ethan was making money, a lot of it, just as the voice had raged about.


One night, months later, it hit him: the music he’d heard, the music he was now famous for—it was his. The tormenter’s rig had looped Ethan’s own future tracks back to him, a paradox of sound. He was the source. The realization was dizzying, but it made him grin. He’d turned the nightmare into his triumph.