You shake your head. You must be going mad to be hearing voices. It would be best not to look into it, for your own sanity if nothing else. You clench your eyes shut and throw a pillow over your head to block the voices out. Within minutes, you manage to doze off, falling into a fitful sleep full of nightmares.

In the morning, you begin to hear the voice again. It beckons for you to come to it, but you don't give in. You spend the day as you normally do, drinking wine and eating bread and passing out late into the night... But the voice does not stop.

This cycle continues for days, then weeks. You try to block the voice out but it keeps coming, and soon, it is joined by even more. Begging for you to come see them. When you resist, the voices continue, increasing in volume and barely contained rage.

One night you wake up in a cold sweat, greeted by the screeches of these specters haunting you. You're not sure how much more of this you can take.

No. You won't take the easy way out. You'll hold out, as long as it takes.

You shout, "Leave me alone!" The voices continue despite your protests, and you find yourself unsure if you truly can continue like this... The dagger is awfully tempting...

No. You won't bow to their whims. Gritting your teeth, you hop out of bed and begin to yell as loud as you can, "LEAVE ME! I WON'T GIVE INTO THE LIKES OF YOU!" Still, the voices do not stop their incessant screeching. So, you scream back louder.

You're not sure how long the back and forth screaming goes on for. All you know is that before long, you stop yelling and begin to laugh maniacally. The voices quiet this way, but you're not sure for how long. Have you gone mad? Or is this working? Then again, who's to say it isn't both?

You keep laughing! This is working! You can feel yourself slipping away, away from them and all your problems!

It's working! The voices are getting quieter! You laugh, and laugh, and laugh away! You continue laughing until you can hear nothing but the laughter! Then you laugh even more! It's all you need! Now there is nothing in the world except you, and your laughter!

Bertrand finds you the next morning, curled up in a fetal position and laughing. Tears stream from your eyes, and every now and again you let out a wheeze from lack of breath. He stares at you, horrified, before pulling you up and carrying you out. He sends for a sage from the next town over to look into your sudden onset of uncontrollable laughter.

When the sage arrives at midday, he takes one look at the giggling wreck that you are and shakes his head. Still, he sets to work trying to get you to respond. You simply laugh at him. After an hour, he admits defeat. "He's gone mad," the sage says. "There's nothing I can do."

He binds you with rope and drags you into his wagon, taking you into the town. There, he admits you into an asylum, while you continue to chuckle without end. The staff beats you in an attempt to get you to stop; it does not work. Eventually, they cut out your tongue, but you let out breathless wheezes that sound like laughter nonetheless.

Finally, one morning, a worker at the asylum grows irritated with your laughing. In the middle of the night, he enters your room and slits your throat. In his dreams, he can hear you laughing mad, without end...

THE END