Discovering Your Voice Novels & Stories

DIAMOND POV: The sound of my voice shocks everyone, even me. I stop completely, swallowing hard. At first I thought it was just some kind of fake connection that my brain makes since I can expand my disabilities whenever Alice is around, but it's not. I can feel the sound of my own voice making vibrations on the floor. My hand freezes against the edge of the podium. Is this really happening?

I am a woman in the dark, an unknown body revealing itself centimeter by centimeter under an expert mouth and hands. "Lorenzo…" I hear my own voice, hoarse, foreign, rasped by a nascent desire I no longer control. "Shh… Let yourself go. Let me discover you."

"He'll get past that. He'll learn that his voice is worth hearing. He'll learn that expressing himself through music is a form of honesty. He's got time." And we leave him to it. We don't push. We don't suggest. We just bear witness to Alexander becoming Alexander. To him discovering that he has a voice. Not just for speaking. But for singing. For expressing the things that words alone can't quite capture. Three months later, he's singing almost every day. In the shower. While cooking. In his room with the door closed. He's not perfect. He's not trained. But he's discovering something about himself. He's finding out that he can express emotion through sound. That his voice can carry meaning.

“Takuto, please sit down. Your answer was correct, but I think your voice needs emergency funding.” After school, Takuto locked himself in his room, armed with a book titled Adolescent Physiology and a jar of honey-lemon throat lozenges. “I must regain control of my vocal cords.” He stood in front of the mirror, practicing his tones. “Bass… midrange… treble… mixed…” But no matter how hard he tried, his voice wavered like a rollercoaster. Outside the door, his sister was eavesdropping again and couldn’t resist commenting:

Annoyance winning over fear, she starts towards the house, heading for what looked like an open garage. "This is it. This is how I die. I'm gonna get abducted and live chained to some lunatic's basement." Laurie mutters out as she gets closer and closer to the garage. She's a few feet from the open garage when a particularly aggressive back resonates through the air. "Nope. Nope nope nope nope not today." She chants repeatedly under her breath as she turns to walk away just now realizing how stupid she had been the past few minutes. "Hello?" Laurie stops in her tracks as a voice calls out from inside the garage. "Who's there?"

“I just… I want to feel like I’m allowed to exist. Like I can be… me.” The guide’s hand remained near, a subtle reassurance without intrusion. “That’s exactly why you’re here,” the voice said. “Not to perform, not to answer questions for anyone else, not to impress. Just… to discover what being you might feel like. Even in the smallest moments, you can notice it. You can hold it, explore it, and let it grow.”

The voice continues as though I hadn’t interrupted. “Closer, closer, closer to your destiny,“ The voice is becoming clearer, but I feel only more confused. “What do you mean, my destiny?“ I call back. “Can you hear me?“ “Find it. Find it. You must find it.” The voice continues. The quote you have to find it.” “Find what? Please, tell me! Who are you?“ I call out. The Voice does not respond. Instead, my own words echo back at me, becoming louder and louder: “Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?” As my words become louder, the moon glows brighter and brighter until I’m blinded.

I needed to breathe really deep and clear my throat before speaking, in the most natural and casual way I could manage. “I’d like to try something,” I said. “If any of you would like to talk to me, maybe you can use this.” I pointed at my phone on the coffee table. “That’s supposed to capture whatever sound you make and turn it into words that an electronic voice will say aloud, for me to hear it. Does anybody feel like trying?” Silence. That complete, absolute silence that upset me more than the constant little noises. Then a voice came out of my phone, pushing me to the brink of a heart attack.

For the first time in my life, I made a sound. I had a voice!

My thumb tremble slightly as I pressed play. And the voice came up. A nice cool voice that I'd surely recognize when I hear it again. Who the heck could this be? I need to find out and get deeper.