I woke to the sound of nothing.
No heartbeat. No wind. No breath but my own — and even that felt wrong, too heavy, too deliberate, like the world itself was eavesdropping. The ground beneath me was damp and cold, made of soil that smelled faintly of iron and rot. When I opened my eyes, the sky was a sheet of pale gray, without texture or direction.
For a moment, I thought I was still dead.
I tried to remember the light — the end that refused to end — but memory came only in fragments. The roar of collapsing stars. The way her hand slipped from mine. The whisper that promised a new beginning, if I was cruel enough to take it.
Then silence again. Not peace. Not calm. Something denser. A silence with weight.
I pushed myself up. My body felt wrong — too light, like a thought pretending to be flesh. My reflection in a nearby puddle flickered, refusing to hold shape. For a second, I saw my mother's face in the water. Her lips moved, forming a word I couldn't hear, and rage clawed its way up my chest before I could stop it.
The puddle trembled. The ripples froze in midair.
I blinked, and everything returned to stillness — the water flat, my reflection gone. My hands were shaking. I told myself it was shock. Just shock. But deep inside, something old and black pulsed once, like a second heartbeat.
The landscape stretched endlessly around me — empty fields stitched together by crooked fences, a horizon that refused to stay still. In the distance, there was movement: smoke, or maybe mist, curling above low roofs. A village.
I walked. My footsteps made no sound.
The first person I saw was a woman kneeling in front of a stone well, her hands clasped as if in prayer. Her mouth moved rapidly, but there was no sound. When she noticed me, she froze. The air tightened around us — and without warning, she turned and fled, vanishing into one of the narrow alleys.
I stood there, unsure if I should follow. But the hunger to understand dragged me forward.
The streets were full of people who pretended not to see me. Every face was pale, every mouth closed tight. They spoke in gestures — quick, efficient, desperate. No laughter. No chatter. Only that unbearable quiet.
For a heartbeat, it felt like my old world again. The cafeteria where no one dared sit beside me. The bus rides home with only my thoughts for company. The silence that turned from comfort to cage.
Then, someone looked at me.
A child — eyes wide, trembling. His lips moved soundlessly, forming words I couldn't read. Before I could kneel, an old man seized him by the arm and dragged him away, pressing a trembling finger to his own mouth in warning.
I didn't speak. I didn't breathe.
When the old man turned to me, his face was carved with lines like cracked stone. His eyes were full of something I didn't recognize — not hate, not fear, but obedience.
"Leave," he mouthed. "Before the silence hears you."
I wanted to ask what that meant. Instead, I nodded and stepped back. His relief was almost violent.
The village ended abruptly where the earth dipped into a valley. Beyond it, black trees stood in neat rows, branches bent as if bowing. Above them hung a white disc pretending to be a sun. The light never changed. The shadows never moved.
I found an abandoned hut near the edge of the forest as night — or what I thought was night — fell. Inside, everything smelled of dust and old breath. The walls were scratched with strange lines, repeating patterns that hurt to look at.
I sat on the floor and closed my eyes, trying to remember the last thing I'd heard before everything went dark.
It was a voice. The same one that had dragged me through the light.
"You will suffer, Noir."
I didn't know if it was a threat or a promise.
Sleep came like drowning.
And in that sleep, I dreamed of fire. Not the cataclysm — not the world-ending blaze — but something smaller, closer. A kitchen. My mother's hand stirring a pot. The window open. Wind. Sound. Life. Then a whisper: You let it burn.
I woke with a shout.
The word escaped before I could stop it — raw, small, human. But the silence devoured it whole.
Then the walls of the hut groaned. The wood blackened where my fingers had pressed. Smoke rose from the shape of my hand burned into the wall — not fire, just darkness that refused to fade.
In the marks, I saw a pattern. A seed, split open.
I stared at it until my pulse calmed. The air still vibrated faintly, like the world had heard me speak and was deciding what to do about it.
I whispered, "What are you doing to me?"
No answer came. Only a sound, distant and slow, like thunder rolling behind the clouds. Or maybe it was just my heart again — trying to remember what it felt like to be alive.
The world was quiet.
But the quiet had teeth.