Ten years.
That's how long it took for the quiet to feel like home.
The rebels taught me how to live inside the stillness without dying from it. They called it safe speech — the art of shaping words in your mind, letting them slip out like breath that doesn't disturb the air. It wasn't really speaking, not the way my world knew it. But somehow, among them, it was enough.
Enough to laugh.
Enough to belong.
Enough to almost forget.
The first name I learned was Eri — the pale-haired woman who'd first spoken to me in that hollow beneath the roots. Her voice was soft, barely there, like silk fraying in the wind. She'd been a singer once, before the Silence took her voice. Now, she taught us songs made of vibrations and touch — harmonies you felt instead of heard.
Then there was Ryn, the masked one. The leader. Always watching the treeline like it might whisper secrets. He rarely removed his bark mask, but once, during the fifth winter, he did. His face was marked by old burns, faint silver lines that caught the light when he smiled — the kind of smile people only give when they've survived too much to fake it anymore.
And Kiro, the boy who found color in a colorless world. He painted the cavern walls with dust and ash, shapes that shimmered faintly when the wind moved right. He made the darkness look alive.
They were my family. The only one I had left.
We built a life in the roots. We traded silence for peace, fear for belonging. We even ventured beyond the forest sometimes, in groups of two or three, exploring the frozen villages where statues of the condemned stood like monuments. I hated those trips. The sight of them — people frozen mid-scream, eyes wide with sound they'd never finish — it reminded me of the day I arrived.
Eri would always take my hand when I froze. "Don't look too long," she'd whisper. "They say the Silence remembers faces."
But I always looked. I couldn't help it.
For ten years, the world stayed still. The gray sky never changed. The silence never lifted. And yet, in that sameness, I found something that felt almost like joy.
Until the night he came.
It was during a gathering — our version of a festival. Dozens of us packed into the hollow, the walls glowing faintly with Kiro's dust paintings. We danced in gestures, laughed in breathless whispers, shared food that tasted faintly of ash and sweetness. For a few hours, we pretended the world wasn't broken.
Then the air shifted.
The lights dimmed. The roots above us trembled like something vast had brushed past them.
At first, I thought it was another quake. We'd had a few before — the earth sighing in its sleep. But this felt different. Intentional.
When I stepped outside, the fog had cleared. The forest was still. And there, standing just beyond the boundary of our campfire's reach, was a figure.
Human-shaped. Blank-faced. White as untouched stone.
No eyes. No mouth. No features at all — just the idea of a person.
And yet, when it spoke, the voice was warm. Calm. Almost gentle.
"You have lived well here."
I froze. The others behind me stirred, whispers fluttering like wings. No one dared respond.
The being tilted its head. "Don't be afraid. I'm not here to harm you."
Eri stepped forward, her hand trembling. "Who… are you?"
The figure smiled — or maybe I imagined it. "A friend. A guardian. The one who kept your world safe from chaos."
Ryn moved between us. "The Silence."
The name made the air grow heavier. Even the fire dimmed.
The figure chuckled softly, as if amused. "You say it like a curse. But I only give what the world needed — peace."
"No," Ryn said. His voice was barely above a whisper. "You gave us fear."
The Silence tilted its head again. "Fear is order. Without it, you would destroy yourselves with sound. I saved you from yourselves."
It took a step forward, and the earth hardened beneath its feet. The trees bent, bowing in unnatural reverence.
Eri's eyes were wet. "You… you turn people to stone. You murder them."
"I preserve them," it corrected. "I keep them from breaking the quiet. Each one a monument to peace."
My hands clenched at my sides. Something deep inside me stirred — that second heartbeat I'd almost forgotten after all these years.
The Silence turned to me. "And you," it said. "The anomaly. The one who spoke, and yet survived."
Its featureless head tilted, studying me like a curious animal. "You interest me, Noir."
I stiffened. "How do you know my name?"
It raised a hand, white and smooth. "I have watched you since the day you arrived. You've lived well here. You've… adapted."
It took another step closer. I could see faint distortions in the air around it, like heat waves distorting reality itself. "I've been generous with your kind. But lately, I've heard too many tremors. Too many stolen words."
Kiro stepped out from behind me, defiant. "We only speak to remember what it means to be human."
The Silence turned its blank face toward him. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a faint crack echoed through the clearing.
Kiro gasped. His skin grayed. His fingers stiffened mid-reach.
"No!" Eri screamed, lunging toward him — but I caught her before she could touch him. It was already too late. He was gone. Another statue for the collection.
The Silence sighed. "Do you see? Sound spreads corruption. Disobedience."
I felt my pulse hammering. The black veins beneath my skin flickered to life again, faint but real. The world seemed to tilt.
"Leave them alone," I said quietly.
The figure's head turned toward me again, slow and deliberate. "And why would I, little one? You of all people should understand. Silence brings peace."
Ryn stepped forward, voice shaking. "You call this peace?"
The Silence didn't answer. It only looked up toward the endless gray sky. "The time of peace is ending. The world stirs again, and with it, the noise. I will cleanse it."
Then, as if the words themselves dissolved it, the figure vanished.
No light. No flash. Just gone — leaving only a pressure in the air, like a held breath that would never be released.
Eri knelt beside Kiro's statue, her hands trembling. "He was just a boy," she whispered.
No one spoke after that.
The night stretched long and heavy. The fire died on its own, unwilling to burn.
I sat beside the statue, my hands shaking, the glow beneath my skin returning stronger this time. The world was quiet. Too quiet.
And for the first time in ten years… I wanted to break it.