The rain whispered over the old ruins, its drops tracing the cracks of time. Beneath the gray sky, a boy named Arhan wandered through the remnants of a forgotten kingdom. The stones were silent, yet they seemed to breathe — as if holding secrets too painful to speak.
Arhan wasn't a historian. He was just a dreamer with a sketchbook. While others saw ruins, he saw souls. He believed every wall, every broken pillar, had a story — and every story had a wound.
As he moved deeper into the fort, something caught his eye — faint carvings on a fallen stone. The words were eroded, but still legible:
> "We were here, too."
He ran his fingers over the letters. They were cold, almost trembling. Suddenly, the air around him changed. The wind stopped. The world grew still. And then — a whisper.
> "Don't forget us."
Startled, Arhan looked around. Shadows began to appear — hundreds of them. Soldiers without names, women carrying stones for temples, children with hollow eyes. Their faces were blurred, but their pain was clear.
They did not scream. They did not beg. They just watched him.
A wave of sorrow hit him. He fell to his knees, clutching his chest. It was as if centuries of grief had found a place to rest inside him.
That night, he couldn't sleep. The whisper kept echoing in his mind —
> "We were here, too."
The next morning, Arhan returned to the ruins with his sketchbook. He began to draw — the forgotten faces that history had erased. He drew the farmer who died nameless in drought, the poet whose words were burned for truth, the girl who was never allowed to dream.
As his pencil moved, he heard faint breathing behind him. The air shimmered, heavy with memories. He was no longer alone — the shadows stood beside him, watching, weeping silently.
Each line he drew felt like healing a wound that the world had ignored for centuries. When he finished the last sketch, the wind began to move again. The shadows smiled faintly — and disappeared into the morning light.
In their place, on the wall, words appeared — carved as if by invisible hands:
> "You have heard us."
Arhan touched the carving and felt warmth. His eyes filled with tears.
Years later, when people found his drawings, they called them The Faces of Silence. Historians couldn't explain how they felt so real — as if they had been drawn by time itself.
But Arhan knew the truth. He had simply listened.