The river was too quiet.
Not peaceful. Quiet like a held breath. Quiet like something waiting.
Ren had never trusted quiet.
Her mother squeezed her hand a little too tight. Her father walked a step ahead, glancing around like a man who was trying not to look guilty.
Ren was six. She wasn't stupid.
"Why are we going so far?" she asked.
Her mother smiled, thin and shaky. "We're playing hide and seek."
Ren stopped walking. The riverbank mud squelched around her bare feet. "But we don't play games on market days."
Her father crouched in front of her. His hands rested on her shoulders, warm and trembling.
"Just trust us."
Trust.
She didn't know the word then, but her body recognized the feeling — a rope someone else could yank.
She followed them only because she didn't know she was supposed to refuse.
They led her to a patch of tall reeds near the water. The sunlight hit the surface of the river like shards of glass. Ren's mother knelt and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Ren's ear.
"Close your eyes," she whispered. "Count to one hundred."
Ren waited for the usual follow-up:
"We'll count too. We'll come find you."
It never came.
Her father cleared his throat. "Stay hidden, alright? Don't come out."
Ren nodded, eyes wide and obedient — like a good daughter.
She pressed her palms over her eyes.
"One… two… three…"
Behind her hands, she heard footsteps.
Retreating.
Then faster.
She lowered her hands.
Her parents were already nearly to the main road, walking too quickly to be playful. She didn't shout yet. She wanted to see if they'd look back. If this was part of the game.
They didn't.
They didn't even hesitate.
Ren ran.
"Papa!"
They didn't stop.
"Mama!"
Her voice cracked. She tripped, palms scraping against gravel. She tasted iron in her mouth and pushed herself up again.
They reached the cart.
Climbed in.
Didn't turn around.
Ren sprinted, lungs burning, vision blurring.
The cart rolled away.
She screamed their names until her throat scraped raw.
She ran until her legs gave out.
Then she collapsed in the dirt — small, shaking, unwanted.
The world offered her no explanation. No comfort. Just the sound of horse hooves growing distant. Then nothing. A silence so absolute it felt like the world had never known her at all.
That silence swallowed her.
She hated it instantly.
Ren screamed until her voice broke, because noise meant she was still here. Noise was proof she existed. She hurled rocks at the reeds. She stomped the mud. She smashed her fists against the ground until pain buzzed in her bones.
"If you don't want me," she shouted to the empty river, "then I don't want you either!"
The river didn't answer.
Silence again.
Fine.
If silence wouldn't hear her, she'd make the world listen by force.
A feral, vicious thought bloomed in her tiny chest:
I will never beg to be kept.
Ren stood. Wiped her tears. Spit in the dirt.
Then she walked away from the river — not back toward the city, but forward. Into the unknown. With no plan. No home. Nothing but rage and the clarity that nobody was coming back for her.
She learned her first truth that day:
Noise is survival.
Silence is death.
And Ren decided she would never be silent again