Beneath The Silence

By Ayushi

Before you, the reader, step into these pages, know that this is a story not of heroes or villains, but of echoes and fragments. This narrative is a journey into the quiet, unsettling corners of a place where sanity is a fleeting guest and memory a cruel trick. 

This tale is told through a lens of profound psychological distress. It speaks in the language of buried secrets, the frantic hum of a mind under siege, and the chilling finality of violence. The path ahead is one of emotional turmoil, where reality bends and the line between truth and delusion is blurred. 

You will encounter themes and events that may be deeply unsettling: 

● The raw, unfiltered experience of a troubled mind. 

● Descriptions of violent acts and their aftermath. 

● The painful unearthing of repressed memories. 

● The cold manipulation of trust and identity. 

The story you hold is a brittle thing, much like the sanity it explores. It is an honest, often painful, look at what remains when the world falls apart. 

Please read with care and at your own discretion.

Blurb 

Seventeen-year-old Aamaya k. Aurora is confined in an asylum where the walls hum with secrets and silence cuts deeper than any scream. Alone, she drifts through the days, watching, listening, and trying not to vanish into the shadows of her own mind. 

Then she discovers a dirt-strained recorder buried in the yard. The voice it carries is sharp, philosophical, and chilling — at first cryptic, then confessional, unraveling a tale of blood, betrayal, and murder. 

Each playback drags Aamaya further from certainty, until the line between her thoughts and the voice becomes impossible to trace. 

Is she hearing someone else's story—or a reflection of her own darkness?

 Dedication 

“Sometimes the mind doesn't cage the monster - it becomes the monster  to survive it.” 

CONTENTS 

A voice from the asylum 

Blurb 

Dedication 

1. Amaya 

2. Amaya 

3. Amaya 

4. Amaya 

5. Amaya 

6. Amaya 

7. Amaya 

8. Amaya 

Author's Note 

Acknowledgments

 ‘ PART 01’

CHAPTER 01 

Amaya 

The shovel struck something solid. 

I froze, sweat beading down my forehead as the afternoon heat pressed against me like a second skin. Around me, the asylum’s backyard pulsed with shovels scraping soil and voices colliding in irritation. 

Who would’ve thought that a mental institution, buried deep in the forest, would take pride in such an eccentric pastime? Sent here to be cured—or forgotten—the last thing anyone expects is a weekly ritual of dirt-digging and tree-planting. 

And yet, as the spades bit into the ground and the air thickened with heat and murmurs, it felt less like gardening and more like confession—like we were being made to bury the asylum’s sins, one root at a time. 

Shoveling deeper, I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. The fabric of my uniform clung to my skin, streaked with dirt and damp, but after months here, grime had become a second layer — another thing you stopped noticing. 

The warden’s sharp, jagged eyes swept across us, her gaze slicing through the small group of inmates roped into this strange ritual, measuring every twitch, every breath, like a scientist observing a failed experiment. 

Behind her, the asylum rose like a monument built to outlast its sins. The walls were a dull, weathered gray, crawling with ivy that looked less like decoration and more like a slow attempt at strangulation. The windows stood tall but blind, their glass warped and tired, reflecting only the trees that surrounded us — a forest so dense it seemed to lean closer each day, listening. 

From afar, the building could almost pass for sacred — a cathedral for the broken. But up close, it felt wrong in ways you couldn’t quite name. The air around it hummed with something too old to belong to the living. 

The grounds were deceptive in their calm. Cobblestone paths wound through patches of overgrown grass, the scent of damp soil clinging to every breath. The wrought-iron gates creaked whenever the wind touched them, as if whispering secrets only the forest could understand. And beyond those gates, the trees thickened — tall, ancient things that watched and waited. 

Sometimes I wondered if the asylum was keeping the forest out, or if the forest was the one keeping us in. 

A few feet away, Shavi and Irwin were at it again. Shavi stood with one hand on her hip, shovel in the other, her glare sharp enough to cut through bone. 

“It’s your turn now, Irwin. I’ve been digging the last ten minutes while you’re busy staring at that group of girls. Now get over here and start digging.” 

Irwin sprang up from the bench, his voice flaring as easily as the heat in the air. “And what about me when I was digging for twenty minutes before you? You were sitting there like a princess because you didn’t want to break your nails!”

Their bickering rose above the shovels and the cicadas — absurd, yet oddly grounding. Even in this place, madness found its rhythm. 

I shoved harder into the ground, irritation tightening my grip. The fight, the endless digging, the weight of the air itself — all of it pressed in until I thought I’d snap. Then came it again: a faint, sharp rattling beneath the soil. 

I stilled. 

Mrs. Oswall, our warden, rose from her chair in the shade near the building's back door, moving with her usual measured precision. She passed from patient to patient, her gaze landing briefly on Shavi and Irwin before sweeping toward me. I kept my expression carefully blank. Slowly, my eyes dropped to the ground. 

There it was: a small, rectangular object, damp and half-buried. The dirt clung to its edges like it had been waiting decades for discovery.The box seemed almost to hum under the soil, as if it knew it would be found. 

It wasn’t a stone. It wasn’t a root. Its shape carried the cold geometry of something human-made. A box, perhaps. Or a recorder, the kind that hides voices too dangerous for paper. 

It pulled at me instantly. Not just because it was forbidden, not even because it was hidden — but because I knew that in this place, every buried thing carried a story, and stories were the only currency left to the broken. I had lived five months among padded walls, blank stares, and silence that gnawed at me. This object — whatever it was — promised noise. Promised a crack in the suffocating quiet. 

I pressed my foot over it, burying the thing as if it had never existed. 

No trace. No witness. Not until I was ready to claim it. 

Minutes crawled by, heavy and airless, until Mrs. Oswall’s voice split the yard — sharp, trained, and cold enough to still movement. She was already marching toward the chaos around Shavi and Irwin, her tone cutting through their bickering like wire. Irwin sulked; Shavi burned. Even her usual composure fractured in small, betraying ways — the twitch at her jaw, the deepening creases by her eyes. 

It was a daily performance — their quarrels, her mediation, our silent audience. They fought like enemies but defended each other like kin when danger came. The rest of us just watched, starving for distraction. In a place where every day felt identical, even conflict became a kind of mercy — a flash of life in the long, suffocating stillness. 

When Mrs. Oswall’s tone shifted — calm, deliberate, the way it does before punishment — the air seemed to fold in on itself. Silence followed, instant and practiced. 

I crouched again, fingers sinking into the soil as I settled the sapling’s roots. The dirt was cool, damp — steady in a way I no longer was. As she passed, her shadow brushed over me. Her gaze lingered, sharp enough to draw blood, but only for a breath. Then she turned away. 

I exhaled slowly, the sound swallowed by the wind and the quiet hum of obedience. 

There was no chance of slipping the object into my clothes now. Too many eyes, too many cameras, too many guards cataloguing every twitch of our bodies. If I tried, the secret would turn to ashes in my hands. Better to let it sleep one more night. Tomorrow, during the routine of watering, when hands were expected to dig, I would be ready. 

I dusted off my palms, stood, and retreated to the corner. From there, I watched. Twenty or thirty patients bent over the ground, digging, planting, sweating. Absurd, yes — but also strangely human. Even we, the discarded, found something in the act of touching the earth.

We weren’t tending to trees so much as to ourselves, clinging to scraps of ritual the sane world had long since denied us. Broken minds, crooked hearts, yet more alive in this dirt than in the sterile halls they locked us in. 

“Mind what you’re doing, Shavi. We’re planting life here, not digging graves,” Mrs. Oswall said, her tone sharp enough to sting. 

Her passion for the greenery was unmatched — laughable, almost romantic. Shavi raised her brows in defiance but dropped the shovel with a huff, storming off. Irwin trailed behind, arms folded, scowl etched deep. 

Kade, the guard assigned to our group, began his checks, ensuring no one carried anything sharp inside. Smuggling that recorder out would be nearly impossible under constant surveillance. Nearly. But I knew the blind spots. I knew the guards’ routines, the nurses’ paths, the gaps in the cameras. My time here has taught me well. 

I just needed the right silence — the kind that comes when everyone believes the day is done. ______________________________ 

I retreated to my sanctuary, the room I knew as well as my own mind. Outside lay the dark sprawl of trees, scattered thin. Some said the forest had once been dense, destroyed by some nameless catastrophe no one could truly explain. 

I sat hunched on my bed, staring through the barred window at the stars. Once, they thrilled me — a glittering canvas where I could lose myself. Now they were only distant fires, unable to stir even a flicker of awe. 

I turned from them to the walls — cushioned white, soft as mockery. A bed, a cupboard, a table, a chair. Reinforced windows. Secured locks. Every surface is designed to contain the broken. Even if we came here willingly, or were forced, or simply thrown in, there would be no escape. Not alive. Not whole. We could not die unless they permitted it; we could not live unless we learned to fight the darkness inside. The only war left was with ourselves. 

A howl echoed from the forest. Insects clicked against the stillness. I thought of all the hours I’d spent tracing corridors, mapping blind spots, memorizing guard rotations. Every secret catalogued. Every escape is measured. 

I heard the beep before the knob turned. A nurse entered quietly, tray in hand. She looked worn — baggy eyes, posture bent by exhaustion. Without a word, she placed the tray on the table, handed me the pills, and watched me swallow. Routine. Then she left, not sparing me another glance. 

I lay back, limbs heavy as the medication seeped in. My body slackened, the day’s aches dissolving. Outside, the wind curled against the reinforced window. 

And then, as sleep claimed me, I heard it: the whisper of the night. Warning me to leave things buried. To forget what I’d unearthed. 

I smiled faintly. I had never listened before.

CHAPTER 02 

 Amaya 

The cafeteria reeked of stale porridge and cheap bread. I kept my head down, spooning tasteless mush, when chaos erupted. 

The crash came suddenly — Emily’s tray clattered against Ritwik, oatmeal splattering across his face. For a moment, the cafeteria froze. Then Ritwik barked something crude, the kind of word that carries more venom than sound, and one of his friends lunged up from his chair, all fists and temper. 

Chairs scraped. Voices rose. The air shifted — sharp, heavy, alive. 

The guards closed in fast, their movements practiced, almost mechanical. In seconds, bodies were pulled apart, shouts pressed into silence. 

Mrs. Oswall arrived a moment later, her face as unmoved as ever. She didn’t raise her voice; she didn’t need to. Trouble here was just part of the morning routine. Emily and Ritwik were marched out for time in isolation, their friends laughing like it was all part of the entertainment. 

I kept eating. Around here, peace never lasted — it only waited its turn. 

I finished eating and got up from my place, the scene dissolving into the usual routine. 

Surprisingly, Shavi and Irwin hadn’t been part of the chaos this time. My curiosity was satisfied when I walked past them, plate in hand, just in time to hear their argument. 

Shavi jabbed a finger toward Irwin’s tray. “Give me that last piece of bread.” 

Irwin clutched it to his chest like treasure. “Not a chance. You already stole my apple yesterday.” Their bickering crackled in the air like static — endless, exhausting, almost comforting in its predictability. I set my plate in the basin and returned to my seat, waiting for the nurses to begin their rounds. 

The window behind me framed the forest, stretching far beyond the iron fence.Mist pooled between the trees, softening their edges, and at the center of it all lay the lake — dark, glassy, utterly still. A waterfall spilled into it from the cliffs above, white and distant, the only thing that seemed to move in that entire frozen world. 

From here, it looked peaceful. Serene, even. But the longer I stared, the more it felt alive — like the forest breathed with a slow, deliberate rhythm, and the lake was its waiting mouth. A perfect place to disappear. 

A smile tugged at my lips. 

“That’s an odd smile, Amaya. What are you thinking about this time?” 

Maya, the head nurse, wheeled her trolley to my side. Her eyes — kind, but shadowed with exhaustion — studied me as two pills clicked softly into her palm. 

I didn’t answer. I never did. I bowed my head, opened my mouth, and swallowed the medicine.

She sighed. “You’re not mute, Ama. Keep this up and one day you’ll forget how to speak at all.” I almost laughed. As if words mattered here. Silence was safer. 

Once she was satisfied the pills had gone down, she moved on. I sat back, the bitterness dissolving on my tongue, and planned what to do with the empty hours ahead. 

_______________________________ 

Later, in my room, I pulled out the diary — the last gift given to me before I even arrived here. Its blank pages stared back, expectant, like an accusation. A pencil rested in the spine, its tip dulled from use, waiting. I considered writing a coded plan for retrieving the object buried in the yard. 

But writing left evidence. And in this place, evidence meant death. 

No. Instinct had brought me this far. Instinct would get me through. 

I slipped the pencil back into the diary, locked the drawer, and stood. Morning air privileges meant the guards would herd us toward the backyard soon. 

Slipping the key from the drawer, I crossed to the door. With a soft click, I locked the room behind me and stepped into the hall. 

A faint smudge of graphite lingered on my hand, as if the pencil had thought for me — and hadn’t quite let go. 

My pulse quickened. Today was the day. 

Ahead of me, Shavi stumbled out of her room, laughing with a girl I didn’t recognize. Their giggles echoed through the corridor — sharp, too loud for morning. 

“I’m serious,” Shavi said, grabbing the girl’s arm. “I saw her last night. Right by the west corridor — hair down, face pale, just standing there.” 

The girl’s laughter faltered. “You mean the one everyone keeps talking about?” 

Shavi nodded, lowering her voice but not enough. “Yeah. The ghost. Same gown as ours. The nurses say it’s just a patient who left a year ago, but I swear she looked right at me.” 

The girl shuddered. “My roommate said she heard footsteps outside our door around three. No guards, no one in the hall.” 

“Oh please,” Shavi huffed, half nervous, half thrilled. “You can keep telling yourself that when she shows up at your bed.” 

They burst into uneasy laughter — that high-pitched kind that masks fear. 

I regretted taking the elevator with them. The space was cramped, air thick with their perfume and panic. Their words clung to the metal walls, bouncing until it felt like the elevator itself was listening. Ghosts.

How original. The only ones here were the ones we carried — the ones that lived behind our ribs and whispered when the lights went out. 

The elevator chimed. The doors slid open. Guards flanked the hall, one posted by the exit leading to the yard. 

I stepped outside into crisp morning air. 

The garden looked still, but nothing about it felt calm. The air was heavy with the scent of damp soil and metal, the kind that lingered in your throat. Flowers leaned against the fence, their petals bruised and curling inward, while vines crawled through the rusted bars as if trying to escape. Even the wind seemed careful here — slipping between leaves instead of touching them. 

The hose was coiled near the far left wall, where the building’s shadow stretched long across the yard. I walked over, keeping my pace steady, casual. The tap stuck out from the brick, rust clinging to its edges, and the rubber hose twisted beneath it like a sleeping snake. When I bent to turn the handle, the metal groaned — loud enough to make my stomach tighten. 

Water surged through with a sputter, splashing against my shoes before evening out into a thin, steady stream. I gripped the hose and began walking back toward my sapling — one of the many lined along the fence, where the soil was softer and the air smelled faintly of moss. 

Every step felt rehearsed. 

Just another morning. Just another task. 

I knelt by the sapling, letting the water flow over the roots. The soil darkened slowly, the scent of wet earth rising thick around me. My heartbeat matched the rhythm of the falling water. 

I glanced around — two guards by the gate, the nurses gathering near the shed, a group of girls laughing near the path. None of them look this way. 

Now. 

I turned the hose aside, pressing the nozzle into the dirt so the spray muffled the sound of my digging. My fingers trembled as I brushed away the soil, cool and damp against my skin. A breath caught in my throat when my nails scraped something solid. 

There. 

I loosened the edges carefully, pulse hammering so hard it hurt. The thing was still there — small, rectangular, its metal chilled even through the dirt. For a heartbeat, I just stared at it, the way one might look at something sacred or cursed. 

I swallowed hard, checked again over my shoulder. The guards hadn’t moved. The girls were still talking. 

I slipped the recorder out and wiped it against my sleeve. The weight of it felt unnatural — heavier than it should have been. My hands shook as I lowered it into my pocket, pressing it flat against my thigh. 

Footsteps. Laughter. 

I froze, hose still in hand, heart thudding. Two girls passed behind me, their shadows sliding over the soil. 

Keep moving, I told myself. Just water the plant. 

They walked on, their chatter drifting away, and I exhaled the breath I didn’t know I was holding. The hose hissed softly beside me, the sound almost like a sigh.

The guard by the door was now staring. His gaze slid toward me and stayed— rooted, assessing. Suspicion flickered, sudden and sharp. 

I stayed still. 

I’d learned that here — to give them nothing until their interest passed. 

The door banged open. A new male nurse stepped out, blinking in confusion. “Excuse me, where’s the staff office?” he asked. 

The guard’s attention snapped toward him. 

I shut off the hose, rinsed the soil from my hands, and forced an easy pace toward the building. My fingers pressed around the recorder hidden in my pocket — steady, casual, innocent. 

The walk back felt endless. Each step sank into the silence, measured and soft, the gravel crunching too loud in my ears. I could feel the guard’s presence even as he turned toward the nurse — that weight of suspicion that lingered in the air, waiting for a reason to return. I kept my movements smooth, unhurried, the way prey pretends it isn’t being watched. 

When I reached the door, their voices brushed past me — low, distracted, safely distant. Only then did I let my breath out and slip inside. 

In the elevator, I kept my hands tucked inside my pockets, spine straight, face blank for the cameras. I wanted to laugh, or scream, or crumble right there between the polished walls — but I didn’t. I just counted the floors. 

One. Two. Three. 

The doors opened with a soft chime. The hallway was empty. Only three more rooms and I’d be safe. Then — footsteps. 

The same guard turned the corner, boots heavy, gaze locked. 

“Do you not have any sessions today?” His voice was flat, but his eyes searched mine like he already knew the answer. 

I shook my head slowly, deliberately. 

A pause. The kind that stretches thin enough to break. Then he nodded once and moved on. 

I exhaled, the key trembling in my hands as I unlocked the door and slipped inside. The latch clicked behind me. Silence. 

And then — laughter. Cracked. Breathless. Half hysteria, half relief. 

I had it. 

The secret was mine.

CHAPTER 03 

 Amaya 

The recorder rested in my hand like a forbidden relic, its cheap plastic surface catching the dim light. I was just about to press play when the door creaked. 

I froze. The air thickened. 

Then I shoved the recorder beneath my duvet just as the latch clicked. 

A guard stepped inside — tall, broad, his shadow swallowing the small room. 

“Evening stroll,” he said, voice clipped. “Mrs. Oswall’s orders.” 

I didn’t move. His gaze slid toward me, steady, assessing. 

I met it without flinching. 

For a heartbeat, nothing existed but the space between us — still, sharp, humming with the quiet pulse of challenge. His expression faltered first. My calmness unsettled him; it always did. There was something about my stillness — the way I looked at them without blinking — that made people uneasy, as if I could see something they couldn’t. 

He cleared his throat, pretending composure. “You heard me.” 

I tilted my head slightly. Blank. Obedient. But my eyes never left his. 

A muscle jumped in his jaw. He took a step back, muttering something about “strange ones,” and left. The door shut with more force than needed. 

Only then did I breathe again. 

I slid the recorder into the small hollow I’d carved in the padded wall beside my bed — my secret place, safe for now. 

With a slow exhale, I stood. My limbs moved with measured grace, neither hurried nor hesitant. The guard was still outside, talking to the new male nurse. As I walked past them toward the elevator, I felt his stare follow me — wary, almost afraid. 

Steady. Casual. Innocent. 

The corridor stretched ahead, sterile and bright, but my heart thrummed in the shadows between each step. 

__________________________ 

Today, the wind felt darker — heavier, as if it carried the asylum’s most poisonous secrets, waiting for someone foolish enough to breathe them in. 

The sky bruised with purple and rose, the kind of evening that pretends to be gentle while hiding its teeth. Birds cut through the air, free and cruel, mocking the walls that held us.

We were gathered on the left side of the building for our mandatory “hour of fresh air,” though nothing about it ever felt fresh. The grass was damp, the air sharp, and the world just quiet enough to hear the hum of the electric fence beyond the slope. 

I took a bench near the far corner — my corner — close enough to see the lake glinting between the trees. From here, the slope fell gently toward the water, the fence slicing the land before it dropped into the forest below. A tree leaned near the bench, its shadow draping over me like a curtain. 

The others scattered: some pacing, some muttering to ghosts, others staring at nothing. Their laughter was hollow, their silence rehearsed. Every sound, every breath, every twitch of life here felt like a lie. 

And still, my own silence weighed the most. It pressed in my chest like something alive. 

Then it came — a sound so raw it didn’t belong to this world. 

A scream. 

It cleaved the air. 

I turned toward the far wall. A boy stood there, rigid, eyes locked on the slope beyond the fence. His body trembled as though something inside him had come undone. 

I followed his gaze. 

Above the lake, a vulture dove through the pale dusk, talons hooked around a smaller bird. It twisted and flailed, wings snapping like paper in a storm. Then, in a single violent motion, both bodies vanished into the roaring water below. 

The boy’s scream broke again — wild, human, desperate. 

He clawed at the air, at his own skin, as if he could rip the vision from his eyes. The sound of it rolled through the courtyard, echoing off the walls until even the birds stilled. 

Guards moved in, boots pounding. A circle formed — patients gawking, whispering, flinching away. 

But I didn’t move. 

I just watched. 

Because I knew that feeling — that descent. The helplessness that turns awe into terror. He was drowning in it. 

Living it. 

And some part of me, buried deep beneath the calm, recognized him. 

Understood him. 

Approved. 

A faint smile pulled at my lips. Barely there — more instinct than expression. 

He noticed. 

Through the tears and spasms, his gaze found mine. The pity surrounding him didn’t reach that far — only my smile did. And it wasn’t kindness he saw in it. It was a quiet acknowledgment, a mirror held up to his fear. 

His trembling grew worse. The guards lifted him, dragging him away as his sobs turned to gasps. His eyes stayed on me until the last possible second. And I knew — he would remember. 

That smile would follow him long after the scream stopped echoing.

The wind died down after they carried him off. The courtyard went still again, pretending nothing had happened. The others returned to their quiet rituals — pacing, murmuring, staring at their ghosts — as if erasing the scene could make it unreal. 

I remained seated until the bell rang, calling us back inside. The sky had turned a dull grey by then, the color of fading breath. 

When I stood, the bench’s metal was cold beneath my fingertips. The slope stretched before me, empty now — only the grass swaying where he had collapsed. The lake shimmered faintly below, its surface rippling like something alive and waiting. 

I watched it for one last moment. 

Then I turned and followed the others through the gate, back into the walls that hummed with order. 

Inside, the corridors smelled of antiseptic and sleep. Footsteps echoed; doors hissed shut. The noise of the asylum folded neatly back into routine, like the scream had been filed away with the rest of our sins. 

In my room, I sank onto the bed and pressed my palms to my face. The recorder was still hidden in the wall. Its silence called to me. 

Outside, somewhere beyond the fence, the lake stirred again — and I thought I could hear the faint echo of wings. 

__________________________ 

The clock on the wall ticked with mechanical precision — a cheap, plastic sound, steady and unfeeling. Twenty-five seconds between the footsteps of the midnight patrol. I had counted it before. Now, the corridor was silent. 

Only the clock remained, its rhythm marking time no one cared to keep. 

I lay still beneath the thin blanket, eyes tracing the shadows that moved across the ceiling like slow breaths. The night was too quiet — the kind that amplifies every thought until it becomes unbearable. 

In my palm rested the recorder. 

Small. Scuffed. Lighter than it should have been for what it carried. The faint scratches on its surface caught the light — imperfections that no amount of cleaning could erase. It was a flimsy object, yet somehow heavier than the walls surrounding me. 

I turned it over once. The buttons stared back like a foreign language made of symbols everyone already understood: play, stop, record. 

Part of me knew that pressing one of them might change everything — and still, my thumb hovered over the play button. 

I pressed it. 

The recorder answered with a weary whir, coughing against the quiet. 

At first, only static — the soft hiss of a world left behind. 

Then, like something waking from sleep: rustling wind. 

Water trickling somewhere distant. 

Birds. A faint intake of breath. 

And then — a voice.

A woman’s voice. Low. Controlled. A measured contralto that carried an edge of precision rather than sorrow. 

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” she began, calm but not cold. “Just like a scene from some psychological drama — the perfect mind gone wrong, staring through the barred window, pretending not to see the pitying eyes watching her back. 

Her tone was clipped, detached, but it had a rhythm — deliberate, practiced. 

I shifted slightly, the thin mattress sighing beneath me. There was no hysteria in her voice — just the stillness of someone who’s long since stopped trying to be understood. 

“They pretend to help,” she continued. “But all they want is proof that their world still makes sense. We’re the mirror they keep covered when it doesn’t.” 

A pause. The faint rustle of fabric. 

“The only thing I like here,” she said, her voice lower now, “is the sound outside my window. The trees, the rain… the things they can’t cage. People here flinch when they look at me. As if one glance might infect them. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am the thing they fear — but they made me that way.” 

A soft laugh — dry, brief, like she surprised herself with it. 

Then quiet again. 

“They call it an asylum,” she said after a pause. “It isn’t. It’s a black hole. You enter, and you don’t leave — not truly. They sent me here to ‘fix’ me, to put the mirror back together. But mirrors lie. They pretend the edges fit neatly.” 

Her tone sharpened — conviction replacing calm. 

“They said they’d fix me. Make me whole again. But the truth is, I don’t want to be whole. The broken edges are what keep me alive. They remind me where I end and the world begins.” 

I felt my throat tighten. Something about her words fit too neatly inside my own mind. 

“People think healing means forgetting what hurt,” she went on. “It doesn’t. It means carrying it until it stops feeling like weight.” 

Then her voice dropped — intimate now, as though she’d moved closer to the mic. 

“You’re not meant to stay unbroken,” she whispered. “You’re meant to survive the breaking. To stand still while the world tries to scatter you. That’s the only kind of strength that matters.” 

The tape hissed softly — the sound of breath against metal. 

A second of nothing — then her next words came out quieter, trembling slightly, as though the truth had finally caught up to her. 

“I tried to believe them,” she said, quieter now. “That I could be repaired. That I could forget. But the truth is… some things you can’t wash off. Some things you end. With your own hands.” 

A pause. One inhale. 

“The one I—” Her voice broke. “The one I killed.” 

The word struck like a blow — abrupt, final. 

And then — silence.

A click. 

The tape stopped. 

The room exhaled, reclaiming its stillness. 

I lay there, frozen, the recorder a dead weight in my hand. 

The word echoed through the dark — killed — heavy, final, absolute. 

My pulse pounded against the quiet. 

It wasn’t the act that terrified me. It was the familiarity. 

Because somewhere in that voice — in the calm precision, in the reasoning — I heard myself. And that realization was the first real fear I’d felt in years.

CHAPTER 04 

 Amaya 

The recorder stirred to life, drowning out the muffled voices outside. 

I sat on my bed in the midnight quiet, holding my breath. Waiting. Tonight felt different. The air was heavy—like grief itself had settled in the room and refused to leave. 

“Every day, the wind twists darker,” she began, her voice a fragile hum in the static, “carrying pieces of sorrow that don’t belong to anyone. The madness of others seeps through these walls. It clings to you, you know… until you can’t tell whose voice is whose anymore.” 

A sharp breath cracked through the tape, followed by a cough—dry, small, but so human it made my chest tighten. 

“You know…” she continued, detached yet eerily self-aware, “I always knew something was wrong with me. Not broken—no, not that. Just… different. Like I was built with sharper edges. Too sharp for their world.” 

Her words trembled but never lost control. They cut and curved, deliberate. 

“Fake sympathy. Perfect smiles. That’s what they saw in me. I let them. It’s funny how easy it is to be adored when you give people exactly what they want to see.” She laughed then—soft at first, then growing higher, splintering into static. “They thought I was radiant. I suppose I was.” 

The laugh faded, leaving only the sound of her breath, measured and light, as though she was admiring herself in the mirror of her own voice. 

“It changed when I met him. My love… Inder.” 

The name lingered in the air, too tender, too carefully spoken. 

“I thought I’d found what I was searching for—love, pain, chaos, the divine pulse of being alive.But I never really understood love, not the way others do. I only learned its shape by watching it—studying how people touched, how they broke for each other. I mirrored it, perfectly. That’s what I do.” 

She gave a small laugh, brittle and wistful. 

“He gave me all of it, and more. ” Her voice softened, curling around the word love like a prayer. “He made me feel seen.” 

Then came the turn—sudden, deliberate. “But no.” 

“I thought he understood me. I thought I wasn’t sick. That’s what they said, you know—sick. But I wasn’t. I was fine. Perfectly fine. I had a family. I played my part. I smiled. I wept. I blended. Everything was fine.” 

But family never tells you you’re broken. I had one once. Maybe I still do. They made me feel seen. Heard. Loved.

Grandma’s voice in my head: 

“People don’t want love, Aamaya. They just want to be seen — seen for what they are, flaws and all — and appreciated for carrying it anyway.” 

Yes, I thought. How painfully true that was. 

But they’re gone. 

No longer here. 

No longer love me. 

Nothing is fine. 

I pressed my palms to my skull. Stop. Not now. Not true. Lies. 

A sudden laugh sliced through the tape—sharp, sudden, like glass shattering on the floor. 

“He was our neighbour… lived with his son. Wife dead. Poor man.” She sighed, long and theatrical, as if pity itself bored her. “He was hollow when I met him. But I filled him, you see? I gave him meaning.” 

Her tone shifted—velvet and venom all at once. “I built him from the dust. I gave him reason to breathe again. His son—he hated me for it, of course. Children always sense when love is being rearranged.” 

I turned her out for a moment. There was something frightening about the way she spoke—not self-love exactly, but worship. She sounded like someone who mistook control for compassion. 

The tape hissed softly before her voice slithered back in. 

“He betrayed me,” she whispered, her tone slipping from calm to cold. “He betrayed the story I built for us… so I rewrote the ending.” 

The air in my room grew still. 

“I remember the quiet before it happened,” she said, the words almost reverent. “It was perfect. Still. The kind of stillness that only comes before something irreversible.” 

Her breathing deepened. I could hear it—the rhythm of someone remembering. 

“I didn’t plan it, you know,” she added, softer, almost tender. “It just happened. Like instinct. Like the truth.” 

A pause. The faint rustle of fabric. The sound of a throat being cleared. 

“Funny thing about love,” she murmured, “it makes you think you’re two halves of the same soul. But when one half starts to rot, what are you supposed to do? Let it spread?” 

Silence. Then the faintest sound of a smirk—the curve of satisfaction hidden in breath. 

“That’s when I knew,” she said finally. “Some people were made to feel. And some of us were made to watch.” 

The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was alive, crawling through my ears, through the very air. 

That was her gift: weaving horror into confession, turning sin into poetry. She didn’t demand your attention; she seduced it. Every word was a knife with a ribbon tied around it. 

And me—fool that I was—drawn to her like a moth to flame. 

Months later, we were happy. 

He proposed. I said yes.

We lived together.” 

Her voice lifted—light, almost girlish. But not innocent. There was sweetness in it, but it rang wrong. Like she’d learned how to sound happy by watching someone else do it. 

“We were going to marry. Then he said it.” 

A dry scoff followed. The bed creaked on the tape. Fabric shifted—a small, human sound that somehow made her less human. 

“He told me I should join his hospital. Inderjit Foundation for Emotional Wellness. Said I was sick. Needed therapy.” 

Inderjit Foundation. This hospital? 

She’s here. She has to be. 

I want to see her. The face behind the voice. The secret buried in this place. 

“I’m not mad,” she said sharply, then steadied herself, softening her tone like someone adjusting a mask. “People love that word. Mad. It excuses things they don’t understand.” 

Her breath crackled faintly through the tape. 

“I know I wasn’t… normal. But he betrayed me. My family never said that. They knew how I was. They accepted it. He should’ve too. He loved me. Didn’t he?” 

The words shrank as they came, thinner, more fragile—like a child testing a wound. 

But doesn’t love want the best for you? 

How could Inderjit’s care be betrayal? 

“We argued,” she said. “He shouted; I listened. People mistake silence for guilt, don’t they?” Her tone—careful. Steady. Too steady. The rhythm of someone who has practiced a version of truth. 

“We were in his study. A bowl of fruit. A knife.” 

She stopped there, letting the silence turn heavy. “Funny, isn’t it? How ordinary things wait around for something extraordinary to happen.” 

No. She wouldn’t. But a part of me already knew she would. 

“His eyes were closed. One hand on his head, the other on the chair. And me…” A faint hum—almost a sigh. “Seething. He should’ve let it go. Ignored it. Like everyone else. We could’ve been happy.” 

A memory slammed into me—too sharp, too vivid. 

A warm living room. 

A white cat leaping across the sofa. 

Someone is chasing it. A girl—my height, my laughter. But her face… blurred. 

“I had the knife in seconds,” Sairee said, almost curious now. “It didn’t even feel like a choice. Just a sequence of movements my body already knew. I walked slowly. Careful. Don’t wake him. Rage… clean, not chaotic. He deserved it.” 

The girl again. 

On the rug. 

Cradling the cat. Laughing softly. Still faceless. 

“I stood behind him,” Sairee whispered. “My hand on his shoulder. He relaxed. People always do before it happens. They trust you right until the end.”

A pause stretched. The static on the tape pulsed like a heartbeat. 

“I raised the knife.” 

No. Please. No. 

Pain burst behind my eyes. My skull throbbed like it was splitting open. I clawed at my hair, my skin, anything to anchor myself—to separate her voice from mine. 

The girl again. 

The cat in her arms, breathing softly, trusting. A sound—half purr, half question. Then she froze. Her hand hung empty for a heartbeat. Then the light shifted—metal gleamed. 

She struck. 

Blood. 

White fur turning red. 

Tiny paws flailing, clawing at air. 

A soundless scream. 

Another stab. 

And another. 

Sairee’s voice returned, unhurried, almost tender. 

“I drove it down. Straight through his neck. The sound… was smaller than I thought it would be. Warmth everywhere. On my hands. My face. It didn’t feel wrong.He loved me, I think. Maybe he did. But love doesn’t last when you try to fix what isn’t broken.” 

Her laugh was thin, metallic. “I told him that. I told him he shouldn’t have said those words. I wasn’t sick. I was aware. I was more aware than anyone.” 

The tape crackled, the sound of her breathing low and steady — the kind that comes after a storm, not before it. 

“He didn’t scream,” she said softly. “Not right away. He just stared at me. Like he couldn’t believe I’d really done it. You should’ve seen his eyes. They were beautiful when they realized. The way the light left them — quiet, peaceful.” 

“I didn’t mean to stop there. I kept going. You think one wound is enough? No. Once you start, you have to finish the story.” 

The static deepened. A wet sound — fabric shifting. A faint chuckle. “He made such a mess of the floor.” 

I could feel her words crawling under my skin. My nails dug into my arms, pressing crescents into flesh. The walls seemed to close, pulse. I could smell it — iron and rot, the ghost of blood. 

The girl again — me again. 

Kneeling. White cat went limp in her arms. Red spreading across the floor like a map she couldn’t stop drawing. 

The recorder hissed — as if the tape itself was suffocating. 

“He stayed quiet,” Sairee continued. “They always talk too much at the end. Begging. Explaining. As if it mattered. But silence—” she exhaled, pleased, “silence is purer.” 

“He said my name before he stopped breathing. I liked that. It sounded… grateful.”

Another silence. You could almost hear her smiling through it. 

“And then I danced,” she whispered. “Knife in hand. Blood on my tongue. Warmth soaking through me. I danced in silence — louder than any music.” 

Her tone carried a strange delight—measured, almost tender, like someone describing a beautiful painting instead of a murder. 

My vision blurred. The edges of the room curled, bending into darkness. Somewhere inside the static, my own heartbeat echoed back. 

Her breath. My breath. 

“I danced until the laughter died. Until my body weakened, drowning in his blood. Still smiling. Still holding the knife.” 

A breath caught on tape, then the first crack in her voice. “That’s when I saw him. Kern.” The name felt like glass hitting tile. 

“Tears in his eyes,” she continued, quieter now. “Brown, like his father. He just… stared. Mouth open. Small sound. And I—” a pause, almost confusion, “I didn’t feel guilt. I felt… interrupted.” 

“I wasn’t mad,” she repeated faintly. “Just awake.” 

Her composure thinned. “My mind split. Noise everywhere. I think I screamed. Then everything went white.” 

I gasped. 

The tape hissed once, then cut to silence. 

I stared at it, trembling. The air thickened, humming like something alive. The world narrowed to a single, unbearable thought. 

She wasn’t just a voice. 

She was a mirror. 

And I didn’t know who pressed play first — her or me. 

Kern. 

The name rattled inside me, too sharp, too familiar. I don’t know him. I shouldn’t. And yet — something in me answered. 

My body folded in on itself. I pressed my back to the wall, shaking. 

The girl appeared again — hands glistening red, smiles stretched and serene. 

No blur. No veil. Just me, staring back. 

The recorder clicked off. 

But her mouth kept moving. 

And for one fractured heartbeat, I swear I heard my name. 

Or maybe I only thought I did.

CHAPTER 05 

Amaya 

The laughter rose and spread across the room like a curtain lifting, revealing a brightness that had always been there, waiting. 

The living room glowed under the soft cascade of ceiling lights — warm petals of gold blooming across the ivory ceiling. Their light kissed the cream walls and reflected off the polished tiles, wrapping everything in a honeyed calm. The air carried the faint scent of lilies from a vase on the table, mixing with the crisp salt of the sea that lingered through the open balcony doors. 

A little girl, no more than five, darted barefoot around the couch, her giggles chasing her own echo. Her soft curls bounced as she ran, weaving through the room’s pale furniture — the beige cushions, the low coffee table gleaming with glass, the splash of color from a striped pillow tossed carelessly on the sofa. 

She darted behind the couch just as her father lunged for her, his laughter joining hers — deep and full, a sound that filled the space like sunlight. 

The house breathed warmth. Even the shadows seemed alive, softened by the glow of the lights overhead. 

A sharp shriek rang out — bright, playful, startled. My eyes snapped toward it. She was caught now, lifted clean off her feet, swept into her father’s arms. Her laughter spilled wild and free as her soft hair brushed against his jaw. She was beautiful — an angel in miniature. Something in me loosened at the sight. 

Her father’s expression was steady, tender, filled with a love I couldn’t begin to measure. He looked… familiar. Like a photograph half-remembered. My thoughts fogged, the edges of memory curling away. I couldn’t recall where I was or what came before — and yet, I felt no panic. My body was still, calm, as if whispering: You belong here. 

“You could’ve hurt yourself, Ama,” her father said gently, circling the couch and lowering himself onto the cream sofa, the child still giggling in his lap. She looked up at him, face lit by the ceiling’s golden halo, her eyes catching the light like liquid amber. 

He shook his head, smiling, resigned — certain she’d do it again, sprinting wild through the room, trailing chaos and laughter like ribbons. Setting her beside him, he reached for the small shoes waiting beside the black coffee table. The reflection of the ceiling light shimmered in its glass surface as he spoke softly, more to himself than to her. 

“If your mama finds out I left her daughter barefoot, she’d scold me to no end,” he muttered, pretending to sigh. “Though she’d never say a word to you. You’re far too precious to her.” 

He pouted in mock despair, wobbling his chin like a man on the verge of tears. 

Ama clapped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks flushed from laughter. “Dada, you jealoooous?!” she squealed, voice high and bubbling like sunlight on water.

I lingered behind them, invisible, caught in the orbit of something so pure it almost hurt to witness. The home felt alive — the quiet hum of the ceiling fan, the faint ticking of a clock, the perfume of fresh lilies. It was a kind of peace I had never known — or maybe had once, long ago, before memory fractured. 

Her father slipped the tiny shoes onto Ama’s feet, careful as if fitting glass slippers. Then he crossed his arms and stood tall, still pretending to sulk. 

“Hehe… don’t wawy, Dada! I wuv you moooore!” Ama stretched her arms toward him, her voice thick with adoration and the clumsy sweetness of youth. 

His face softened instantly. He bent down, scooping her up again, pressing two soft kisses to her hair. She nestled into the crook of his neck, eyes fluttering shut — safe, complete. For a fleeting moment, everything was still. The light, the warmth, the quiet promise of love that filled the room. 

Slowly, he carried her toward the mahogany door framed by gentle beige walls. She babbled into his neck, words tumbling like petals, and he listened — every nonsense syllable received as sacred. 

My feet followed, unthinking. The air shimmered as the door opened. Beyond it stretched a sunset bleeding gold across the street, light glinting off parked cars and the glossy leaves of potted palms. 

Movement caught my eye. An elderly woman approached, her steps slow but sure. The same warmth radiated from her face — that quiet kind of love that expects nothing in return. 

“What are you two planning now?” she asked, voice teasing but kind. 

The father turned, smiling. Ama lit up, waving wildly. “Granmama!!!” 

The woman’s laughter came soft, like silk unraveling. “Are you ready for your walk, my little one?” 

“Yeshhh! Wok, wok, wok!” Ama bounced in her father’s arms, her excitement spilling into the air like a song. 

“Alright,” her father said, crouching down. “You’ll hold Grandma’s hand, right Ama? Pinky promise?” 

“Pinky pwomise, Dadaa!” she chirped, hooking her tiny finger with his before darting into her grandmother’s arms with a peal of laughter. 

“Oh, Ena,” her grandmother whispered, pressing her close. “My sweet little girl.” 

The scene glowed — a perfect portrait of love and belonging. And yet, as I watched, something inside me trembled. I knew this place. I could feel it — every corner, every glint of light on the marble floor. And still, I couldn’t remember being here. 

The knowledge sat heavy on my tongue, half-formed, unreachable. Ama, her father, her grandmother — they were mine somehow, but blurred at the edges, like faces seen through rain. 

“Gwandma, wet’s go now! Wok time!” Ama tugged at her grandmother’s hand, eyes gleaming. Her grandmother laughed softly. “Alright, my little one. Let’s go before the sun runs away.” 

Wrapped in their love, Ama turned once more, her gaze finding her father. He smiled, and she glowed. 

Then, with a wave and a giggle, they stepped out into the fading light — leaving the door ajar, and the golden room behind still humming with their laughter. 

___________________________

Ama and her grandmother headed toward the beach, just a short walk from the house — two, maybe three minutes around the corner. The path was narrow, lined with tufts of wild grass that brushed their legs as they passed. The faint hum of the sea grew louder with each step, blending with Ama’s voice, a bright, unbroken ribbon of chatter that filled the air. 

She clung to her grandmother’s arm, words tumbling out in bursts — stories from school, dreams half-remembered, questions with no pause between them. Her grandmother smiled, listening patiently, nodding whenever Ama looked up for reassurance, her eyes gleaming with fond amusement. 

When they reached the edge of the beach, the golden light of the house faded behind them, replaced by the open blue stretching endlessly ahead. Ama wriggled in her grandmother’s arms, eager to be let down. The moment her feet touched the sand, she bolted — laughter spilling from her like a song too full for her small frame. 

“Ena, careful!” her grandmother called after her, shielding her eyes from the glare. But Ama was already racing toward the tide, chasing gulls that scattered with startled cries. 

Her grandmother sighed — a sound threaded with worry and affection — and followed, her sandals sinking softly into the wet sand. 

The two of them wandered the quiet shoreline, hand in hand now. The waves rolled and folded over themselves, steady and patient, like breathing. Ama crouched to build castles that the tide always claimed, laughing each time as if it were a new discovery. 

The beach was nearly empty — just a few distant figures strolling lazily, their voices muffled by the wind. 

I watched from behind, unseen. The air shimmered faintly, as though time had loosened its grip here. I felt myself dissolve into the scene — the warmth of the sun, the rhythm of their laughter — and yet I remained apart. A ghost tethered to something I didn’t understand. 

Invisible. Invincible even. But not content. I wanted what they had — that effortless love, that unspoken peace. The way their world seemed to hold them gently. 

I think I had one too. Once. Though the memory is blurred and broken. 

At last, they settled by the shore. The waves lapped close, whispering against the sand. Ama sat curled in her grandmother’s lap, fingers playing absently with the silver ring on her hand. The old woman’s gaze drifted toward the horizon, her expression unreadable — like she saw something beyond the sea itself. 

Everything was calm. Until Ama’s small voice broke it. 

“Gwamma…” she whispered, eyes still on the horizon. “They talkin’ again. Louder this time.” The words slipped out so softly they almost vanished into the wind. 

Her grandmother blinked, her hand pausing mid-stroke through Ama’s hair. “Who, Ena?” she asked, her tone careful, quiet. 

“The… voices.” Ama’s brows furrowed. She pressed her palms to her temples, as though trying to keep something inside. “They talk all da time now. Te’ me do things… bad things. I don’ wike it, Gwamma.” 

Her words quivered, uneven — the innocence of her voice cracking under fear. 

Her grandmother stayed still. Only her grip changed — firmer now, protective, her fingers trembling just slightly as she drew her even closer.

The wind picked up. The calm rhythm of the waves grew restless, their edges sharper. Gulls cried out overhead and the air seemed to darken, the light thinning as if the world itself was listening. 

“It wasn’t wike this before,” Ama continued, her eyes unfocused. “Sometimes they come… but not awways. Now they never go. They don’ stop…” 

She whimpered, pressing her small hands over her ears, sobbing softly into them. 

Her grandma said nothing at first — only wrapped her arms around her, holding her as if to anchor her against an unseen tide. The silence between them was heavy, charged. Even from where I stood, I felt it pressing against my chest. 

She stroked her back in slow, gentle circles, hoping to soothe the tremble in her small body. 

Then, at last, she spoke, voice low but steady — the kind that had soothed generations. “The voices come and go, my love,” she murmured. “But when they rise, listen close. You’ll still hear the sea breathing, the gulls calling, my voice calling you home.” 

Ama looked up, tears streaking her cheeks, confusion flickering in her gaze. 

Her grandmother’s expression softened. She brushed the wet curls from her face and smiled faintly. “The voices will never leave, Ena. But you don’t have to listen. Let them speak, let them scream — but don’t give them your hands.” 

She paused, her voice now a whisper that felt eternal. “Your hands are yours, my love. Only yours.” 

Ama didn’t understand. Not yet. But something in her quieted. Her small body relaxed, her breathing softened. She buried her face into her grandmother’s shawl, eyes closing as the older woman began to hum — a lullaby lost to time. 

The world seemed to still. Even the waves lowered their voices. 

And yet, her words lingered — not just in Ama, but in me. They sank deep, echoing through me like a bell beneath the sea. 

Your hands are yours. 

The air thickened. A sudden gust tore through, sharp and cold. The sky darkened, clouds folding over the sun. The sea began to rise — its rhythm breaking, its calm devoured by a growing roar. 

Ama stirred, whimpering as the wind whipped her hair across her face. Her grandmother clutched her tight, her eyes lifting toward the horizon where the light was dying fast. 

And then — a sound like the world exhaling. The waves surged, wild and luminous, swallowing sand and air alike. 

I tried to move, to scream, but the world tilted — salt, water, sky — everything collapsing inward. 

The sea roared, swallowing the voices, the laughter, the hands, the warmth — until all that remained was silence. 

And I fell.

CHAPTER 06 

Amaya 

My body convulses, twitching and jerking. With a sudden jerk, my eyes fly open. For a moment, I don’t move. The air is thick, the silence louder than it should be. 

I’m lying in bed, drenched in sweat. The duvet I remember pulling up to my chin is now crumpled on the floor like it’s been thrown there. The light seeping through the reinforced windows looks faintly blue, not morning or night — something in between. 

For a few long seconds, I just lie there. Motionless. Watching the shadows shift across the ceiling. 

When my surroundings finally settle into shape, I push myself upright. The motion feels mechanical, like I’m pulling strings attached to someone else’s body. 

I should feel something — fear, maybe. Relief. Confusion. But all I register is a dull ache beneath my ribs. It pulses faintly, as if reminding me that I’m supposed to exist. 

The air in the room feels dense, almost pressurized. It hums faintly, like a storm waiting outside the walls. 

My heart pounds fast, unevenly. My breathing follows, shallow, rhythmic. I wait — for panic, for tears, for something. But nothing comes. Only silence, and the echo of a voice that isn’t mine. 

Your hands are hands… 

It floats through my mind like a whisper from another lifetime — soft, maternal, almost kind. The voice feels old. Familiar. But I can’t place it. 

I try to hold on to it — the warmth of it, the fragments that came before — but they slide away, dissolving into fog. 

Was it a dream? Or something else? A memory? A warning? 

I can’t tell. All I know is that it lingers — that sentence — looping quietly beneath my thoughts like a heartbeat. 

Then it hits me. 

The confession. 

The voice from the recorder. 

The one that shouldn’t exist. 

Her words echo — cold, deliberate — the way she breathed before saying kill. 

I should be horrified. I should feel something tearing inside me. But I don’t. It feels rehearsed. Familiar. Like a memory repeating itself from someone else’s mouth.

Thoughts flicker through me too fast to hold — the recording, the voice, the dream, the word. They blur together, a current I can’t swim against. 

My feet move before I think. I cross the room, dragging across the cool floor until I reach the chair by the table. The motion feels inevitable, like following a script I didn’t write. 

When I sit, the chair creaks softly, the sound sharp in the stillness. 

The diary lies there, closed. Waiting. The worn cover feels warm when I touch it, as if someone had just been holding it. I slide open the drawer, fingers brushing against the familiar pencil — the one worn smooth along the edges from overuse. 

I open the diary to a blank page. The paper stares back at me — white, expectant, almost breathing. My hand moves on its own. 

The pencil drags across the page, steady, sure, like muscle memory. I don’t think — not about what I’m sketching, or why. My mind drifts elsewhere, but my body continues, obedient. 

Lines form. Angles sharpen. I sketch a window — narrow, dark. Shadows crowd the corners, rain streaks bleeding down the pane. Each stroke is deliberate, controlled. Almost clinical. 

And then — a shape forms. A handprint. Small, sharp-edged, pressed against the left side of the glass. The graphite smears slightly where my fingers slip. 

Inside the handprint, faint but clear, rests a single letter. 

T. 

I freeze. 

The letter looks carved, not drawn. The shading too deep, the pressure too heavy — like it wasn’t made by me. 

I tilt my head. The graphite catches the light, shimmering almost wetly. The letter seems to shift when I blink. 

For a moment, I think I see another hand beneath mine — faint, overlapping. Its outline is smaller. Softer. I stare. My pulse stays calm. Too calm. 

The air feels heavier, the silence stretching long enough for my ears to start ringing. I should be afraid. But I’m not. 

I flip through the pages — one after another, pages filled with patterns, half-formed sketches, stray letters scattered like clues. Shapes I don’t remember making. Words I didn’t write. 

The letters align — barely — teasing coherence but never delivering it. Every page hums with something unfinished. 

The T joins the rest. It fits somewhere, though I don’t yet know where. 

I trace the graphite dust along my fingertips, rubbing them together absently. It leaves dark smudges that sink into the lines of my skin. 

Everything feels too real. The smell of wood, the faint scratch of the pencil, the hum of the lights.

And yet, I feel distant. Detached. Like I’m watching all this from just outside myself. Maybe I am. 

Maybe she is. 

The thought doesn’t disturb me — it steadies me. Gives shape to the quiet inside. I close the diary. The sound of the cover shutting is soft, final. 

Another page written. Another story breathing beneath the surface. 

But this one — this one isn’t mine to tell. 

I rise, slow and deliberate, the chair scraping faintly against the floor. 

Let her wake. Let her remember. I’ll keep the rest safe until she does. 

_________________________ 

Morning comes like clockwork. 

I perform daily tasks ritually. Wash. Dress. Check on the small tree I planted outside my window — its leaves trembling faintly against the wind. Eat breakfast. Take the medicine they insist on. 

Every action rehearsed, precise, and efficient. 

And now comes the most dreaded part of the day. 

They call it therapy. I call it sessions. 

Sessions where they sit us in dim rooms and tell us to share our thoughts — the ones that are supposed to stay buried. The ones people hide from their friends, their families, even themselves. 

I never understood why anyone would want to dig those out. 

Still, I go. Sit. Listen. Watch the clock. 

Dr. Kurtis’ office smells of old paper and cold air. Coffee, too — faint, bitter. The walls are a deep shade of brown, heavy with framed degrees that try too hard to mean something. The curtains are always drawn halfway, filtering the light into thin slants that never reach the corners. 

He sits across from me, a desk between us. The distance feels necessary. 

He looks at me too long, like he’s reading something past the surface. I stare back, empty, unblinking. 

He has my file. He knows my history, or at least what they told him. But he doesn’t know me. Not the part that matters. If he ever did, it would complicate things. 

“Good morning, Aamaya,” he says, voice soft, rehearsed. 

I nod once.

He adjusts his glasses, glancing at the clock on the desk — round, ticking quietly, silver frame reflecting both our faces in warped distortion. 

“One hour,” he says. “That’s all.” 

I know. I always know. 

He asks questions I never answer. Give me paper to write if I don’t want to speak. I never touch it. We’ve done this dance before — his voice filling the space, mine filling nothing. 

And every time, I feel it. The subtle drop in temperature when we’re alone. The way his eyes linger, searching, like he can hear thoughts that never reach my lips. 

He calls it progress. I call it intrusion. 

Today, I just sat there, tracing the rim of the clock with one finger. Feeling the cold metal against my skin. Time slipping quietly beneath my touch. 

Dr. Kurtis clears his throat softly, breaking the silence. “You know,” he says, voice low, hesitant, “silence can be healing. I used to think it kept me safe too.” He pauses, eyes on the floor for a second before lifting them to me again. “But sometimes, if you stay in it too long, it starts keeping you prisoner instead.” 

I don’t look up. The clock ticks between us — steady, merciless. The weight of his words settles and dies in the air like dust. 

Half an hour passes in silence. His typing becomes the only sound, rhythmic, methodical. I let my mind drift, slipping between fragments. 

“Amaya,” his voice breaks through the quiet, steady but tired. “I’m doing all the talking. You won’t write, you won’t speak. You sit there like a wall between us. Help me understand—why come here if you’ve already decided to stay silent?” 

I stay still. My fingers hover mid-air above the clock before dropping back to my lap. 

I know his tactics. I’ve memorized them. The patient approach. The feigned empathy. The switch to personal stories. All attempts at extraction. 

Twenty-five minutes left. 

He shifts in his chair, then leans forward slightly. “You know,” he begins softly, “once I was like that too. Lost. Trapped in a place where silence feels safer than truth. Where even breathing feels like confession.” 

I should tune him out. Usually, I do. But something in his tone catches. A fracture. 

“My brother was murdered,” he continues. “I fell into grief so deep I couldn’t see past it. Nobody prepares you for the way it hollows you out — how it replaces your reflection with a ghost.” 

He pauses. His gaze drifts to the side, to something unseen. “I fought for him. Got justice. Did everything I was supposed to. But inside? I was gone. Alive, but barely.” 

His voice cracks slightly. It’s not rehearsed this time. It’s real. 

He looks at me again, and for a moment, I can almost feel the weight of his loss — but only distantly, like watching rain through glass.

“I know, Aamaya,” he says quietly. “How it feels to lose someone who was the center of your world in an instant. And how staying alive after that feels like punishment.” 

He leans closer, elbows on the desk, voice barely above a whisper. “Let me in, just once. I can help you.” The air stills. 

Something flickers inside — not quite pain, not quite memory, just a sudden tightening somewhere deep beneath thought. His words reach places I shouldn’t be able to feel, pressing against walls that were meant to stay closed. 

Images surface anyway — quick, sharp, disjointed. A face half-lit, a cry, the sound of something breaking. A blur of motion, a flash of red, the faintest smell of iron. My mind recognizes them, but I don’t. They belong to someone else — a version of me that shouldn’t exist, sealed away behind thick glass. 

For a breath, the glass strains. 

My head aches — a dull, rhythmic pulse, more pressure than pain. The world narrows to the sound of the clock. Tick. Tick. Tick. 

Each tick pulls me deeper, steadier. The fragments distort, then fade. 

The other part of me moves in — the one that knows what to do when things start to slip. She gathers the noise, folds it neatly, locks it somewhere quiet. I feel her doing it, and I let her. 

The weight eases. The air realigns. 

I open my eyes — I hadn’t realized they’d fallen half-shut — and everything is calm again. My pulse even, my breathing smooth. Nothing remains of what stirred except a faint ringing in my ears, like the silence afterward has texture. 

I sit straighter. Controlled. Whole. 

I feel the pulse in my wrists, faint and steady. I try to move — to stand, to leave — but my body doesn’t respond. 

My eyes flicker to the clock. Its second hand trembles slightly, ticking unevenly. And then — the voice. 

Low. Familiar. Inside my head. 

Move. Now. Don’t let him in. 

It’s calm. Certain. 

My body obeys. 

The tension breaks. I rise, slow but steady, my chair scraping the floor. I don’t look at him as I leave. 

But I feel his gaze follow — sharp, searching, heavier than before. When I reach the door, I know he’s still watching, eyes narrowed slightly, as if trying to grasp something he saw a moment ago. Something subtle. A shift. A flicker in my eyes that wasn’t there when I walked in. 

His expression changes — confusion first, then something else, quieter but sharper, as if a realization is forming just out of reach. His brow furrows; his lips part slightly, like he’s about to speak but thinks better of it.

He looks almost haunted, like he’s glimpsed a shadow he can’t unsee — and is now trying to carve out what it means. 

I don’t turn back. I let the silence answer for me. 

The air seems to follow me out, pressing cold against my back until the door closes. The hallway feels too bright. My steps echo against the tiles — measured, deliberate. He doesn’t know. None of them do. 

I won’t let them. 

A nurse stops me mid-corridor, her hand catching my wrist. The touch is light, but it feels like a spark — too sudden, too warm. I turn my head slowly. 

She blinks, startled. I see the apology forming before she speaks. 

“I— I’m sorry,” she stammers. “I called, but you didn’t hear. I just wanted to tell you… your vocal lesson, it’s starting now. I was gathering everyone on the list.” 

Her words tumble out in one breath, eyes lowered. Her cheeks are flushed, nervous. 

She steps back, uncertain. Her badge catches the light — Nisha. New, like most of them. They never stay long.I watch her for a moment, blank, unreadable. Then exhale quietly. 

She turns, expecting me to follow. I do. 

One step. Then another. 

Each movement is automatic, practiced, perfectly controlled. 

The kind that keeps everything — and everyone — at a safe distance. 

Silence keeps me safe. She taught me that.

CHAPTER 07 

Amaya 

I shouldn’t be here. 

The unpleasant clash of a tambourine shattered the quiet of the small theatre, its metallic ring bouncing off the walls like nervous laughter. 

Six of us sat in a circle at the center of the stage, under the warm haze of dim amber lights. Dust floated in slow spirals above our heads, catching the light like drifting embers. 

The sound came from Ms. Blake — our conductor, our therapist, our appointed shepherd of sanity. She looked perfectly composed, her curly red hair glowing under the light, porcelain skin gleaming faintly. She was radiant, almost too much so for this place. A little too eager, a little too alive. Her beauty would have been disarming anywhere else. Here, it felt like a trick. 

“Good morning, everyone,” she said brightly, giving the tambourine one last shake before setting it on her lap. “I thought we’d start fresh today — a new note, a little rhythm to wake us up. Music heals, doesn’t it?” 

Her grin lingered. It was the kind of smile meant to convince — not comfort. 

No one replied. She was used to that by now. 

“Well,” she went on, undeterred, “let’s begin where we left off. First, a little warm-up.” Her voice rose and fell like a melody rehearsed too many times, soft yet too polished, too controlled. 

The six of us formed a small, uneven circle on the worn stage. The chairs creaked with every shift of weight. Behind Ms. Blake, a single spotlight hummed faintly, the bulb stuttering like it shared our reluctance to stay awake. 

Down below, on the front row of red velvet seats, Nurse Nisha sat quietly with her clipboard — the silent witness to our progress, or lack thereof. 

Each of us wore an electronic strap on our wrist, its dim light pulsing with our heartbeats — name, patient ID, diagnosis. A constant reminder of who we were supposed to be. 

Elena sat to Ms. Blake’s left, her knee bouncing in frantic rhythm with the tambourine’s after-echo. Her blond hair curtained her face, and her fingers fidgeted endlessly. Her green eyes — so vivid they almost glowed — refused to settle on anything for more than a second. 

Dev sat beside her, grounded and unmoving. He had that unnerving stillness of someone who thinks too much and feels too little. His dark hair was tied into a loose ponytail, his expression unreadable. Every few seconds, he would glance at Elena — not out of concern, but calculation. 

Their shoulders brushed occasionally, a quiet collision between restlessness and restraint. 

Anika sat on Ms. Blake’s other side, her posture perfect, her eyes lowered in practiced serenity. She didn’t need to speak to be noticed — she radiated composure, as if she belonged in another world entirely. 

And then there was Victor — loud, unfiltered, forever restless. He had the air of someone who missed his own voice.

Before Ms. Blake could finish her instructions, Victor stood abruptly, muttering something under his breath. His heavy footsteps echoed across the wooden stage as he made his way toward the piano tucked near the back. 

She didn’t stop him. None of us did. It was routine by now — his rebellion, her patience. 

Ms. Blake straightened. “Alright, everyone. Take a deep breath in.” 

She pressed a hand gently to her stomach, her tone patient, motherly. “Support from your diaphragm — not your chest. Feel the air travel down. Let it anchor you.” 

We obeyed, some half-heartedly, others like their lives depended on it. 

Victor’s fingers found the keys, and a soft melody unfurled — hesitant at first, then flowing like something ancient waking from sleep. 

The sound filled the room, wrapping around us like silk and smoke. It soaked into the red seats, the tall curtains, even the cold metal of the light fixtures above. 

The piano breathed where we couldn’t. 

For a moment, I let myself drift. 

The notes touched something buried — a memory, maybe, or the faint echo of peace. The theatre felt suspended in time: the low hum of lights, the whisper of the curtains swaying against the air vents, the faint antiseptic scent bleeding into the fabric. 

“Mmm… mmm…”Anika’s voice joined softly, a delicate vibration that filled the hollow between the notes. “Good,” Ms. Blake said quietly, moving closer. “But relax your jaw, Anika. You’re tense here.” She tapped her own throat lightly. “Music should flow — not fight you.” 

She turned to Dev next, her tone bright again. “And you, Dev, let’s go higher. Don’t push — lift from here.” She gestured upward with her palm, as if coaxing his voice from the air itself. 

I watched. 

Elena’s eyes closed, her foot stilled. Dev’s baritone merged with her trembling hum. For a brief second, they sounded almost human again — not patients, not broken pieces. 

Just people making sounds. 

I didn’t join in. I never do. 

But I felt it — the air vibrating, the slow pulsing of breath and rhythm aligning. Even silence becomes part of the song when it listens closely enough. 

They placed me in vocal therapy after three months of silence. 

Speech therapy failed, so they brought me here — as if sound could rebuild what was already gone. It hasn’t worked. 

Sometimes I hum. That’s enough to keep them believing. Hope is a dangerous thing in this place; it keeps people watching, waiting for a miracle that never comes. 

I give them silence instead. It’s the only truth I can afford. 

My eyes drifted toward the instruments on stage. 

Beside the piano, leaning against the stand, was the black-and-red guitar — my favorite. The lacquer gleamed like a bruise under the amber light, its surface catching faint reflections of red from the seats ahead. 

The strings shimmered faintly, tense and alive, as if waiting for a hand to wake them. It was beautiful — simple, raw.

Unlike the piano, the guitar doesn’t demand perfection. It forgives your mistakes. You touch, and it responds. You don’t need to know the language to make it speak. 

It listens. 

Sometimes I imagine playing it — feeling the vibration against my skin, the whisper of sound that trembles from string to bone. 

It reminds me of the lake behind this building. 

I stood there at dawn, watching the water hold my reflection. The surface is always still until something disturbs it — a bird landing, a leaf falling, or the thought I try hardest to bury. 

I don’t recognize myself anymore. My body has shrunk. My face looks carved, not shaped. My eyes — empty, sunken things. 

I look like a ghost that hasn’t yet realized it’s dead. 

And maybe I am. 

Because every time I hear music, I feel something stir — something that almost remembers what it means to be alive. 

Almost. 

The melody continued, soft and slow, curling like smoke around the stage. 

But as my breath steadied, something else did too — a tightening in my muscles, a prickle crawling up the back of my neck, goosebumps scattering across my arms. 

The air shifted — faint, but unmistakable. 

That old, familiar feeling crept in. 

The feeling of being watched. 

I freeze. 

Eyes open. Body still. Outwardly calm — always calm. That’s the one thing I’ve mastered. 

Where was that calm when it mattered?You were shaking then, remember? 

You can fake calm now. You couldn’t then. 

The voice slices through me. Cold. Familiar. A whisper that feels too close to my ear though no one’s moved. 

I turn slightly. Nisha, seated in the front row, is leaving — her shoes clicking softly against the theatre floor. A man replaces her, standing near the aisle. His posture is easy, almost casual, hands buried in his pockets as if he’s waiting for something to happen. When he looks up, his eyes find mine. 

He smiles. Small. Awkward. Scratches the back of his neck, like a nervous tic. Then he looks away — quick, deliberate. 

I memorize that — the flinch, the discomfort — and file it away like evidence. 

“Oh, Wynn! You’re here,” Ms. Blake calls from the stage, voice bright and melodic. “Join us — see what we’re working on. I could use an extra pair of hands.” 

Wynn. So that’s his name. 

He climbs the side stairs, light-footed, all smiles and sunshine. Everyone seems to like him. My gut doesn’t. 

“Wynn, would you mind bringing out that table from backstage—the one under the clock? Thank you, dear.”Ms. Blake asks in that gentle, coaxing tone she uses to disguise command as kindness.

He nods — cheerful, obliging. A people-pleaser. 

The kind who bends until they snap. 

She turns back to us. “Alright, everyone. Sit straight. Relax. Deep breath in. As you exhale, let the sound ‘Om’ carry through. Don’t force it — just let it happen.” 

Around me, voices ripple like warm air — soft, vibrating, imperfect. 

I only follow the breathing, not the sound. 

Silence is safer; it doesn’t betray. 

“Amaya,” Ms. Blake says, tone honey-soft. “Try a little more. Don’t strain. Let it flow.” Her voice lands somewhere between a lullaby and an order. 

Something in me twitches at the familiarity of it. I nod, pretending to comply. 

A sharp squeak cuts the air — the scrape of wood against the stage. Wynn reappears, dragging the old table from behind the curtain. The noise makes Elena wince, hands flying to her ears. Ms. Blake stands to help him, and like dominoes, everyone else rises — obedient reflex. 

I stay seated, still and separate, watching them move like parts of a slow-turning wheel. Elena chews her nail until it bleeds. Dev stretches his neck, cracking it once. 

The sound echoes louder than it should. 

When the stage quiets again, my eyes drift toward the table. 

Something about it feels wrong. 

I’ve seen that table before — three drawers, thick oak legs, scratches carved by years of use. It used to hold tuning forks, old sheet music, and broken reeds. But now, on top of it, lies something new. 

A recorder. 

My chest tightens. It looks identical to the one in my room — same beige body, same chipped mouthpiece, same faint mark near the middle, as if someone once pressed it too hard. 

My pulse jumps once, twice. 

Play. 

The whisper slides through my mind like smoke seeping under a door. 

I swallow it down. Ignore it. 

But curiosity burns hot — hotter than fear. 

Ms. Blake is speaking again, cheerful, oblivious. She pulls a small xylophone from the top drawer, its metal bars glinting under the stage light. “Alright, let’s add something light to today’s rhythm!” 

The others gather around her, drawn to the bright chime she coaxes from it. 

While their attention shifts, I rise. Slowly. 

My movements are careful, measured — a ghost rehearsing life. 

The wooden boards sigh under my feet as I approach the table. The air grows heavier, thicker, as if the space itself resists my presence. 

I reached out. My fingertips graze the recorder — cool plastic, too familiar. 

Then, before I can lift it, a hand closes over mine. 

I jerk back. 

Brown eyes. 

Wynn.

He freezes, guilt flashing across his face. Then, awkwardly, he laughs. “Sorry — I just wanted to check if it worked.” His voice is too light, the kind that cracks under real pressure. 

“ Uh-You can… take it.” 

I say nothing. 

The words wouldn’t fit anyway. 

My focus stays on the recorder. Same make. Same scratches. 

Only this one is clean. 

I picked it up. Turn it in my hands. 

Its weight anchors me, familiar and foreign all at once. 

Something inside me clicks — a mechanical pull stronger than logic. 

My thumb presses play. 

Static. 

Then a faint hum — low, wavering, human. 

Her hum. 

It slips into the room, soft at first, almost tender. Then it grows — steady, haunting, impossible to ignore. That tone — I’d know it anywhere. 

The others stop, confusion flickering across their faces. Ms. Blake turns, brows knitting. But I’m no longer there. 

The sound folds time around me, dragging me backward. 

The theatre dissolves into shadow and memory. The floor under my feet turns to soil. The smell of antiseptic becomes damp earth. 

Her voice hums again, then laughs — the same disjointed, airy laugh that once echoed between breaths and screams. 

The same laugh that came after the confession. 

After the blood. 

My lungs seize. 

The recorder slips from my hands and hits the floor with a hollow crack. 

Her laughter keeps playing — looping, louder now, filling every inch of air. 

I can’t move. 

My skin vibrates with it, every nerve a wire. 

Hands fly to my ears — pointless. The sound isn’t outside me anymore. It’s inside, clawing against bone, reverberating through my ribs. 

For a moment, it’s like watching from somewhere else — above, beside, outside. My body convulses, flinches, moves without permission. 

It’s absurd, really. That someone’s voice — just a sound, a memory — could take me apart this easily. How weak this body is. 

How fragile compared to the thing inside it that refuses to break. 

The world tilts. 

My knees buckle. 

The stage rushes up to meet me, hard and unforgiving.

My body curled inward — small, trembling, trying to vanish into the floorboards. 

Voices blur around me, muffled by panic. 

Someone calls my name. 

Elena’s sharp, trembling cry cuts through first. 

Victor swears — loud, frightened. 

Wynn’s voice cracks. 

Ms. Blake’s tone rises, firm but breaking at the edges. 

Their shapes blur — red seats, amber light, faces moving too fast. The laughter still plays. Still loops. Still fills everything. 

And just before the dark folds over me — 

right before the theatre dissolves completely — 

a whisper brushes my ear, close enough to feel the breath of it. Still listening? 

The words linger, almost tender. 

And then — silence.

CHAPTER 08 

Amaya 

The first thing I felt was softness. 

Not comfort — just the absence of anything hard enough to hold onto. 

The room was white. The one I have been living in. 

White walls. White floor. White ceiling. The same stitched padding everywhere, swallowing sound and shape until even my breathing felt stolen from me. Every inch of it gleamed faintly in the dim light that seeped through the latticed window — a mesh of steel pressed tight against the glass, dividing the weak moonlight into little squares across the wall. 

The air was cold. Too clean, too sharp, carrying the faint chemical tang of disinfectant that clung to the back of my throat. Somewhere outside, the wind whistled through narrow gaps in the frame, and the padded room seemed to inhale with it — quiet, restrained, alive. 

I lay still, the duvet heavy across my chest. Its warmth was deceptive. For a few seconds, I sank into it, eyes tracing the faint lines of stitching on the wall — neat, endless, perfect. There was nothing to focus on, and somehow that was the worst part. 

Then the chill reached my skin again, sliding down my arms, threading through the fabric of my clothes. I turned my head slightly toward the window. The light from it was faint, almost reluctant, but enough to draw shapes in the dark — the blurred outlines of trees beyond the fence, shivering in the night wind. 

The calm came first. 

Unnatural. Weightless. The kind of calm that settles not from peace, but from something inside you having already broken. 

Then, like light refracting through fog, memory began to surface. 

At first, it came in fragments — soft, harmless things. 

The piano.The rows of chairs. 

The smell of varnish and warm dust. 

Then the hum. 

A single note. Barely there. Threaded through the air like silk. 

I remembered how my fingers had tightened around the recorder, how its cold weight steadied me for a heartbeat.Then the sound grew — clearer, fuller — and I knew. 

Her hum. 

That recognition had spread fast, a pulse under my skin. 

I could see their faces turning, confusion sliding into concern, but I was already slipping away. The room had folded in on itself.The air had thickened, heavy with something I couldn’t name. 

Then the laugh. 

Faint at first. Then rising — light, delighted, wrong. 

It had split the air open, and suddenly everything else—the stage, the light, even gravity—felt false. I remembered the recorder falling, the clatter echoing louder than it should have.

The laughter looped. Filling me. Consuming. 

Hands reaching for me. Voices calling. 

My body curled in on itself, smaller, smaller, as if I could escape the sound by becoming nothing. 

And that whisper. 

So close I could feel the warmth of it against my ear. 

Still listening? 

Then — blankness. 

The rest was white noise. 

A rush of movement, the taste of metal, the weightlessness before the world went black. 

And now here I am again. 

Breathing. Awake. 

Wrapped in soft walls that didn’t echo back. 

And as always, my mind began to move. Slowly. Strategizing. 

What unsettled me wasn’t the silence — it was the serenity that followed. A serenity too still, too rehearsed. Like something inside me had learned to mimic calm after the ruin. 

Was it her tone? That smooth, deliberate voice that never quite left my head, even when the recording stopped. 

Or her laughter — soft, delicate, but wrong somehow. The kind that doesn’t echo in the room, only under your skin. 

Or maybe it was the thought that she hadn’t been talking to herself in those tapes. She had been talking to me. 

No one knew her like I did. 

The way she stops for a breath just before she lies. The softness she wore like perfume — an armor disguised as empathy. The world despises honesty in women like her. So she learned to smile instead. 

Maybe that’s what drew me in — the thrill of it. 

The way she came alive today. Not as a whisper in my mind. Not as a phantom in my room, but out there, among them. Those who think madness has a look, a sound, a warning. Those who can’t hear the fracture in her laugh, or the tremor beneath her stillness. 

Them — who still believe madness has a face. 

Who thinks danger announces itself. 

They didn’t see it. 

They never do. 

But I did. I always have. 

And that knowing— 

that unbearable closeness— 

felt like looking into a mirror that had finally decided to look back. 

And maybe that’s what made me fall. 

Not weakness — recognition. 

I collapsed in front of them like a mirror cracking under its own reflection. 

They saw humiliation. 

I saw the truth. 

The duvet slid from my chest as I sat up, the cold cutting sharper than it should. The air tasted metallic — the kind that comes before a storm. The moon outside fought to stay alive behind a bruised sky,

flickering in and out of the clouds like a pulse losing rhythm. The forest below stirred restlessly, as though something unseen had woken and turned over in its sleep. 

The wind keened low at first, threading through the bars of the window like a whisper that couldn’t decide if it wanted to comfort or warn. Then it grew louder — climbing into a scream that sent the trees bowing, their silhouettes bending and straightening like bodies trying to breathe. 

The rain began in fragments — light, hesitant. Each drop a single, deliberate tap against the glass. Then more. Faster. 

Until the sound thickened into a steady percussion, a thousand tiny fingers drumming on the asylum walls. 

Somewhere far off, a bird shrieked — sudden, piercing — cut off mid-call. 

The crickets answered, their rhythm faltering for a heartbeat before returning, louder this time, desperate, as if to fill whatever silence the scream had left behind. 

The room darkened with every flash of lightning, bright for a second and gone the next. Shadows slipped across the walls like water — fluid, impossible to hold. 

And through it all, one thought pulsed — slow, certain — beneath the storm’s heartbeat. The recorder. 

It waited for me. 

Exactly where I’d hidden it — in the hollow behind the panel under my bed, safe from wandering eyes and curious hands. 

I reached for it without thinking. The movement was muscle memory now — my body remembering before my mind could. 

The panel gave with a faint click. My fingers brushed the edge first — cold, slick, damp from the air that seeped through the walls. 

It was there. 

Small enough to disappear inside my fist. 

An old digital recorder — rectangular, scratched, its corners dulled by years of being passed between ghosts.The metal pressed against my skin like ice, like it had been waiting to be touched again. 

When I flicked it on, a thin green glow bled through the darkness, staining my hands with light. The tiny LCD blinked awake — fragile, uncertain. 

Track 03/03. 

00:00:00. 

No progress bar. No menu. No mercy. 

Just two buttons — PLAY and STOP, worn smooth, their lettering half-erased by time and use. 

The first time I’d pressed play, her voice had spilled out like smoke — soft, deliberate, patient. It had wound its way around me, threading through my ribs, whispering truths I wasn’t sure belonged to me. 

Now only one recording remained. 

The others — gone. Erased, devoured by static and silence. 

Two crumbs leading here. To this. 

The end of the line. 

Lightning flared again, painting the room in white for the briefest second. 

My thumb hovered over PLAY.

The rain slowed, almost listening. Even the crickets seemed to falter — their song tapering into a fragile hush. 

They say curiosity kills the cat. 

But satisfaction brings it back. 

And I was done being the one that stayed dead. 

I pressed PLAY. 

The recorder clicked. 

Nothing. 

Not a sound. 

No mechanical hum, no tape hiss, no ghost of static. 

Just stillness — thick, deliberate. The kind that feels aware of itself. 

The silence was alive. 

It had weight, texture, a pulse of its own. It pressed against the walls, against me, until I could hear my breath ricocheting off the padded corners, each inhale a trespass in a room that had forgotten how to hold sound. 

Outside, the storm clawed at the world — wind shrieking through the window grilles, rain slamming the wood like fists demanding to be let in. Thunder rolled across the forest, slow and immense, shaking the air in waves. 

But the recorder remained untouched. Unaffected. 

It held its silence like a ritual, like it was feeding on everything the storm could not reach. 

Still, the seconds moved. 

00:00:12 … 00:00:13 … 00:00:14 … 

It was working. 

That was somehow worse. 

The longer I listened, the louder everything else became — the blood pulsing in my ears, the creak of the bed frame, the faint buzz of the fluorescent light that shouldn’t have been on but was. 

And then — 

A breath. 

Faint at first, almost mistaken for interference. 

Not sharp or panicked — no. This one was slow, shallow, stretched thin. The sound of lungs clawing for air they could no longer find. 

It trembled through the speaker, fragile, wet, human. 

Her breath. 

My hand tightened around the recorder until the plastic dug into my palm. 

And then — a voice. 

A man’s. Low, cold, threaded with control and mock. 

Each word fell with surgical precision, clean and merciless. 

“You’re alive.” 

The pause after was long.

Too long. 

Outside, lightning tore through the clouds, illuminating the forest for a heartbeat — and in that single white flash, every branch seemed to move, every shadow seemed to look back. 

The silence that followed his words filled the room like water, creeping up my throat, choking sound before it could form. 

Alive. 

Then, faintly, a rhythm beneath it. 

Electronic beeps. 

A hospital monitor, soft but persistent, each tone slicing through the quiet like a metronome for dying. 

He spoke again — softer, almost tender. Almost pleased. 

“Seems like your time here has finally caught up to you.” 

His voice sent a tremor through the room — not because it was loud, but because it was steady. That kind of calm that only monsters and gods could master. 

He exhaled — a quiet shiver of breath against the mic. 

“There’s a certain beauty in endings,” he murmured. “Especially yours.” 

A sound followed — faint, brittle. 

A cough. Then another. 

Short, uneven bursts, like her lungs were folding in on themselves. 

The kind of cough that doesn’t belong to sickness alone — but to exhaustion that’s become part of the body. 

He waited. You could hear it — that pause, that listening. 

Her breath stuttered in and out, shallow, wet at the edges. 

The monitor’s beeps wavered with her rhythm, fragile and human, as if it too were deciding whether to keep going. 

A pause. A sound of movement — the faint drag of his sleeve against fabric. 

Then his tone shifted, sharpened. 

“You remember, don’t you? The performance. The show. The little art you made of death.” 

A faint scuffle followed — maybe a chair leg scraping tile. 

“I watched you dance back then,” he murmured. “All those people thought it was brilliant. I saw what it really was.” 

His breath hitched — not anger, not grief, but something in between. 

“You moved like you were confessing,” he said. “Each step closer to him, each turn, each drop of blood on your hands — you called it art. But it wasn’t art, was it?” 

The chuckle that followed was low and hollow, the kind that didn’t come from amusement but from disbelief long curdled into obsession. 

“It was hunger. Pure and perfect.” 

For a moment, nothing but the soft wheeze of her breathing filled the recorder. Then, quieter: 

“Tell me… do you still hear the applause when you close your eyes?” 

Silence stretched — long enough to almost believe she wouldn’t answer. 

Then came a sound — faint, cracked, yet unmistakable. 

A soft chuckle. 

It wasn’t joy.

It was the kind of laugh that carried memory — tired, knowing, edged with something almost gentle. It lingered just a second too long before dissolving into a cough — sharp, wet, dragged from somewhere deep.The monitor faltered in rhythm, beeps staggering to match the violence of her breath. 

He didn’t move. You could hear the stillness in him — the way the air tightened, listening. Then, low and deliberate, his voice returned: 

“What? You want me to come closer?” 

Footsteps. Slow. Controlled. The beeping monitor echoed them, quickening, like a heart remembering what fear feels like. 

“Say what you want with your mask on,” he hissed. “You don’t get to die this easily. Not until you’ve felt what you’ve done.” 

And then—her voice. 

Thin. Trembling. 

Barely a voice at all — just air forced into shape. 

“Wh…what… are… you… here… for?” 

It didn’t sound like her. 

Not the woman from the recordings. Not the calm, deliberate voice that haunted me. This was something unraveling — glass shattering underwater, breaking but never quite reaching the surface. 

He laughed — low, cruel, a sound that didn’t fit inside a human throat. 

“To see you die slowly but surely, of course. They said you caught pneumonia.” 

A pause. 

“I can see it now — your lungs burning, the air scraping your throat raw. The smell of sickness suits you.” 

For a second, only the sound of her breathing — shallow, uneven — filled the recorder. Then came her voice, fractured and trembling, but deliberate all the same. 

“You… saw me perform the madness in me… when I took a life,” she rasped. Each word dragged through air that barely obeyed her. 

“And now… you’ll see the stubbornness in me… when I take my own. Not on your terms… not then… not now.” 

The soft hiss of oxygen filled the pause — then, a sudden rip. 

Fabric tearing. Plastic snapping. 

Her breath turned wild, naked, unfiltered. The monitor shrieked in protest. 

His voice shattered through it — sharp, desperate. 

“No—don’t remove that! Put it back on!” 

The monitor quickened again — fast, frantic. 

The sound of metal — a tray clattering, a chair overturning. 

And his voice, suddenly sharp with panic. 

“No—don’t remove that! Put it back on!” 

The hiss of oxygen being pulled free — the whoosh of air escaping. 

“You want to die now? After everything you’ve done?” 

The calm cracked. 

“You don’t get to die on your own terms!”

The beeps turned erratic, stumbling between life and silence. 

And then her whisper — faint, deliberate, shaped by the last of her strength. 

“Come… here.” 

A shuffle. A pause. 

Then the sound of something—soft at first—dragging across the floor. 

Her breath rasped — wet, raw. 

His voice followed, breaking apart. 

“No! No, you don’t get to leave! You don’t get to—” 

His words fractured into noise. 

The monitor screamed. 

“You can’t die like this!” he shouted, unhinged, voice shaking the recorder itself. “You can’t leave without suffering!” 

The crash came next. 

Metal. Wood. A bed frame slamming against the wall. 

The sound of him trying to hold her body down, maybe — or stop it from going still. 

The oxygen mask hit the floor. Plastic cracked. 

And beneath it — a faint wet sound, the body’s final rebellion against air. 

Then her voice, barely a thread: 

“Tha…nk you, Wynn… for… fre– 

The flatline cut her off. 

7:37. 

Not a second more. 

The silence after that was worse than any scream. 

It was final. 

The kind of silence that doesn’t wait to be filled — it just is. 

Then, faintly — a sound that wasn’t from her. 

His breathing. Ragged, uneven. 

A sob that tried to disguise itself as anger. 

“Sairee…” 

A crack of movement — the mic scraping the floor. 

“Sairee R. Aurora… you can’t leave like this.” 

A thud. Something heavy hitting the ground. 

Maybe a chair. 

Maybe him. 

“Come back!” 

The words dissolved into gasps, then into something rawer. 

“You hear me? You don’t get to vanish this time!” 

The recorder hissed. 

The seconds froze. 

7:37.

And then the world stopped. 

Her name sat there — heavy, vibrating through the air, through me. 

The name I buried years ago. 

The name I’d seen was covered in blood. 

The name of my father’s sister. 

My aunt. 

The one I watched killed Mr. Inderjit Rastogi. 

Sairee R. Aurora.

‘ PART 01: END ’

 AUTHOR'S NOTE 

I wrote Beneath the Silence: The Inheritance of Shadows to pull readers into a world where obsession, betrayal, and the human mind’s fragility collide. 

Through Aamaya’s fractured perspective, you witness Sairee’s chilling confessions—moments where love and violence are inseparable, leaving shadows that linger long after. 

I wanted readers to feel the tension, the horror, and the weight of memories that refuse to stay buried. 

This story explores morality in shades of gray, the haunting nature of family, and the destructive potential of darkness when left unchecked. 

The first part ends with a shocking, unsettling climax—but it’s only the beginning. 

Part two will reveal hidden truths, heighten suspense, and bring the final reckoning, promising a continuation that will keep readers on edge. 

My hope is that readers will close this story both captivated and unsettled, haunted by its characters, and eager for what comes next. 

Thank you. 

 Acknowledgement 

Books are never just paper and ink—they are echoes. Echoes of the voices we carry, the silences we endure, and the people who leave fingerprints on our hearts. This story is no exception. 

When I began writing it, I thought I was telling a tale of shadows. But in truth, I was mapping my own light and the hands that guided me through it. Every sentence carries the imprint of those who believed in me when I did not, who reminded me that even broken pieces can make a whole. 

To everyone who stands in these pages, whether in thanks or in spirit—you are the reason this book breathes. To the reader holding it now, know this: you are not just observing a story, you are completing it. Words come alive only when they are seen, felt, and carried forward. 

If this book whispers anything to you, let it be this—that silence is not emptiness, but possibility. That even in the darkest corners, there is always a pulse, a memory, a voice waiting to be heard. 

This is for those voices. For yours. For mine. For all that lingers beneath the silence. And if even one line stays with you after you close this book, then every word I’ve written has found its home.

By Ayushi