Sunday Short: Silence!
- Faiz Faisal
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Arthur loved the silence. For years, he’d worn noise-canceling headphones like armor, dodging the wet coughs of coworkers and the mindless chatter of the subway. He moved to a cabin deep in the woods precisely because humans were exhausting.
The Morning of the Great Hush didn't start with a bang. It started with a lack of bird wings. When Arthur stepped onto his porch, the forest was a tomb. No squirrels chattering, no insects buzzing—just the flat, heavy weight of absolute stillness.
By noon, he’d driven into town. The streets were lined with idling cars, doors swung wide, groceries spilling onto the pavement. Not a single body. No blood, no struggle—just a sudden, clean erasure.
"Finally," he whispered. The word felt like a gunshot in the empty street.
The first three days were bliss. He broke into the high-end grocer, drank the finest scotch, and read in the middle of the main intersection. The "people problem" was solved.
But on day four, the Quiet started to change. It wasn't just a lack of sound anymore; it felt like a presence. Without the background hum of electricity and engines, Arthur began to hear things he shouldn’t. He heard the friction of his own eyelids sliding over his eyeballs. He heard the rhythmic thump-squelch of his heart, far too loud, like a stranger pacing in the basement.
Then came the night he realized he wasn't actually alone.
He was sitting in his darkened cabin when he heard it—a soft, wet sound from the kitchen. It wasn't a person. It was the sound of something mimicking a person. “Arthur,” a voice rasped. It sounded like two dry stones rubbing together, perfectly imitating his own mother’s tone, but without the soul.
He realized then that the world hadn't vanished to give him peace. It had cleared the stage so something else could finally be heard.
Arthur froze. The mimicry was perfect, yet the timing was off—his mother had been dead for years.
He realized the silence wasn't a vacuum; it was a predator. It had cleared away the noise of billions so it could finally focus on the last flickering pulse in the world: his.
Every time Arthur made a sound—the scrape of his chair, the catch in his throat—the walls seemed to pulse. The "Quiet" didn't just sit in the room; it pressed against his eardrums like deep-sea water. When he remained still, the house stayed silent. When he moved, the shadows in the hallway stretched toward him, vibrating with a low, sub-audible hum that made his teeth ache.
He tried to flee. He ran for his car, his boots slamming against the gravel like thunderclaps. But as the engine roared to life, the sound didn't echo. It was swallowed. The noise of the motor was being sucked into the air, leaving a terrifying, hollow static in its place.
Looking in the rearview mirror, Arthur saw the air itself warping. It looked like heat shimmer, a distortion of reality that moved with liquid grace. It wasn't a ghost or a monster; it was the absence of everything, a living void that hated his vibration.
He sped toward the city, desperate for any mechanical drone to hide his heartbeat. But the city was a graveyard of "eaten" sounds. He passed a fallen construction crane that hit the pavement with the volume of a falling feather.
The Quiet was closing in, dampening his very existence. He began to scream, needing to hear himself, needing to prove he was still there. But no sound came out. His lungs burned, his throat strained, but the world had finally revoked his right to be heard.
In the rearview, the shimmer reached the back bumper. It didn't have a face, but it had a hunger.
Arthur realized his wish had been too successful. He wasn't just alone; he was being deleted.
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