The playground buzzed with noise. Children's laughter collided with the squeak of swings and the scrape of sneakers on concrete. But for the girl, the sounds blurred into a single, dizzying hum.
"Give it back!" a boy shouted, holding her sketchbook high above his head. "Say something! Or are you too stupid to talk?"
Her chest tightened. Her fingers itched to snatch the book, but no words would come. Her lips trembled, quivering, yet silent. All she could manage was a strangled, panicked whimper.
The other children laughed, cruel and unrelenting.
"Talk if you want it!" a girl sneered, her eyes bright with malice.
The girl's hands shook. She wanted to explain, to plead, to make them understand—but there was only silence. Only tears.
A scream tore from her throat—raw, hollow, carrying her frustration and helplessness. The circle of children laughed harder. They didn't understand. No one ever had.
Later, she sat on the worn couch in the small living room, face pressed against the soft sweater of the woman who had always cared for her. The faint scent of lavender and old books wrapped around her, a fragile shield against the world outside.
"They're just being insolent, my little star," the woman said softly, brushing back the girl's pale hair. "It's not your fault you can't speak. You are not less than anyone just because you are quiet."
The girl clung to the words, letting them settle in the hollow spaces of her chest. She wanted to believe them. She wanted to feel safe.
That afternoon, she sat by the window, golden sunlight painting the room in warmth. Her small hands pressed to the glass as her heart fluttered with hope. Today, her parents would come home. They promised.
The knock never came.
Instead, the woman answered the phone, her face paling by the second. Her voice trembled, sharp and foreign in its sorrow.
Plane crash… no survivors… nothing left…
The girl froze, the words too heavy to grasp, too cruel to breathe. Her parents were gone. Gone. The world shifted beneath her tiny feet, collapsing into silence so deep it seemed to echo through her bones.
From that day, the house grew quieter. Lessons were done at home. The schoolyard became a distant memory of cruelty. The woman became everything—family, teacher, friend, shield.
Yet the memory of that day lingered, sharp and unyielding. The laughter, the taunts, the day the sky swallowed her parents—they were etched in her mind like scars.
And in that silence, the girl learned a harsh truth: words could vanish. But pain… pain never did.