Luca Moreno had grown used to the silence.
Not comfortable with it—never that—but accustomed, the same way a wounded limb eventually teaches a person to move around the ache rather than through it. His world was a dimly lit apartment, a muted haze of objects and memories, where sound had once lived but no longer dared to enter.
This morning was no different.
He sat on the edge of his bed, bare feet touching the cool wooden floor, eyes fixed on the piano across the room—the same polished black instrument that had once been an extension of his own body. Now it sat like a relic. A tombstone. A reminder.
The accident had taken many things, but the silence…the silence was the hardest thief to forgive.
He dragged a hand across his face and stood, stretching stiff muscles as he crossed to the kitchen. The kettle clicked on—he didn't hear it, but he saw the small red glow. Everything in his life had become visual cues, patterns, habits he repeated because without them, days dissolved into each other. He poured tea, watching the steam rise. He didn't taste anything anymore, not really. Food, music, sunlight, all of it felt muted.
He carried the mug to the living room and picked up his notebook—a worn, soft leather cover with corners frayed. Inside were lines of music he couldn't hear. Notes on paper that meant nothing to him now, yet he wrote them anyway. Out of stubbornness. Out of spite. Out of hope that maybe—just maybe—he would see something that might unlock whatever was broken inside him.
But the page remained still. Silent. Unchanged.
A knock came at the door.
He didn't hear it, but he felt it—the faint vibration through the floor. Someone knocking hard enough to rattle the silence. He sighed and pushed himself up, crossing the apartment with slow steps.
Opening the door, he found Naomi standing there, bundled in a warm coat, cheeks flushed from the cold. Her eyes softened the moment they met his.
She lifted a hand in greeting, then quickly signed:
—I used my spare key. Hope that's fine.
He nodded.
—It's fine. You're early.
She stepped inside, glancing around the apartment as if she expected something to have changed. Nothing had.
She reached for her phone, typed, and turned the screen to him:
You look tired.
He shrugged. "Didn't sleep much."
He spoke out of habit. Whether or not anyone heard didn't matter. Naomi always read lips effortlessly—something she had practiced relentlessly since his accident.
"You're still writing?" she asked, gesturing to the notebook.
He glanced at it and exhaled. "Trying."
She hesitated, then stepped closer. "Luca…you should go outside. Get fresh air. You haven't left this place in days."
He stiffened. "There's nothing out there for me."
"You don't know that." Her voice softened, gentler than he liked. Pity lived in softness. "The world didn't end, Luca."
He almost laughed. Bitterly. "It ended for me."
She didn't argue. She never argued—not anymore. He suspected she had learned that nothing she said would touch the hollow space where his music used to live.
Instead, she approached the piano and ran her fingers along the keys, as though afraid to press one and unleash a ghost he wasn't ready for.
"You remember when you played for me the first time?" she said quietly. "You told me music wasn't sound. It was emotion made visible."
His throat tightened. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Throw old words at me like they still belong to me."
She let her hand fall away from the piano.
"Luca," she whispered, "you're still here. The part of you that created beauty is still here."
He wanted to believe her. He wanted to tear the silence apart, force it to give back what it had taken. But reality was cruel, and hope felt like a long, thin rope tugging at him from a distance he could never cross.
Naomi stepped closer, her expression softening.
"Try," she said simply.
A single word. One he had heard so many times it should have lost meaning—but it didn't. It weighed on him like a memory he couldn't outrun.
He turned away.
"I can't."
She nodded, disappointment passing over her face like a shadow.
A moment later, she placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Then let me help you until you can," she murmured.
He didn't answer. Silence filled the space between them.
After she left, Luca stood at the window. The city stretched below him, noisy and alive in a way he could only imagine. Lights flickering, cars rushing, people shouting to be heard—it was all a world that no longer belonged to him.
He tried to picture the hum of traffic, the rumble of distant trains, the chaos of a city that thrived on noise. But imagination was weak compared to memory, and memory hurt too much to touch.
Still…
Still something tugged at him today. A strange restlessness in his chest. A pull he couldn't name.
He turned back to the piano.
Sat down.
Placed his hands on the keys.
He didn't expect sound—he knew there wouldn't be any—but he waited for the familiar vibration, the faint pulse that traveled through the instrument and into his bones. He pressed a single key.
Nothing.
He pressed harder.
Still nothing.
Frustration surged inside him, sharp and metallic. He slammed his palms down, a useless burst of motion without reward. His breath shook. His eyes burned.
He stood abruptly, knocking over the bench, chest heaving as he pushed away from the instrument that betrayed him.
Then—his phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
A message.
Unknown number.
"The world is louder than you think. Listen differently."
Luca frowned.
He typed back: Who is this?
Three dots appeared. Stopped. Reappeared.
"Your story is not over."
The message vanished before he could screenshot it—deleted from the other side.
Luca stared at the blank screen, a strange, electric unease crawling across his skin.
Someone knew him. Someone was watching. Someone believed there was still something inside him worth reaching.
He set the phone down slowly.
A faint sensation—like pressure, like a whisper brushing against his mind—drifted through him, and he froze.
For the first time in two years…
He felt something.
Something unfamiliar.
Something alive.
The silence didn't feel empty anymore.