The boy learned early that silence was safer than
speech.
Words had weight. When spoken, they invited
questions, expectations, misunderstandings. Silence,
on the other hand, asked for nothing. It let him exist
without explanation.
At ten years old, he sat by the window in the last row
of the classroom, a notebook open on his desk—not for
notes, but for drawings. His pencil moved even when
the teacher spoke. Especially when the teacher spoke.
The sound of graphite scratching paper calmed him.
Lines made sense. Shapes obeyed him. Faces emerged
slowly, carefully, as if he were uncovering something
already there rather than creating it.He didn't draw happy things.
No cartoon animals.
No smiling suns.
He drew people.
Faces with depth. Eyes with weight. Eyes that didn't
just exist on the page—but seemed to observe.
Once, a classmate leaned over and laughed. "Why do they all stare like that?"
The boy didn't answer. He closed the notebook instead,
fingers lingering on the cover longer than necessary, as
if the drawings might escape if he didn't hold them
down.
At home, his room was quiet.
Too quiet, his mother sometimes said. She would open
the door just to check if he was breathing, then smile
awkwardly and leave.
He drew there too.
On loose sheets. Old notebooks. Even the back of
envelopes his father brought home from work. His desk
was cluttered with paper, all layered with versions of
the same thing—faces that changed slightly each time,
but never completely.
Late one evening, rain tapping softly against the
window, his pencil paused. He didn't know why.
His hand hovered over the paper, frozen mid-air, heart
beating faster for no clear reason. A strange pressure
settled behind his eyes—not pain, not yet—but
awareness.
Slowly, carefully, he began to draw.A smaller face this time.
Softer lines. Narrow shoulders. Short hair framing a
rounder face. A child—but not him.
When he reached the eyes, his fingers trembled.
He drew them anyway.
When he finished, he stared at the page, breath
shallow.
The girl looked back at him.
Not similar.
Identical.
Same curve of the iris. Same depth. Same quiet
intensity that made adults uncomfortable when they
met his gaze.
His chest tightened.
"I didn't mean to," he whispered, though he wasn't sure to whom.
The room felt different suddenly. Thicker. As if the air
itself had leaned closer.
He shut the notebook quickly and slid it under his bed.
That night, sleep came late.
When it did, it was shallow and fragmented.He dreamed of darkness—not empty darkness, but
something enclosed. Something warm. He heard
breathing.
Not loud.
Not close.
But present.
He woke suddenly, gasping, hand clutching his chest.
For a moment, he thought he wasn't alone in the room.
The feeling faded quickly, leaving only the quiet hum of
the night and his own uneven breathing.
Still, he didn't go back to sleep.
From beneath the bed, the notebook lay perfectly still Waiting.