The Moon {Zayn Malik AU}

Three~Show & Tell

Lizzie's POV

My regular saunter in the woods seems longer than usual. I know that I couldn't be that far from my cabin because I always count the number of trees to my right when I walk. There's always a total of fifty-seven, some days sixty, But I know I counted fifty-seven this time. The same trees in the same place, nothing different.

Maybe you counted some you didin't notice. A voice in my head says but I dismiss it.

Whether if I counted the number I intended or not, I turn around retracing my steps to ensure I don't get lost. Not like that has happened before.

A continuous, monotone echo sounds through my ears, and no it's not my heart beating unusually loud.

My footsteps abraze against twigs, dead fall leaves and pebbles rather loudly and its terrifying me.

Remember when I mentioned that it has been dead silent for over a year? Yeah, now I remember that now also.

My chest begins to bounce forward and backward trying to regain breath in my ever so light lungs. But hearing my own inhale's and exhale's scare me even further.

I don't think. I don't know. But I act. My feet bound from the compost littered ground and run from my placement back to my cabin that I need to find. Now.

I purposely take long strides and jumps to avoid hearing the crunch of the ground but I still hear the sound. It won't stop. I run-no pounce quicker to my destination until I'm straight up flying with my toes tickling the forest floor here and there.

By now, my converses are stained the worst shade of brown but I don't care. I would deal with that matter once I got home.

The run back felt way longer than the walk in the forest now that I think about it. Bitter water pours down my blushed face.

No, no, no ,no!

I haven't cried in what feels like a week and i won't start today, not now. Just the thought of hearing a whimper raises my fear level.

My feet are still taking me back to my cabin.

More tears.

The tears dribbled and I tasted the bitterness of my horror and sadness. The exact bitterness that this horror-filled reality was giving me. A cold bitterness of sound that I haven't heard in a year. Sound that I was so much giving my life to hear, I was running away from, sound that I had wished for. I was running away from my wishes. Now I feel stupid.

And once that reality hits me, I stopped running. My feet dug into the soil trying to prevent me from moving any further.

Sweat was splashed across my for head and the back of my neck, drowning me in anxiety.

I have to accept the fact that this is what I wanted. And although most of you can't understand being deaf for a long period, I can only describe it to you like this: It's hurtful. One of my senses that I took advantage of the most was ripped away from me then given back as a gift for understanding the true meaning of what hearing meant to me. I couldn't face both.

But this is what you wanted.

And that voice was right. It was hearty of me to take full control of this sense now than to have it ripped away from me later.

My fingers curled at the thigh of my jeans wondering what do I do now. I was given back sound and now I have no idea what to do with it.

Maybe try making some sort of sound? That encouraging voice spoke again.

Sure, if that's what it wants.

Taking baby steps with this new experiment, while having a tight grip on my reality, the ball of my feet applied subtle pressure to the ground.

I heard the audible crunch of fallen leaves that I was so terrified of moments ago. I flinched, removing pressure from the ground but catching myself and punching my feet to the ground.

Crunch again!

Well done Lizzie.

So far this was actually quite good progress. This was probably a thing I was going to have to get used to. But I'm okay with that.

I should be able to make more sound than that! So my fingers pick up a nearby pebble that I was also afraid of but I don't throw it. At least not yet.

My fingers palm the smooth surface that went through abrasion to become this small sediment that i was also afraid of. My fingertips press into the surface trying to make their finger prints known in the skin of the rock. I take advantage of my touch sense just in case that ever gets taken away from me too.

Finally finishing feeling up the rock, without a second thought, my wrist flick and the rock lunges at a tree trunk and bounces back off.

Awesome!

The second the rock collided with the irregular surface, I caught the click and scrape of the two surfaces and I loved it. I loved it very much.

I could do a million back flips celebrating my success and throw a party. But I can't do a back flip and I have no materials what so ever to even set up a party table. All I can do is squeal to myself and dance. Like an idiot. And I do. Good thing that there's no one around to laugh at me.

After I finish prancing around like a crack-head, I find myself back to my cabin. Turns out I wasn't lost, just took a wrong turn towards the fortieth tree.

The familiarness of my cabin wrapped its fingers around me making me feel at home again. I could've sworn that i heard the sweep of the door closing.

Everything has a sound now; scary but wonderful. Whether if I want to hear it or not, I meet up with the sense no matter what I do. I can hear the padding of my shoes squeaking against the hardwood floors, which moan in response. Wind battling with the fall leaves just outside. Trees swaying back and fourth, birds! All sorts of things! It still bothers me that whoever is behind this chose now to give me sound instead of not letting me keep it since the beginning.

Maybe they can hear your thoughts.

Yeah right. The only access anyone else would have to my thoughts would be if i spoke them clean off my mind. But I don't. So I just think.

But thinking out loud only reminds me that i have no one to talk to. And having no one to talk to only reminds me of...being alone.

Aaaaaand we're back to square one.

The forest was an emblem of my loneliness and abandonment. Miles and miles from where I was standing, there was not one soul, only trees that never felt like they were alive. Getting back sound only forced me to hear my own sorrow brewing within the walls of my own personal world. A world that would never be shared with anybody else. I didin't have a friend to describe what I saw to. I didn't have a camera or Polaroid to capture the vignette-like scenery that only I would ever catch sight of. I had no one to talk to about my day because there were practically no days here! Time just runs continuously and could never be quantifiable, or per my opinion. All I knew was that the sun sets and the sun rises; but I'm always there to see it.

Another thing I can't tell anyone.

Whether being given back sound was a blessing or not, my neutral feelings won't ever win the war of silence versus sound. It's an infinite battle. I could go way back to the beginning and scream my emotional pain out, but I have to accept the fact that I got the soundtrack to my surroundings.

And I can never show it to anyone else.