A Sky Without Moon

Chapter 2: The Sound of Absence

The world had never felt this quiet. Even the smallest sounds seemed far away, like they were wrapped in a blanket of loss that covered everything. I could still remember when this silence was filled with warmth - when every corner of my life echoed with their laughter, their voices, their love. Now, all that remained were pieces of memories, soft and fading, like whispers from a time that no longer felt like my own.

Mornings used to have meaning. The familiar faces, the rhythm of shared moments - those little things gave each day a purpose. But now, one day blurred into the next, and the emptiness stretched on forever. The laughter was gone. The warmth that once greeted me had vanished. All that was left was the cold reminder of what had been lost.

Their absence was everywhere, woven into the air around me. Sometimes I could almost feel them, lingering like a shadow just out of reach. I'd catch myself turning, expecting them to be there, as if they had only stepped out for a moment and would return. But they never did. And with every passing day, the space they left behind grew wider, deeper.

I wandered through the rooms they had once filled, touching the things they had touched, hoping for some connection. But each time, it was the same - just the hard truth of reality, refusing to give me back what I wanted most. Their memory lived in my mind, but even that seemed fragile now, like it could slip away at any moment.

In the quietest moments, I could still hear them. Faint echoes of conversations, of shared laughter, of words left unsaid. Those echoes haunted me, filling the silence with a reminder of all I had lost. They whispered in the stillness, teasing me with the idea that maybe they were still close, that I could still reach them if I just tried hard enough. But I knew better. They were gone, and no amount of longing would bring them back.

Yet, it wasn't just their absence that weighed on me. It was the absence of who I had been when they were with me. I had once been whole, anchored to the world by their presence. But now, I felt untethered, floating through a life that no longer made sense. And in my fear of losing more, I had pushed her away. The fear of more pain was too much, so I built walls around myself, shutting out the people who cared.

There was one person, especially - someone who had brought light into my life, someone I thought could help me heal. But I pushed her away too. I drove her away before she could leave on her own, out of fear that I'd lose her like I lost them. And now her absence echoed too, mixing with the silence that filled every part of me.

This quiet wasn't gentle or comforting; it was heavy. Every day, I fought the loneliness that seemed to close in from all sides. And in the silence, all I could hear were the echoes of a life I had once known, a life that felt impossibly far away.