Lara's world had always been loud.
Full of sounds that crowded together and pressed into each other, crashing and slamming into each other, bursting into shouts and screams, exploding into bangs.
Her world got so noisy sometimes that she started to get annoyed, and she would cover her head with her pillow, wishing that she had some peace and quiet, wishing that the world could be silent for once.
The pitter patter of her brother's footsteps above her head, the rattling of the ceiling fan, the yells of her mother, the mundane but familiar buzz of the television in the living room, the drone of her father's voice on the phone, talking about yet another job. The whirring of the washing machine, the gushing of tap water, the gentle scritch scratch of her sister's pencil, the screeching of tires on the road outside.
She didn't mind them most of the time, but on certain days, the deafening whirlwind of noises was too much to bear, and she'd wish for it to stop.
But be careful what you wish for.
The day the noises stopped had been the loudest.
When their screams woke her and she sat bolt upright, when the crackle of fire was right next to her ear, when the wooden beams fell, plunging to the ground and shattering into splinters. When she watched home burn down,
Alone.
The only survivor.
Her world fell silent then.
So quiet.
Wasn't it what she'd always wanted?
Some peace and quiet?
But not like this, not in this way, not this suffocating silence that left her gasping in shallow breaths in the dead of night, her cheeks wet and hands shaking.
Not this silence that was so quiet it threatened to burst her eardrums.
She understood then, how silence was the most deafening.
She couldn't hear anything.
Her world was so quiet now.
She missed the noise, something she never thought she'd miss, she missed the yells, the screams, the shouts, the slams, the crashes, the bangs, the explosions.
But they never came back again.
They never would.
It was loud.
So loud.
The silence was so loud.
She couldn't hear a thing.
She wanted to hear something, anything.
But even in the middle of the crowded street, surrounded by the chitter chatter of people, the honking of cars, and the thump of thousands of feet, she heard nothing.
Nothing but the deafening silence.
Author's Note
Heyo! I hope you enjoyed this one, I think it's the longest story I've written here so far oof. It was inspired by a quote I saw, which is basically the title of this story:)
~stella
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We're Broken People
PoetryMaybe you don't know it yet, maybe you haven't noticed it, maybe you haven't felt it. But all of us, are broken somewhere on the inside. We've all been sad at one point or another, or depressed, or lonely. We've all been broken. ______________ Just...
