(1.0)The Sound Of Silence

z e r o

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

Five...

Back and Forth

Back and Forth

Back and Forth

Back

And Forth

Back

and

Forth

She doesn't know how long she's been there. Every time her count reaches around fifty-six thousand, she suddenly comes to, and has to restart her count. She may be sleeping, but sleep is supposed to make you feel better.

She feels a million different ways of worse.

When she first arrived, she called. Called for minutes, or hours, she isn't sure. She got no response. The room was made of brick, and slightly reminded the girl of a prison cell, which it sort of was.

And in this prison, she was in isolation.

She hadn't seen anyone since...the fight.

Fear, heart pounding, Pain.

Everything went black.

And then, however long later, they come.

The men, who open her door silently, and approach silently.

At least, she thinks so.

But if she's being honest, she wouldn't be able to tell if the door was silent, or if it made enough noise to suggest the place was falling down.

She can't tell if the men shout at her, or just approach with cold smirks and eyes that promise pain.

She doesn't even know they are there until she is counting twenty-seven thousand eight hundred and twenty-five, and hands suddenly grip her arms, and hoist her into the air, and the girl lets herself scream again. But it isn't just wordless screams. She tries to form names, the names that she had barely let herself think about since the very first time she began counting.

The people who loved her.

She doesn't know if she's actually screaming their names, but she's trying her damnedest.

They hear her.

Not her family, but the men who look at her with intended violence. They hear her screams, and they don't care. Their snarls and sneers deepen, and they tighten their hold as she tries to fight.

Her cries fall on deaf ears.

Not the men's, we have already established they can hear her. It's not their ears that are deaf.

It's hers.