Oliver Night had learned long ago that silence was his greatest shield.Not because silence protected him from fists, or jeers, or the stray shoe hurled his way when the bigger boys grew restless. Silence never stopped bruises from blooming, never dulled the sting of a cracked rib or the hollow ache of hunger. But silence made him invisible, and sometimes invisibility was enough.
The orphanage was loud—too loud for someone like him. Wooden floors creaked under running feet, doors slammed shut with careless abandon, voices overlapped in jeering laughter, and somewhere always came the crash of something breaking. In a place like that, a quiet boy vanished into the cracks. Oliver had made a habit of staying in those cracks.
He sat in the farthest corner of the second-floor dormitory, pressed against the peeling wallpaper where dampness had warped the plaster into bubbling shapes. His knees were tucked against his chest, his glasses crooked on his nose, one lens already spider-webbed with cracks from last week's "game." His body still ached from it, but he did not cry anymore. Crying only made them hit harder.
Below, he could hear the other children: laughter, squabbling, the rhythmic pound of feet against the ground floor. Normal sounds of childhood, perhaps. To Oliver, they were the sounds of predators circling. He had been prey for so long it felt carved into his bones.
He closed his eyes and forced his mind elsewhere. His escape was always the same—memory. Every book he'd ever touched still lived within him. Even now, the pages of stories he'd read by lamplight unfolded behind his eyelids with crystal clarity. It wasn't imagination. It was recall, sharper than any photograph, alive in his head. He flipped through sentences like one might flip a coin through nimble fingers. Word by word, line by line, whole passages replayed themselves in order.
And when the words grew too heavy, too distant from reality, he thought of sound.
Downstairs, Mrs. Reed's classroom smelled faintly of varnish and old paper. She wasn't always there—the orphanage couldn't afford regular lessons—but when she came, the world softened. Her voice was gentle, coaxing, never scolding. She had taught him the weight of piano keys, the vibration of a violin's strings, the bright hum of a flute. Every instrument became an anchor, something solid to cling to in the rushing tide of cruelty.
Oliver still remembered the way she smiled the first time he managed to coax a tune from the battered piano. "You've got a gift," she'd said, like it was fact, not flattery. No one had ever told him he was good at anything. That memory, he revisited often—like a starving child licking the last crumbs of bread from an empty plate.
A shout yanked him from his thoughts.
"Oi, Night! You hiding up there again?"
The voice was sharp, cocky, belonging to Robert—the ringleader of the older boys. The name curled in Oliver's stomach like spoiled milk. He pressed further into the wall, holding his breath as footsteps thundered up the stairs.
The door slammed open. Three figures spilled into the room, shadows stretching long in the evening light. Robert, tall and broad for his age, wore a smirk that always preceded pain. His two shadows, Simon and Keith, trailed behind, less cruel but too cowardly to ever say no.
"There you are," Robert drawled. "Thought we lost our favorite toy."
Oliver did not speak. He knew better.
Robert strode forward, grabbed the collar of Oliver's thin shirt, and hauled him upright with casual cruelty. Oliver's feet barely brushed the floor.
"You're useless, you know that? Can't fight, can't run. Only thing you're good for is making us laugh."
Laughter followed, sharp and false. Oliver's lips pressed into a thin line. He let the words slide past him like water over stone. He had learned that was the only way to survive.
But sometimes—sometimes—the water wore the stone down anyway.
As Robert shoved him back against the wall, Oliver's thoughts flickered. To another stairwell. Another shove. A tumble, a crack, pain so vivid he could still feel it echoing in his bones. The memory came unbidden, visceral. A different life, a different body, ending too soon on cold wood.
His breath hitched.
He hadn't wanted to remember that.
Robert's hand shoved Oliver harder into the wall. His head struck plaster, the crack in his glasses deepening. The two shadows snickered, feeding on the cruelty like crows pecking scraps.
"Bet he cries again," Keith muttered.
"I don't cry," Oliver whispered, barely audible.
The words slipped out before he could stop them. His voice wasn't defiant—it never could be—but it was true, and truth sometimes carried its own quiet edge.
Robert's grin sharpened. "What was that?"
Before Oliver could repeat himself, the older boy's fist landed in his stomach. The breath fled his lungs in a rush. He folded, knees striking the floorboards, vision swimming. Pain lanced through him, curling his body into itself.
The laughter followed him down.
When the footsteps receded and the door slammed shut again, Oliver stayed curled on the floor for a long while. He did not cry. He had learned how to choke the sound in his throat, to bury it deep where no one could reach.
Instead, he listened. Not to them—but to something else. A whisper, faint as a string's first trembling note. It wasn't real. He knew that. And yet… it was always there when the pain was sharpest, when loneliness threatened to break him apart. Like a phantom melody, weaving through his bones.
He pushed himself upright, gasping, fingers clutching his ribs. The cracked lens of his glasses reflected his pale face back at him, fractured and strange. He hardly recognized himself. Thin frame, skin bruised with shadows, hair that hung limp and dark across his forehead.
"I'm still here," he whispered to no one. The words tasted hollow, but saying them was better than silence.
That night, Oliver lay awake while the others snored around him. Moonlight crept through the dormitory's grimy window, striping the floor in silver. Sleep never came easily. His body hurt too much, and his mind never stopped. Memories clawed through the quiet, both of this life and the other.
He remembered running. Feet pounding down a stairwell, laughter echoing behind him. The burn of panic in his chest. Then—the push. The world tilting. The sickening weightlessness before the fall. The impact. His final sound had not been a scream, but the brittle snap of bone.
And then nothing.
Until he was here. Again.
He should not remember it. Children weren't supposed to carry death inside their heads like a secret stone. But Oliver remembered everything. His mind was a cage full of books, songs, and moments that would not fade.
He turned onto his side, staring at the ceiling. The others slept easily. None of them carried death in their lungs. None of them bore the curse of remembering too much.
And yet—he could not hate them. Even Robert. His cruelty was sharp, but simple. Predictable. Oliver sometimes wondered if Robert hurt him because hurting Oliver was easy, and the world rarely offered easy things.
No, hate wasn't what he felt. It was heavier. Lonelier.
A hollow kind of knowing that he didn't belong anywhere.
The next morning, the routine returned. Chores, shouting, scraps of food divided with little care. Oliver drifted at the edges, silent, unnoticed unless someone needed to take their temper out on something small.
At breakfast, a bowl clattered down in front of him. Thin oatmeal, lukewarm. He picked at it with slow precision. The noise of the hall roared around him, forks clattering, laughter stabbing like knives.
"Night."
He looked up. A girl stood over him, arms crossed. Her name was Daphne Greengrass, pale and sharp-eyed, a year younger than him but somehow steadier. She was the only one who didn't join in when the others mocked him. Sometimes she even sat near him, though she never interfered.
"You're late to chores again," she said matter-of-factly.
He blinked at her. "They… delayed me."
Her eyes flickered, understanding. She didn't ask more. "Eat faster, or they'll take it."
Then she walked away, braid swinging. Oliver lowered his gaze, lips pressing thin. She wasn't a friend—he couldn't risk naming her that—but she was something else. A reminder that not everyone saw him as a shadow.
Still, he ate slowly. Because what was the point of hurrying? Hunger was familiar.
That evening, when the others had finally collapsed into sleep, Oliver slipped out. His feet padded across the warped floorboards, down the stairs, through the cracked door into the night.
The sky stretched vast above him, littered with stars. He tipped his head back, drinking it in. Out here, away from the noise, the world felt larger, like it had space enough for him to breathe.
He sat on the back steps, knees to his chest, and hummed softly. A melody Mrs. Reed had taught him—though now it was his own. It curled low and sorrowful, like a candle guttering in the wind.
And as the notes slipped into the darkness, he felt it again. That phantom presence. That whisper, alive in the marrow of his bones. Not real. Not yet. But there.
The night listened.
And Oliver, for a fleeting moment, felt less alone.
The melody lingered in the cool night air, carried on his breath until it faded into silence. Oliver's chest ached, but softer than before, as if the music had pressed the pain into a shape he could hold.
"Out here again?"
Oliver startled, twisting around. Mrs. Reed stood by the doorway, her shawl wrapped tight against the chill. She wasn't young, but her face still carried a warmth the other adults in the orphanage lacked. Most treated the children like chores to be endured. She—she looked at them as if they were people.
Oliver ducked his head. "Sorry. I'll go back inside."
She shook her head gently and stepped closer, her shoes crunching softly against the gravel. "You don't have to run, Oliver. I only wondered if the stars were better company than the boys in your dormitory."
He bit his lip. That was the dangerous thing about Mrs. Reed—she noticed too much.
"I like the quiet," he whispered.
Her gaze flicked over him, lingering on the split at his lip and the purple blooming beneath his collar. She didn't ask how. She never asked directly. But her eyes softened, and for a moment Oliver thought she might reach out. She didn't, though. She respected distance in a way no one else did.
"Music sounds better in the quiet, doesn't it?" she said instead.
Oliver nodded. "It… keeps me company."
Mrs. Reed smiled faintly, not pitying, but something steadier. "Then you hold onto it. As long as you can."
He blinked at her, words caught in his throat. Adults didn't usually speak to him like that. As if he were more than a burden, more than a shadow skulking at the edges.
She lowered herself onto the step beside him, pulling her shawl tighter. "One day, you'll play somewhere bigger than these walls. I don't know how I know, but I do. You've got that look."
"What look?"
"The look of someone the world hasn't figured out yet."
Oliver swallowed, his throat tight. No one had ever said something like that to him. Not here. Not in either of his lives.
He turned his gaze back to the stars, afraid that if he met her eyes, he might believe her. And belief was dangerous. Belief left you open, breakable.
But still, the words sank deep, curling somewhere safe inside the fortress of his memory.
Mrs. Reed rose after a while, brushing dust from her skirt. "Back to bed, Oliver. Tomorrow will be another long day."
He nodded, pulling his knees closer. She paused in the doorway before leaving.
"Remember," she said softly, "quiet isn't empty. Sometimes it's where the best music waits."
Then she was gone, and the night was his again.
Oliver closed his eyes, listening to the silence. For the first time in longer than he could remember, it didn't feel like silence at all.