They tied my hands before I could even ask why.
The first night, I thought it was only a mistake. That my husband would come to his senses, that he would see reason in my eyes.
But when he looked at me, I saw nothing human in him—only fear, and guilt, and something darker that needed someone to blame.
The room was small. The air was damp. The basement where we stored old tools and forgotten things.
Now, I was one of them.
They asked questions.
Where did you hide them?
Why did you do it?
Did you push them yourself or did you make them fall?
Every word felt like a knife carving through air I couldn't breathe.
I kept saying, "I don't know. I didn't."
Over and over.
Until my voice cracked and broke like glass.
By the second morning, I stopped answering.
They didn't believe me anyway.
The Mistress's name was carved into my skin that day.
Not with a blade, but with their accusations, with every strike that followed.
My husband—he didn't hit me, not at first.
He stood there, watching, as one of his friends demanded the truth from me.
When I fell, when I couldn't move anymore, he whispered something I barely caught.
"Why didn't you just stay away from us?"
Those words hurt more than any blow.
The world started to fade after that.
Sounds stretched thin. Their voices blurred, like waves hitting a wall of glass.
Sometimes I saw their lips move but couldn't match them with meaning.
I remember a sudden ringing in my ears—sharp, metallic, endless.
Then nothing.
The silence came slowly, like water filling a room.
At first, I thought it was mercy.
But mercy doesn't last three days.
On the second night, they left me alone.
No food, no light.
Only the hum of the world I could no longer hear.
I touched the ground. It was cold, rough. My fingertips found a nail embedded in the floor.
I traced its edges until my skin tore. The pain reminded me that I was still here, still something breathing.
I thought of my son.
His small hands, his laughter when I used to comb his hair.
Would he remember me like this? As a whisper? As the woman they said was cruel?
I prayed he wouldn't.
By the third day, I stopped moving.
My throat burned when I tried to swallow. My wrists bled.
I could no longer tell if my eyes were open or closed.
When the door opened, I didn't flinch.
Light poured in—a harsh, golden wound.
Someone spoke, but I couldn't hear. Their mouths moved in shapes I couldn't understand.
Hands touched me. Lifted me. Carried me.
I watched my husband's face pass above me—ashen, broken, crying—but it was too late to feel anything for him.
That night, I stopped being human.
I drifted between waking and not, seeing only flashes: the slope, the scarf, the boy's smile, the sound of my name.
And when morning came, the silence deepened.
There were no words left inside me.
No sound.
No self.
Only the ache of something ending.
If I had known they would come home alive, I would have begged harder.
But maybe it's better this way.
Better they never saw what they turned me into.
Because that silence—
it became the only thing that ever loved me back.