— Meaningful silence is always better than meaningless words.
It was a quote someone had spoken to her in passing as she traveled the world of her past life, and at the time she didn't really understand it. Now, as she's given no choice but to stare up into space, looking through the lenses, and living the experiences of a newborn child, she thinks she understands it better now than she ever could've back then.
She sits and stares, and even as she hears the bellowing noises of her new everyday life, they're dulled, just as easily overtaken by the deafening silence of her mind.
This silence has always been their drowning, but never deafening, dampening the sounds to a mere hum in the background.
But today the silence feels different to her; its usual presence a tad stronger and somehow a tad louder.
It's persistent, never fleeting. It dulls out even the quiet of her own thoughts. This silence is like a thunderous wave, an ever-flowing current constantly moving; if she had to describe it, she'd call it strong; she'd call it patient; she calls it sentient.
Because today it felt like a separate being from herself.
It echoes her thoughts in a way she didn't think possible, dulling them before they drift into something that would cause her to spiral into a type of dissociation she had become entranced with over the last few weeks.
It was fascinating and frightening all the same.
She listens quietly as her mother and father argue over dinner in the background. It was cute in that old married couple type of way, even though she's pretty sure her parents were in their early twenties at least. Her thoughts are disrupted when she hears a noise in the background, or at least she thinks it's the background. This noise felt louder somehow.
The noise echoes around her, growing louder as time passes until half-formed sounds form syllables, and these syllables form words.
'Find me. It whispers quietly in her ear.
'Find me where your imagination runs wild and your wildest fantasies become reality.'
'Find me...' It echoes again, growing louder and louder as it rises in octave. Her breathing became harsh, bordering on erratic, as the voice grew to a pitch that was almost deafening. She felt something drip down the side of her face as a choked gasp slipped past her lips.
She saw more than felt the shift in the air as her parents voices came to a sudden halt and the faint metallic scent of blood wafted through the air. Her vision blurs as she feels her body rise out of the crib and be cradled in that of another. She can vaguely hear the raised voices of her parents overhead as her sight grows dark and she herself is shrouded in darkness.