Thaine Hunter's childhood was a tapestry woven with threads of confusion, frustration, and a profound sense of isolation. While other children played carefree, he moved through his formative years burdened by a gift that felt more like a curse. From a young age, he saw silver lines that shimmered with beauty and complexity, the very laws of the universe woven into the fabric of his reality. Yet, as he shared his visions, the laughter and disbelief from others quickly tarnished that beauty.

When he was two, Thaine’s exuberance led him to proclaim, “Look! The lines are dancing!” His small hands would flail excitedly, gesturing at the air as if trying to catch the very essence of existence. But his parents, unsure of how to respond, exchanged nervous glances, their smiles fading.

As he reached four, the whispers began—“He’s a strange one,” they would say. “Why does he talk about those silly lines?” His peers didn’t understand, and soon, Thaine learned that sharing his visions only invited ridicule.

By the time he entered school, the laughter had turned to scorn. “He sees things that aren’t real!” the other children would shout, taunting him during recess. Thaine tried to engage with them, desperately seeking connection, but each time he mentioned the lines, they laughed louder. “You’re a weirdo!” they would jeer, and he felt a chill wash over him as he realised he was an outsider in a world where he so desperately wanted to belong.

The adults weren’t much help either. Concerned for their son, his parents took him to a series of specialists, each appointment filled with sterile waiting rooms and probing questions. “What do you see, Thaine?” the doctors would ask, their eyes filled with curiosity and, at times, pity.

“The lines are beautiful,” he would respond, his voice tinged with excitement, but their expressions shifted to confusion or concern. They jotted down notes, whispering to his parents in hushed tones. After a while, they decided he needed therapy—perhaps they thought they could “cure” him of his imaginative thoughts.

At six years old, he found himself in yet another therapist's office, a place filled with bright colours meant to be welcoming but that felt cold and intimidating instead. “Let’s talk about your lines, Thaine,” the therapist said, her voice soft yet probing.

But instead of feeling understood, he felt frustrated. “They’re not just lines! They’re how everything works!” he exclaimed, but the therapist only smiled, writing down more notes.

As the years rolled on, Thaine underwent more evaluations, and with each visit, he learned to guard his words. “I won’t mention the lines,” he told himself. “They don’t understand.” The innocence of his childhood began to fade, replaced by a growing sense of bitterness. How could they not see the beauty that surrounded them?

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By the time he was eight, the barrage of appointments had left him feeling drained. He would sit in waiting rooms, silently observing the other children who seemed carefree, their laughter echoing off the walls. He longed to join them, but the spectre of ridicule loomed large. Each time he mustered the courage to mention the lines, the response was the same: laughter, dismissal, the glances that suggested he was somehow less than them.

At school, Thaine felt the weight of his solitude more keenly than ever. While others formed friendships and played together, he sat at the edges, his sketchbook open, pencil dancing across the pages as he captured the silver lines in intricate detail. “They’re my friends,” he thought, comforted by their presence even as he learned to keep them hidden.

When he turned eleven, the therapists began to insist that he was “making progress.” They said he had become more withdrawn, but he felt differently. He was simply tired of trying to explain something that others could not understand. “Maybe it’s me,” he mused, his heart heavy with the realization that he would always be an outsider.

“Thaine, have you been talking about the lines?” his mother would ask, worry etched on her face.

“No, Mum,” he would reply, a lump forming in his throat. “I don’t want to anymore.”

The turning point came at thirteen, a pivotal age when the world began to feel more complicated. On his birthday, he sat alone in his room, surrounded by gifts that felt meaningless compared to the swirling beauty of the lines he could still see. “Happy birthday,” he muttered to himself, staring out of the window as the sun set, painting the sky in brilliant hues that reminded him of the lines.

As he drew, he felt a swell of frustration. Why couldn’t anyone else see them? Why were they so quick to dismiss something that brought him joy? Each stroke of his pencil captured not just the beauty he perceived but the weight of his loneliness—a loneliness that grew heavier with every passing day.

That evening, as he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, he made a decision. “I won’t talk about them anymore,” he whispered into the darkness, knowing full well that the lines would never truly disappear; they were woven into the very fabric of his reality. “If I don’t mention them, maybe I can ignore them.” At that moment, he felt a strange mixture of relief and sorrow. He was choosing to bury a part of himself in hopes of fitting into a world that felt increasingly foreign, a world where the beauty of the lines was met only with confusion and ridicule.

In the months that followed, Thaine adopted a mask of normalcy, swallowing his thoughts and hiding the silver lines deep within. The laughter and scorn had taken their toll, but it was the silence—the silence of those around him who could not comprehend his gift—that became the loudest sound of all.

As he walked the halls of his school, the conversations of his classmates faded into a background hum, and the bright lines that once illuminated his world dimmed to mere shadows. Thaine became a ghost, wandering through the motions of life, trying to convince himself that he was cured and that he no longer needed the lines to find beauty in existence. Yet deep down, he knew that the vibrant colours of his imagination had dimmed, leaving behind a hollow ache that would linger in the silence.