The boy was accustomed to loud noises, the sound of voices in the background to be specific, yes, the loud yelling and screaming from his father’s favorite horror movies, the bickering and bothering of his mother’s friends when they gathered at his home, there was also the voices of his parents bantering. These voices stimulated the boy’s mind, made him feel safe knowing he was surrounded by others, even if he bitterly hated them. It was ironic at its best, he couldn't help but abhor what he thought as “trash”, but he needed them for his own peace of mind, it was a symbiotic relationship only he knew about. All he had to do was act like the miraculous golden boy everyone saw him as and they stayed around.

Complete and utter silence is one of his grandest fears, next being the absence of light, being trapped somewhere deep and dark. It weighed so heavily on his psyche, that at night that he leaves the TV on at a low volume as he sleeps,or otherwise spend the entire night fighting his wild hallucinations, never truly going to sleep.

On June 20, the boy had turned 12, and the pitiful thing had to spend his day surrounded by friends and family. His parents had planned a surprise party, to his annoyance. But yet again for the 12th time, he played his part to keep his lovely noise-makers around, at the very least there were plenty of presents to open, his parents even spoiled him with the fountain pen he’s wanted for ages. Because of this, those 3 hours seemed to whisk right by, the day finally smoothed over into night. He flipped on his Tv and lowered the volume, then he put on his pajamas and tucked himself into bed. His mother ended his night with a kiss on his forehead. Normal, all of this was normal routine for him, but this would be the calm before the storm, the last normal night the lad would ever have….

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He woke up the next morning at 9 in the afternoon, much later than usual, and the only thing that greeted him was the Sound Of Silence. Pure nothingness smacked him in the face, not even the sound of traffic outside was non-existent, the pure black screen of his TV caused his skin to crawl, his heart to drop to the depths of his stomach. He panicked with the remote to turn it on to no avail, even the buttons on the appliance itself did nothing, they didn’t even make that satisfying *click* sound anymore.

The boy ran out of his room, on the old splintery wooden floor that would usually *creak*, he searched the house, in every nook and cranny, to find his parents and found no one, vacant of everyone except him, he was alone in the silence, with nothing to comfort him, his anxiety only built up more, more, and more. Faster, faster, and faster his heart beat went, he had started to hyperventilate and fell to the ground, of course with no sound. As the light from his vision began to fade, he began to tear up and thought, “How”?

His consciousness slowly returned, he rose from the floor to see the sunset gleaming from his window, glaring into his face. It would be night soon….