The silence that followed Leo's confession was heavy.
The air itself felt dense, like suffocating smoke.
Leo looked at his new painting—a weary human face staring back at him.
There was a faint hint of relief on it, but it was the relief of someone who escaped a fire only to find their home reduced to ashes.
The only sound in the long corridor was our breathing.
Four people. Four paintings.
Two had revealed their truths.
Two still wore their masks.
Who was next?
Then… the little girl's hand in her original painting moved.
Slowly, it passed over mine and Leo's.
And then it stopped, pointing steadily toward Noor Akim's painting.
That terrified face… that silent scream trapped beneath layers of paint.
We all turned toward Noor.
She froze in place, as if a spine of ice had formed in her back.
Pure panic paralyzed her. Her eyes widened, and I saw her painting reflected within them.
She took a step back. Then another. Like a cornered animal.
"I… I'm sorry…"
The words came out with difficulty.
Her hand rose to her shoulder, trembling.
"No… this is too much…"
Leo, still recovering from his forced "therapy," looked at her with a complicated expression.
"Noor," he said quietly, his voice carrying a new weight. "It seems this is the only way out."
"You don't understand!"
A choked cry escaped her, filled with despair. Her whole body trembled.
"My case is different… it's not like yours! It's not sadness or weakness that can be fixed with some noble confession!"
She shook her head violently, lowering her gaze.
"It's… filth. Something that can't be said… I'll never forgive myself."
"That… doesn't make sense," Leo said, confused.
She was trapped in her own nightmare. We were just spectators.
She's afraid, I realized.
But of what?
I'll never forgive myself.
I stared at her painting—that silent scream—as if it were a ghost she knew all too well.
Guilt? … That's unexpected from someone so cheerful.
Finally, as if she realized there was no escape, she stopped retreating.
Her shoulders stopped shaking.
And in their place came… stillness.
She raised her head and looked at us with hollow eyes.
"Fine…" she whispered, her voice cold.
"You want to know? … I'll give you the truth."
---
---
One year ago…
The words left my lips like a whisper, and the stone walls of the corridor began to melt.
Leo, Adam, and Sam's faces faded away, replaced by others.
Faces I had forgotten—or rather, forced myself to forget.
I was no longer here… I was there.
---
That cold autumn… the year everything changed.
There were two kinds of silence in my life.
The silence before I used my ability—a calm silence filled with anticipation, like the still surface of a lake before a stone falls.
And the silence after—a painful silence. Not emptiness, but white noise. A ringing filled with meaningless echoes scratching against the inside of my mind.
Elena, my friend, was the only one who understood both.
We were fifteen… that age when the world is either black or white, and people are either friends or enemies.
For Elena, the whole world was an enemy.
She was like a fragile winter flower blooming in a snowstorm—painfully beautiful, yet doomed to wither.
Her pale blonde hair always lacked luster, as if it had long surrendered to the sun.
Her wide eyes carried worries far beyond her years.
Her thin body looked like it would shatter with the first strong gust of wind—as if she had never been meant for this cruel world.
She was the perfect target.
The monsters in our school didn't wear masks or carry knives.
They wore fashionable clothes, held expensive phones… and their weapons were words.
Words like broken glass—cutting deep, leaving invisible wounds that bled inside.
"Look at her hair. It's like dead straw."
"Does she even eat? She looks like a ghost."
"Why is she always so quiet? What a freak."
I heard them.
Even in its early state, my ability picked up their whispers—from across the classroom, from the end of the hallway.
I saw the looks of contempt. Heard the muffled laughter.
I felt the weight of their words falling onto Elena's hunched shoulders.
I felt anger boiling inside me—burning, helpless.
But I froze.
I just stood there, the words dying in my throat.
I was a coward.
I remember that day in the cafeteria… the noise was unbearable—a mix of laughter, shouting, and clattering dishes.
I tried to focus on my food, ignoring the headache pulsing in my temple.
Elena sat across from me, eating quietly, her shoulders slightly hunched—as if trying to make herself smaller… invisible.
But they saw her. They always saw her.
Sara passed by with her group—the most popular girl in our class.
She stopped, looked at Elena's plate with disgust.
"Oh, Elena, are you really eating that?" she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. "No wonder your skin looks… like that."
Her friends laughed.
My blood boiled. I looked at Elena—she shrank further into her seat, her face turning red.
"Leave her alone, Sara," I said quietly, barely audible.
Sara looked at me, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, look. The lawyer speaks. Why do you always defend this freak, Noor?"
I had no answer.
My mouth opened—but nothing came out.
I froze.
Sara laughed again and walked away.
That night, on the rooftop of our apartment building, under the dim orange city lights, Elena was drawing in her sketchbook.
She drew fantasy worlds, strange creatures, castles in the sky.
It was her escape.
That sketchbook was her shield, her soul… the only place where no one could hurt her.
"Why didn't you say something stronger?" she asked softly, without looking up.
"I didn't know what to say," I admitted, shame burning inside me.
"You're always like this," she said, and this time there was disappointment in her voice.
"You see everything, Noor… but you don't really look."
The cruelty escalated.
It wasn't just words anymore. It became actions.
They started taking her things… spilling drinks on her books "by accident."
And on the worst day—the day something inside her broke forever—they stole her sketchbook.
She came to me crying… truly crying, for the first time in years.
Real tears. Hot tears.
"They took it, Noor… it was a gift from my little brother."
In that moment, anger overcame my fear.
"I'll find it," I said firmly.
"I'll use my ability."
Back then, my power had just awakened. It wasn't stable.
"No," she said, grabbing my arm. "It hurts you."
"I don't care!"
I closed my eyes and summoned the curse.
Pain exploded in my head.
"Agh—!" I covered my mouth.
White noise. A sharp ringing… but I ignored it.
I searched for the echo of paper… the echo of pencils.
And in the end, I found it.
Behind the gym.
Thrown into a puddle of mud beside trash bins.
When I brought it back, it was torn.
Its pages soaked with mud and dirty water.
Her drawings… her worlds… bleeding into faded colors.
She looked at it. Then at me.
There was no gratitude in her eyes.
Only… a faint smile.
That day, Elena realized that even her beautiful world could be defiled and thrown away so easily.
From that day on, she stopped drawing.
And the light in her eyes began to fade.
I watched her disappear, day by day.
The shadows under her eyes grew darker.
I thought about using my ability again…
To "see" what was happening in her home.
To "hear" what her mother said…
But I didn't.
I was afraid. Afraid of what I might find.
Her parents were separated. She lived with her mother.
And I already knew what her mother did…
She was a prostitute.
"It's just a phase," I lied to myself.
She'll get through it.
I chose my comfort over her pain.
That was my first betrayal.
Then came that night.
Her voice on the phone… eerily calm.
"I'm going somewhere I can rest… just for a bit."
Beep… beep.
The line went dead.
And a piece of my soul died with it.
Panic froze my limbs.
I closed my eyes and summoned the curse with everything I had.
The pain was explosive… it felt like something was tearing inside my skull.
The taste of blood and electricity filled my mouth.
The world disappeared.
There was only a raging ocean of screaming echoes.
"Where are you… please…"
I pushed my ability across the city, ignoring my body's screams.
Then I caught two signals… two separate echoes.
The first: from the rooftop of an abandoned textile building.
Sharp. Cold. Terrifyingly clean.
I felt the wind howling through emptiness… the hard concrete beneath my feet.
The second: from an old bus station by the highway.
Chaotic. Filled with engine noise. Faint and distorted… but possible.
Where would she go? … Why would she go to an abandoned rooftop?
I looked at the two choices in my mind.
And I made my decision.
I chose myself.
She'll definitely go to the station… maybe shopping…
A lie formed on my lips.
A poison I chose to spit to save myself.
"She's at the bus station!" I told Elena's mother over the phone, my voice terrifyingly steady.
"I'm sure… I saw her…"
I sat in the darkness of my room as the pain in my head slowly faded.
I felt relief.
A filthy, sticky relief… but relief nonetheless.
An hour later, my phone rang.
A police officer's voice—cold and formal.
"We found her… she jumped from the abandoned textile building."
Silence.
"It was too late."
In that moment, I didn't cry.
I didn't scream.
Something inside me froze… and went silent forever.
The scream that should have escaped me… remained trapped in my throat.
And it has stayed there… ever since.
---
---
---
The silence that followed Noor's story was different.
It wasn't anticipation or fear.
It was thick… sticky… saturated with the stench of a year-old sin.
Even the air in the corridor felt rotten.
Noor opened her eyes. She was no longer the shy girl trying to help.
She was something else…
A witness to her own crime.
A judge.
An executioner.
There were no tears.
Only coldness.
She looked at Leo.
The humanity that had returned to his face after his confession… hardened again.
It wasn't blame in his eyes.
It was… understanding.
Everyone's hell here was deeper and filthier than imagined.
Even Sam—always silent like a statue—seemed slightly shaken, his eyes widening just a bit.
I felt no anger.
No disgust.
Only something closer to… cold, repulsive understanding.
She chose herself, I thought.
At the moment of choosing between her pain and her friend's life… she chose to stop her own pain.
And honestly… who wouldn't?
Heroism is something we read about in stories.
In reality, we're just selfish animals desperately trying to reduce our suffering.
Noor wasn't a monster…
She was just… disappointingly human.
She stared at us, her gaze sharp like shards of glass.
"I'm not afraid of this place. I'm afraid of the day I'll have to choose again… because I know I'll always choose myself. I'll always choose to be a coward."
At that moment… the scream in her painting was no longer silent.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH—!!!"
For a split second, a real scream echoed through the corridor—pure despair, filled with self-loathing, shaking the air itself.
I felt it in my bones.
Then… the painting changed.
The terrified face disappeared.
The scream faded.
In its place, a new image appeared.
A girl standing in darkness, her hands clamped tightly over her ears—not to block sound from entering, but to keep the truth from escaping.
Around her were faint shadows—echoes of places and people—but she turned her back on them all.
It wasn't a painting of a hero or a villain.
It was a painting of someone broken… living with the consequences of a single choice.
No one spoke.
What could be said? "I'm sorry"? "I understand"?
Every word felt cheap and hollow in the face of such an ugly truth.
We all turned toward the little girl's painting—the silent witness to our confessions.
Her hand moved one last time in this round of psychological torment.
Slowly… it pointed toward the final remaining painting.
Sam Owens' painting.
That calm, cold face that looked like a frozen lake.
But now, fine cracks had begun to spread across it… as if the ice was about to shatter.
Sam turned slowly, as if the movement itself hurt.
He looked at his painting… then at us.
And for the first time since we entered this floor… I saw something in his eyes.
Not fear.
Not despair.
But… acceptance.
The acceptance of someone who had been waiting for his turn all along.