The last peice

The silence in our nest was a physical thing, heavy and suffocating. It pressed in on me, a tangible reminder of the gaping void where my family used to be. Mother gone. Father… well, father was a ghost even when he was here. Now, the nest was just a shell, echoing with the phantom sounds of laughter and arguments that would never happen again. Sleep became a luxury I couldn’t afford, a dangerous indulgence that let the fear creep in. My mind, a relentless current, churned with ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys.’ What if I’d said something? What if I’d done something differently? What if this was all my fault? The questions gnawed at me, leaving me raw and exposed, even in the dark.

School, which had once been my sanctuary, my only escape from the gnawing emptiness at home, was starting to feel like another cage. The whispers, once hushed and fleeting, now seemed to follow me down every corridor, clinging to me like a second skin. Eyes, once filled with admiration, were now sharp, dissecting, and suspicious. They saw my perfection, my effortless grace, my innate abilities, but they didn’t see the cracks beneath the surface. They didn’t see the trembling in my wings when I was alone, the way my heart hammered against my ribs at the slightest sound.

I tried to shrink. I focused all my energy, all my will, on becoming smaller, on fading into the background. I hunched my shoulders, tucked my head down, and willed myself to be invisible. I learned to move through the halls like a shadow, to speak only when spoken to, and even then, in a voice so soft it was barely a whisper. Each averted gaze, each hurried step away from me, was a tiny victory in my quest for oblivion. If they couldn’t see me, they couldn’t judge me. If they couldn’t see me, they couldn’t hurt me.