The Echoing Silence

Previously

…He picked up the stone again. It felt smooth, ordinary. But as he turned it over in his hand, he noticed a tiny, almost invisible scratch on its surface. A scratch that, in its minuscule detail, seemed to mirror the indentation within the locket. He looked from the stone to the locket, then back to Lily’s clenched hand, the one that seemed to be holding onto something unseen. A chilling suspicion began to bloom in the desolate clearing, a whisper of doubt in the face of apparent tragedy. This was no simple accident. The woods, which had held Lily’s laughter, now held a secret, and the silence that followed was more deafening than any scream.