Dead Silence

I can’t tell you how long I’ve been here. Time doesn’t tick for the dead, and in the black silence of the grave, one day seeps into the next, uncounted, unmarked. Sometimes, I imagine the seasons passing above, leaves scattering across the earth in autumn, rain pattering in the spring. But those thoughts are remnants of my old life, a life that slipped away without warning, without any proper ending.

It’s strange what you remember when you’re nothing more than a body buried in the ground. The things that seemed so important have faded, and in their place are flashes – a familiar laugh, the soft brush of sunlight on my skin, the sound of my name. The fragments shift, restless, like pieces of a story only I can tell but will never speak.

I suppose, if I’m honest, I didn’t expect to be here so soon. I’d always imagined I’d live long enough to see my hair turn gray and my hands grow wrinkled with age. I never thought I’d leave the world in the cold, sudden way I did – without a goodbye, without a last word. The memory of my death lingers, as sharp and unwelcome as the moment it happened.

I was standing on the balcony that overlooked the garden. I liked to stand there in the mornings, watching the sun rise, a cup of tea warming my hands. That day was no different, or so I thought. But when I reached for the railing, I felt a hard shove from behind. My body pitched forward, and in a sickening instant, I was falling. The ground rushed up to meet me, and then – nothing. Only darkness.

I replay that memory over and over in my mind, the final moment before I tumbled into the abyss. Who did it? That question haunts me as much as anything else. My family was all I had, but there were cracks in the foundation, fissures I’d tried to ignore. I think of my husband, Victor, always busy, always distracted. He was the last one I’d seen that morning, though we hadn’t exchanged more than a few words. He’d been distant lately, buried in work, slipping out early, returning late, and I’d grown used to the quiet that settled over the house in his absence.

Then there’s my sister, Julia, who moved in after our mother passed. Julia and I were close once – we shared everything when we were young, secrets whispered late at night, laughter under the stars. But something changed after she moved in. There were arguments, silences that grew cold and heavy, a shadow that passed over her face when she thought I wasn’t looking. She seemed different toward the end, almost… detached.

It could have been any of them. That’s the truth that gnaws at me here in the earth, like a worm burrowing through the fabric of my memory. I sift through the possibilities, searching for answers in the fragmented memories of my final days. I try to recall each interaction, every word exchanged, every look, searching for the truth hidden in their faces. But the longer I lie here, the more the memories blur, slipping from my grasp like sand through my fingers.

The strange thing is, though I can’t see or feel as I once did, I know when people visit my grave. I feel their presence like faint tremors, a shifting in the stillness that calls to something deep within me. My daughter, Claire, comes often. I can sense her near, her footsteps light but hesitant, as if she’s afraid of disturbing me. She’s young, too young to lose her mother, and I ache to comfort her, to tell her I’m still here. But she’s alone in her grief, and my silence is an empty void.

She cries sometimes, her soft sobs muffled by the earth that lies between us. I try to reach her, to wrap her in the warmth of my memory, but my love is a ghostly thing now, a whisper that cannot be heard. She brings flowers, fresh and fragrant, their scent faint but familiar, a reminder of the life I once knew. And each time she leaves, I feel a piece of myself slip further away, as if my spirit fades with every tear she sheds.

Then, one day, Victor visits. I can feel him standing above me, his breath caught, as if he’s holding back some confession. My mind stirs at his presence, my anger, my desperation twisting like a current beneath the soil. If he were guilty, would he come to visit me? I wait, hoping for some sign, some word, some slip of the tongue that might reveal the truth. But he leaves without a word, his footsteps fading, leaving me to wonder if guilt weighs on him or if he’s merely paying his respects.

Days turn into nights, nights into days, and still, I am here, waiting, watching, trapped in my own confusion and regret. I begin to accept that I may never know the truth, that I’ll lie here forever, bound by the mystery of my own death. But just as that thought settles over me, something happens that changes everything.

It’s Julia. I feel her before I hear her. She stands over my grave, and there’s something different about her presence, a weight that feels almost… alive. I focus on her, feeling the stirrings of her emotions like a distant echo. She’s anxious, fidgeting, her heart racing in her chest. She doesn’t know I can sense her thoughts, her whispers in the silence.

“Oh, Anna,” she says, her voice trembling. “I didn’t mean for it to end this way.”

A chill races through me, colder than the grave that holds me. I listen, desperate to catch every word, to piece together the story that led me here.

“It was an accident,” Julia continues, her voice barely above a whisper. “I only wanted to scare you, to make you step away from the edge. But you fell, and I… I panicked. I thought they’d blame me.”

She falls silent, and for a moment, all I can feel is her guilt, heavy and suffocating. She takes a shuddering breath, her thoughts fractured and raw. I hear the words she can’t bring herself to say aloud – the fear, the shame, the grief that’s bound her as tightly as this earth binds me.

As she speaks, memories rise to the surface, memories I’d buried deep in the recesses of my mind. I remember the arguments, the tension that simmered between us like a storm waiting to break. I remember the way she looked at me, her eyes cold and calculating, her words sharp as knives. I thought it was jealousy, resentment born from years of sibling rivalry, but now I see it was something darker, something twisted and broken.

She leaves then, her footsteps fading, and I’m left with the terrible weight of her confession. Julia, my sister, the one person I thought I could trust. She didn’t mean to kill me, and yet she’s the reason I’m here, trapped in a darkness that never fades.

As the days stretch on, I begin to wonder if she’ll ever come back, if she’ll find a way to tell the truth. But something tells me she won’t. She’ll carry her guilt in silence, and I’ll carry mine, both of us bound by secrets we can never escape.

In the silence of my grave, I feel a strange sense of peace settle over me. I know now that my life was stolen from me, that my sister’s hands pushed me over the edge. But I also know that I am free, in a way that Julia will never be. Her guilt will haunt her, a shadow that clings to her like a shroud, a reminder of the life she took, the sister she betrayed.

And so I wait, listening to the world move above me, feeling the echoes of life that I can never touch. I am a silent witness, a forgotten soul. And though I am dead, my story lives on, buried deep in the shadows where no one can find it.