Chapter 2 — What Waits in the Silence
Silence was no longer a refuge.
It had become a trap—vast, endless, too large for her to breathe inside.
Élise remained still, knees pressed against the cold stone, the chain still trembling from the foreign hand that had added the second lock.
She saw nothing—the blindfold allowed only a thick, suffocating black.
But she felt.
A presence.
Something like a breath that wasn’t hers.
The footsteps had stopped.
Worse:
they had paused deliberately.
Just long enough for her to understand she was being watched.
She didn’t dare breathe too loudly.
The tape over her mouth pulsed with each panicked inhale, amplifying the frantic hammering of her heart.
Every breath was a risk.
Every slight movement an invitation.
The whispered words from a moment earlier still echoed inside her skull:
“You chose silence.”
So she obeyed.
She became a statue.
Minutes stretched, distorted, impossible to count.
Now and then, a faint rustle of fabric drifted behind her.
Sometimes she imagined a warm breath grazing her neck—but it could have been nothing more than her fear twisting her senses.
She waited.
And the waiting devoured her.
Her legs began to shake.
Then her arms.
Her muscles tightened on instinct, trying to flee a threat that didn’t even move.
She wanted to scream, but the tape sealed everything inside.
The darkness pressed against her, heavy and alive.
She no longer knew how long she’d been there.
Real fear—deep, primitive—ran through her like a cold current.
Her body, exhausted from tension and terror, finally gave up its fragile balance.
A wave of dizziness.
A ragged breath.
Then… surrender.
Her body collapsed sideways onto the stone.
The cuffs pulled her arms back, but she didn’t fight.
She slipped into unconsciousness.
——————
The Awakening
She resurfaced slowly, into a silence that felt different—more natural.
No footsteps.
No breath in the dark.
No presence.
She moved weakly and realized, at first without believing it, that her wrists were free.
The cuffs were open.
The tape gone.
The blindfold folded neatly beside her.
And the second lock—the one she’d heard—lay open across her chest.
As if placed there on purpose.
Her heart punched against her ribs.
She jolted upright, breath tearing out of her lungs, scrambling backward until her shoulder hit the wall.
Then she grabbed everything she could—her phone, her lamp, her keys—without even checking if she missed something.
And she ran.
Through the forest, stumbling, nearly tripping on roots and stones, she fled like an animal chased by a shadow she refused to look at.
She didn’t stop until she saw the faint glow of the road through the trees.
Only then did her lungs finally tear in air that didn’t taste of stone and fear.
——————
Home
She slammed her door shut, locked it twice, then collapsed onto her bed without taking off her shoes.
Her muscles still trembled.
Her mind replayed the silhouette, the whisper, the added lock—then the fact it had been removed.
The ruins were still inside her skull, breathing.
Sleep swallowed her whole, heavy and dreamless.
——————
Hours Later
Light filtered through her curtains when she finally woke, disoriented.
Her body still felt trapped in the posture of the alcove.
She forced herself to empty her bag, needing the familiarity of routine—coiling rope, refolding the blindfold.
An attempt to feel normal.
But something slid out from the bottom of the bag and fell to the floor.
A leather muzzle.
Old.
Heavy.
Solid.
With two locks already attached.
Her blood ran cold.
A small folded note was wedged beneath one of the straps.
Hands shaking, she opened it.
It contained only one sentence, written with deliberate precision:
“Do you want to choose silence again?”
And Élise no longer knew whether she should tremble…
or answer.