The Silent Witness"

Detective Arman Qureshi never trusted silence. In his experience, silence wasn’t peace—it was a mask. Behind it, people hid guilt, fear, and sometimes… murder.

It was just after midnight when the call came in. A woman’s body had been found in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. No forced entry, no witnesses, no sound of struggle reported. The building was supposed to be deserted, yet here lay a victim—her eyes open, frozen in terror.

Arman crouched beside the corpse, the beam of his flashlight catching the pale reflection of her skin. She had no signs of injury, no blood, no strangulation marks. Almost as if the life had been drained from her silently. He whispered to himself, “Strange… even death usually makes noise.”

The forensic team arrived, combing through the place. Dust, old boxes, rusted pipes. Nothing unusual. Except—Arman’s sharp eyes caught a detail others missed. A chair placed against the far wall, facing the body. Not dusty like the rest of the furniture. Someone had been here. Someone had watched.

But there were no footprints. No fingerprints. Just… silence.

The Neighbor Who Heard Nothing

The warehouse had only one residential building nearby. Arman knocked on the door of the only tenant, an elderly man named Yusuf. His wrinkled face, lit by the dim light of a bulb, looked worn yet strangely calm.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Yusuf said firmly. “No screams, no footsteps. Nothing at all.”

Arman narrowed his eyes. “You’re the closest to the warehouse. A woman died less than fifty meters from your home. Are you telling me you didn’t hear a single sound?”

Yusuf’s lips trembled slightly before he repeated, “Nothing.”

That word bothered Arman more than if he’d claimed to hear too much. Sometimes silence was a wall, and Yusuf seemed to be hiding behind it.

The Phone With No Voice

Two days later, a breakthrough arrived. The victim’s phone was found beneath a pile of debris. The last recording on it was just one minute long. Arman played it carefully, expecting to hear screams or the killer’s voice. Instead… nothing. Absolute silence.

But Arman had learned long ago that silence had texture. He played it again and again until he caught it—faint breathing. Someone was close to the phone, holding it, perhaps realizing they were being recorded.

Then… a single sound at the end. A soft click. Like a chair scraping the floor.

Arman’s blood chilled. The chair facing the body. Someone had been watching her die.

The Trap of Silence

Determined to break through, Arman returned to Yusuf’s apartment. He noticed the old man’s hearing aid lying on the table. A thought struck him.

“Mr. Yusuf,” Arman said calmly, “you claim you heard nothing. That’s true—because you can’t hear, can you?”

The old man’s eyes flickered with panic.

Arman pressed further. “You didn’t hear screams… but you saw something. You sat there by your window, watching the warehouse. Watching her die. And you said nothing.”

The silence between them grew heavy, suffocating. Finally, Yusuf whispered, “He told me if I spoke… I’d be next.”

“Who?” Arman demanded.

But Yusuf shook his head. His silence screamed louder than any words could.

The Killer Who Loves Quiet

That night, Arman stayed near the warehouse, hiding in the shadows. He was certain the killer would return. Murderers often did—it gave them power to revisit the place where they silenced someone forever.

The city’s noises faded as the hours passed. Stray dogs barked and disappeared. Wind howled through broken glass. Then… silence.

A figure slipped into the warehouse. Dressed in black, moving with deliberate calm. He didn’t look around, didn’t hesitate. He dragged the same chair to the center of the room, facing nothing now, just an empty floor. Then he sat. Listening. Breathing. Reliving.

Arman’s heart pounded. He raised his gun but didn’t move. Instead, he waited.

The man whispered finally, his voice soft but chilling: “Silence… it tells the truth no one else can hear.”

That was enough. Arman stepped out of the shadows, gun steady. “Not tonight. Tonight, silence just betrayed you.”

The man froze, eyes wide, before trying to flee. A chase erupted through the hollow halls of the warehouse, every footstep echoing louder than gunfire. But there was no escape. Arman cornered him, pressed him to the ground, and snapped the cuffs onto his wrists.

When Silence Speaks

Back at the station, the killer refused to talk. He smiled, lips sealed, as if words were beneath him. But Arman didn’t need words anymore. He had the chair. The breathing on the phone. The silence that carried the weight of death.

Sometimes, silence isn’t absence. It’s the loudest evidence of all.

And Detective Arman knew—every quiet breath, every unspoken truth, every shadowy pause… was a scream waiting to be heard.