The Girl Who Collected Silence

Part I: The Noise of All Things

In the city of Viradis, there was a law older than any book or mayor: talk, or be forgotten.

Children learned to speak before they learned to walk. Street vendors barked louder than the bells of the ancient clocktower. Advertisements shouted from glowing windows. Words were currency; to stay silent was to starve.

But in the broken district where ivy curled through brick and forgotten doors held rust like secrets, there lived a girl who said nothing.

Her name was Nima. She collected silence.

Not in bottles or notebooks, but in moments. When rain touched roof tiles with rhythm. When a cat blinked slowly in a shaft of dust. When her breath echoed off the walls of the old library’s forbidden wing.

She listened where others shouted. And that made her dangerous.

Part II: The Collector’s Burden

People didn’t understand her. At first, they thought her mute. Then strange. Then cursed.

But Nima didn’t mind their stares. She was busy catching rare silences—what she called “still moments.” She believed they were vanishing, like fireflies under floodlight.

One day, while walking the forgotten trail behind the schoolyard, she found an old man sitting on a stone. He wore layers of sound: jingling trinkets, a whirring watch, a humming pendant. When she sat beside him, he turned his head, surprised by the quiet.

“You’re not like them,” he whispered.

She shook her head.

“They talk because they’re afraid,” he said. “Afraid if they stop, they’ll hear something real.”

She nodded. It was the longest conversation she’d had in a year.

He reached into a velvet pouch and handed her a shard of mirror. “This belonged to the first Collector,” he said. “If you want answers, find the Hollow Library.”

She didn’t speak. She only listened to the wind shift.

Part III: The Hollow Library

Nima left that night. She traveled through abandoned train lines and cloud forests, past electric borders and memory thieves. She traded lullabies for lanterns, her shoes for maps, and silence for shelter.

The Hollow Library stood atop Mount Avenya, invisible to anyone who couldn’t stop talking.

She stood before it, breath shallow. Her heart pounded loud enough to break the spell—but she stilled it with thought: This silence matters.

The door opened.

Inside, the shelves held no books. Instead, there were moments—bound in glass spheres, labeled not by title but by feeling:

“First snowfall on mother's grave.”

“Last heartbeat of a lion.”

“The silence between lovers before the apology.”

She wept.

It was here she learned the truth: Silence wasn’t empty—it was full. Full of the things words failed to hold.

She stayed for days. Maybe years. Time was silent, too.

Part IV: When Silence Spoke

The library told her there had once been many Collectors. But their silences had been stolen—by war, by industry, by screens, by need.

She was perhaps the last.

The mirror shard began to hum. She placed it on the library’s altar, and a voice—not loud, but ancient—filled the air.

“You are not here to escape noise,” it said. “You are here to remind the world of stillness.”

Nima shook. She didn’t know how.

The library answered: “Go back. Speak not louder—but truer. Be still not just to listen—but to teach others how.”

Part V: Return to Viradis

Nima returned to Viradis. The noise had grown worse. Now even dreams had ads.

But she was different now.

She stood in the park’s heart during the morning rush. Hundreds passed—phones buzzing, mouths moving. She said one word:

“Listen.”

The word was quiet—but it hit like thunder. Some turned. Some slowed. Some… stopped.

She began to sing—not a song, but a tone. Low, rising, steady. The sound of wind through leaves. The sound of memory.

And silence spread. Like ink in water.

One by one, people removed their earbuds. Their voices faded. Not out of fear, but out of awe.

Children wept. Elders smiled. Someone turned off the billboard.

Nima had reminded them what they’d forgotten: That silence wasn’t the absence of life—it was the space where life could breathe.

Epilogue: The Girl Who Gave Silence Back

Years later, people still talk in Viradis—but softer. Music plays, but not all the time. Children are taught the value of listening.

And in the center of the city, there’s a small statue of a girl holding a glass orb. If you lean close, you’ll hear nothing at all.

And that’s how you’ll know: she’s still collecting.