The Girl Who Only Spoke in Dreams

In the quiet valley of Miran, surrounded by mist-draped mountains and whispering trees, lived a girl named Laleh. She had never spoken a word in her waking life. Not because she wouldn’t — but because she couldn’t. The village healers said she was born with silence in her lungs and silence in her throat. Her lips moved, her eyes glowed with questions, but no sound came.

Yet every night, the villagers dreamed.

And in their dreams, they met Laleh.

In those dreamscapes — as vivid and surreal as watercolor paintings — she spoke with clarity and warmth. Her voice was soft like wind through wheat, and she told stories that made people cry, or laugh, or wake up with a sense of peace they couldn’t explain.

No one knew how or why this happened. But over time, they accepted it. Children called her "Dreamwalker." Elders claimed she was a spirit in human form. And though she walked among them in daylight as a mute, in dreams she became a messenger of feelings too big for words.

But then came the winter of fire.

It began with distant rumbles in the sky that weren’t thunder. Birds flew in the wrong direction. Strangers appeared at the edge of the forest, eyes cold and cloaked in shadows. Rumors of war drifted down from the north — the iron armies had crossed the border, burning villages to the ground.

The people of Miran didn't believe the danger would reach them. Their valley was hidden, untouched by time. They had survived floods, snowstorms, and famine. But this was different.

And Laleh knew it.

That night, as the villagers slept, she entered their dreams again — but this time, it wasn’t with stories or songs. She came weeping. Her hands were trembling. Her voice cracked with urgency.

“They are coming,” she said. “In two nights. Through the pass. They will burn everything. You must leave.”

In the dream, they saw what she saw — black flags on silver spears, fire raining from the skies, soldiers in armor with no eyes, only smoke where faces should be. They woke in sweat, gasping. Some dismissed it as a nightmare. Others felt something deeper — truth.

The village elder, Amir, gathered the people in the square.

“We have all dreamed of her,” he said. “And she has never lied.”

They looked to Laleh. She stood at the edge of the circle, silent, hands clenched. She nodded, just once.

And that was enough.

The people packed what they could. Mothers wrapped infants in wool. Fathers buried keepsakes they couldn’t carry. On the second night, just before the moon rose, they began their journey south — through the old forest, across the frost-covered plains.

They didn’t look back.

Only Laleh stayed behind.

“She is waiting,” said a child, half-asleep in her mother’s arms. “She said she must stay a little longer.”

When dawn broke, black smoke curled over the peaks behind them.

The valley of Miran was gone.

Weeks later, in the refugee camp by the river, people began to dream again. In their sleep, they saw Laleh, standing in the ashes of the village with bare feet and hair like starlight.

“I stayed to turn them away,” she said. “I stood in their dreams too.”

And then they saw it — the soldiers, curled in sleep before the attack, twitching and sweating. One by one, they dropped their weapons. Some cried. Some screamed. One shouted, “Leave that place! The girl walks the fire!”

Whatever she had done, whatever she had shown them — it had worked. Most of the army turned away. Only a few came forward. And Laleh had faced them alone.

“I am not afraid,” she whispered in their dreams. “Because my voice will always find you.”

And so, she did.

Even now, long after peace returned, the people of Miran — scattered across the land — still hear her in their dreams. A gentle whisper during storms. A warning when danger stirs. A lullaby when hearts are heavy.

They no longer call her mute.

They call her the Voice of Dreams.

And when children ask if she is still alive, the elders simply say:

“She walks where silence lives. And speaks where truth is most needed.”