The Lanterns of Silent Hill

Every evening at dusk, the children of Silent Hill lit paper lanterns and released the into the sky. No one remembered when the tradition began - only that it always had been. The villagers said the lanterns were wishes, floating into the heavens. The old ones said they were apologies.

Nia, barely twelve, lit hers with a trembling hand. She had no wish. Only questions.

"Why do we light them, really?" she asked her grandmother, who only replied, "Because they didn't have a voice."

No one spoke about the time before the lanterns. The town library had no history books older then fifty years. The forest at the hill's base was overgrown, off-limits. But Nia dreamed of forgotten things - broken swings, a boy's laughter, a wall with names scratched in chalk.

One night, she didn't release her lantern. She followed the flickering trail of others, deep into the trees.

There, in a clearing choked by ivy and silence, she found the truth: rusted school desks, half-buried shoes, and a single stone monument with no names - just a word:

Nia returned home without her lantern but with a story the silence could no longer bury.

The next evening, she lit a new kind of flame-not a lantern, but a candle. And she spoke.

This story quietly reflects on forgotten tragedies, erased histories, and the resilience of youth. it's a metaphor for marginalized voices and cultural amnesia - packaged in poetic, magical realism.