The Silence
Chapter 1: The Silence
June 3, 2026
I woke up at exactly eight in the morning.
For a few seconds, everything seemed normal. Sunlight slipped through the gap in my curtains and stretched across the ceiling. My phone rested on the bedside table, and my backpack lay in the corner where I had thrown it the previous night. Everything was exactly where it should have been.
Yet something felt wrong.
I frowned and lay still, trying to figure out what was bothering me. Then I noticed it.
Silence.
Not the peaceful silence of an early morning or the comfortable quiet of a lazy weekend. This silence felt different. Heavy. Unnatural.
Every morning, I woke up to noise. There was always something—cars honking outside my apartment building, motorcycles speeding down the road, vendors shouting to attract customers, children laughing, people talking, or my neighbors arguing through the walls. The city never truly slept.
Today, I couldn't hear any of it.
I sat up slowly and listened again.
Nothing.
No traffic.
No voices.
No distant sounds.
It felt as if someone had muted the entire world.
A strange chill crawled up my spine. I reached for my phone and checked the time.
8:00 AM.
Maybe it was still too early.
The thought sounded ridiculous the moment it crossed my mind. This city was never this quiet.
I swung my legs off the bed and stood up. The floor felt cold beneath my feet as I walked into the living room.
"Mom?"
No answer.
I looked around. The television was off. The kitchen lights were off. There was no smell of breakfast and no sound of dishes clinking together.
"Mom?" I called again.
Still nothing.
I checked her room.
Empty.
I frowned. Maybe she had gone shopping.
But she always told me before leaving.
Always.
I pulled out my phone and called her. The ringtone echoed in my ear.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
No answer.
I hung up and called again.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Still nothing.
A knot slowly formed in my stomach.
Mom never ignored my calls.
I walked toward the window and pulled the curtain aside.
The moment I looked outside, I froze.
The road below my apartment was completely empty.
Not a single moving vehicle.
Not a single person.
Cars stood parked exactly where they had been left. A bicycle lay on its side near the corner of the street. The grocery store across the road was closed, its shutter halfway down.
Even the stray dogs were gone.
The entire street looked frozen, like a photograph someone had forgotten to bring back to life.
"What...?" I whispered.
I pressed my hand against the glass and kept staring.
Nothing moved.
Not even a shadow.
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
I stepped away from the window, grabbed my keys, and rushed outside. I didn't even bother changing clothes properly.
The hallway was empty.
I knocked on my neighbor's door.
"Mr. Sharma?"
No answer.
I knocked harder.
Nothing.
I tried the next apartment.
And the next.
And the one after that.
Silence.
My breathing grew faster.
I ran down the stairs, nearly stumbling on the last few steps. When I reached the ground floor, I pushed open the main entrance and stepped onto the street
The silence hit me like a wall.
No engines.
No voices.
No footsteps.
I slowly turned in a circle.
Apartment buildings surrounded me on every side. Hundreds of windows looked down at me. Hundreds of homes.
And not a single sign of life.
My heartbeat became painfully loud. I could hear every breath I took and every beat of my heart.
Suddenly, I felt very small.
Very alone.
"Hello?" I shouted.
My voice echoed through the empty street and faded away.
Nobody answered.
I shouted again.
"HELLO?!"
Nothing.
No door opened.
No window moved.
No voice called back.
Just silence.
I stood in the middle of the road, staring at a city that should have been alive.
And for the first time, a terrifying thought entered my mind.
Where had everyone gone?
