Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Chapter Four: The Boy Who Stopped Speaking

The silence started in her dream.

Amal was standing at the front of her classroom. It was a normal Tuesday morning, or at least it tried to be. The sun was streaming through the windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air like tiny, suspended stars. Twenty-three first-graders sat at their desks, their hands folded, their eyes wide and expectant.

"Good morning," Amal said. Or tried to say.

Her lips moved. Her tongue shaped the familiar syllables. But no sound came out.

She frowned, clearing her throat. She tried again, louder this time. "Open your books to page ten."

Silence. Absolute, vacuum-sealed silence.

The children didn't react. They didn't giggle or whisper or look confused. They just watched her, their expressions blank, their eyes unblinking.

Panic began to rise in Amal's chest, cold and sudden. She turned to the blackboard, picking up a piece of chalk. If she couldn't speak, she would write. READ TOGETHER, she wrote in large, white letters.

But the chalk didn't make a sound against the board. There was no familiar click-clack or scratch. Just smooth, silent friction.

She turned back to the class. "Can you hear me?" she screamed, straining her vocal cords until her throat burned. "Say something! Someone say something!"

Nothing.

And then, the children began to open their mouths.

Slowly, in unison, twenty-three small jaws dropped open. But they didn't speak. They didn't scream. They just opened their mouths wider and wider, stretching the skin until it looked like it would tear.

Amal stumbled back, knocking over her desk. The heavy wooden desk hit the floor —but it didn't crash. It fell silently, as if the air itself had turned to cotton.

She looked into the children's mouths. There were no tongues. No teeth. Just darkness. Endless, empty darkness that seemed to pull at the light in the room, swallowing the sunshine, swallowing the dust motes, swallowing her.

One of the children—Noor, sitting in the front row—stood up. She pointed a small finger at Amal. She opened her mouth impossibly wide, revealing a throat that was nothing but a black hole.

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