It started with a question neither of them asked out loud.
One afternoon, while sitting beneath the oak tree where they always met now, Luka drew a spiral on the corner of his page. He tapped it twice, then pointed to Mira's chest.
She looked at him, tilted her head slightly—then drew a matching spiral in the margin of her sketchpad.
He smiled.
They didn't need words to understand each other. Not really. What passed between them was older than language—something built from silence and shared space, from glances that lingered too long and drawings that whispered truths no one else could see.
But there were things even they hadn't said yet.
So Luka wrote one down.
What do you hear when you draw?
Mira read it, then looked away toward the horizon, where the sky met the forest like an unfinished sentence.
She flipped through her pages until she found one from last week—a drawing of a house burning, flames curling upward like questions without answers.
Then she signed slowly, deliberately:
Not sounds. Not exactly. It's like... remembering something before it happens.
Luka absorbed this, eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to translate meaning not just from her hands, but from the air between them.
He wrote again:
I don't hear music. Not the kind people play. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can feel it. Like something buried is trying to rise.
Mira studied him for a moment. Then she reached over and placed her palm gently against his chest.
A heartbeat later, she nodded.
As if she'd felt it too.
Eli watched them from a distance, arms crossed, jaw tight.
He liked watching Mira laugh—even if she never made a sound. He liked seeing her express herself without fear, without being labeled "weird" or "broken." But he also knew that silence could be dangerous.
Because silence hid things.
Like the fire.
Like the way Mira had screamed that night and no one heard her.
Like the fact that ever since she started spending time with Luka, her dreams had gotten darker.
That night, he found her standing by the window again, sketchpad clutched tightly in both hands.
"You okay?" he asked, stepping into the dim light of their apartment kitchen.
She didn't answer right away.
Finally, she turned the pad around.
The image showed a boy walking backward through time. His shadow stretched unnaturally long behind him, twisting like smoke caught in wind.
Eli frowned. "Luka?"
She nodded.
"What does it mean?"
Mira hesitated, then signed:
He remembers things he shouldn't.
Eli's stomach tightened. "Like what?"
She flipped the page and drew again—faster this time. A train station swallowed by fog. A woman in red calling a name that wasn't written anywhere on the page. A door hidden beneath roots.
Eli exhaled sharply. "This isn't just about your art anymore, is it?"
Mira shook her head.
Then she pointed to the center of the new drawing—a circle with lines radiating outward, like ripples in water.
Something's coming , she signed.
And he's part of it.
The next day, Luka brought something new.
Not a sketchbook. Not headphones.
A map.
It was old, creased, and marked with symbols neither of them recognized. He unfolded it carefully on the grass between them.
Mira leaned in, brow furrowed.
Luka tapped a spot near the edge—just past the town line, deep in the woods. Then he wrote:
This is where I woke up the first time.
She blinked.
He continued:
I don't remember arriving here. Just waking up under a tree. Like I'd been dreaming for years and forgot how to wake up.
Mira stared at him.
Then she took her pencil and circled another location—the cliffside where Eli used to take her when they were younger. The place where the wind howled like a living thing.
He followed her finger, then looked back at her.
"You've been there?" he asked.
She nodded.
Then she added a small symbol beside it—a pair of ears inside a circle.
He tilted his head. "You think something listens there?"
She gave him a look that meant don't you?
He smiled faintly. "Yeah. I guess I do."
By the end of the week, they had a plan.
Not a spoken one. Not even fully drawn.
But understood.
They would go to the cliff together.
To listen.
To remember.
To find out why silence kept pulling them toward something neither of them could name.
And somewhere in the quiet spaces between their thoughts, something waited.
Something that had been waiting a long time.