The Loudest Minds

Chapter 1

Numb.

She felt numb.

Her lips, her tongue, her arms, her legs. Her mind. Her heart.

But her grip was tight. Her knuckles were white as she squeezed the dark neck of her violin, and her grip only tightened as the seconds slipped by. Her soul was shattered, and her mind was drifting. But her body was still far too strong. Her body was a temple.

Her mind was not.

Perhaps she could trade her voice for a stable mind. Like Ariel from the Little Mermaid. Except her sanity was at stake; not a false promise for the love of a guy she had never met. The thing was, she had already stopped speaking. So where had her sanity fled to?

Who was she kidding...she knew the real reason why she wouldn't talk. She didn't deserve her voice, or her sanity. Why should she have that freedom to speak when they could never speak again?

She could feel someone's gaze on her. Normally she would squirm, but now she simply sat there. She knew who it was. She didn't need to look.

Her best friend stared at her, straining to see around the conductor's stand. His worried eyes took in her pallid skin, dull hair, and absent expression. He took in how her white knuckles gripped her violin far, far too tight. How her other hand hung limply at her side.

His hand subconsciously tightened around the neck of his own cello. He had never seen her like this. He was about to gesture at her to get her attention when she glanced at him, her eyes dragging upwards slowly. His breath caught. It was like her soul had fled. Vanished without a trace, like bees before a storm.

His eyes never once left her for the rest of the class, for that single look had trapped him. It was like witnessing a car wreck, the kind that resulted in death and destruction. You couldn't watch, but neither could you tear your eyes away.

Little did he know, death was the only thing on her mind.