𝔖𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢

Prologue

A spring day had begun with a warm and comfortable weather, neither too hot too cold. A bud beginning its new life, unfurled one of its soft petals, slowly taking in the golden rays of the early morning sun. The pearly dews lying beautifully upon it glistened brilliantly, as if they were the materialized blessing that the new life had received from Heaven. A spring season bringing many such new lives, blessed a mortal family with a new soul, as delicate as a flower, bearing the ethereal beauty of an angel.

The child was named Claire. Living up to her name, she was an extremely cheerful child. A simple smile of her brought brimming happiness to those who witnessed it. But such was the God's will; she wasn't able to possess the blessing of bearing a voice. Nonetheless this extremely heartbreaking reality didn't impede her parents from giving all of their love to their angel whom they had received as a reply to their desperate prayers.

She had a lovely childhood. Brought up as a sheltered princess, she was never let known of sorrow nor did she know about hate. She was the very allegory of innocence. But her innocence was not able to bring her happiness later on. Her brightness faded till the point where even darkness felt pity for her.

When has this vicious world ever shown even a bit of kindness to such innocence? Growing up into an extremely elegant and gorgeous lady, if she was not the goddess of beauty in human skin, then she was nothing less as well. Possessing an aura filled with warmth and righteousness, even if she was a mute, words were being said by her every action. This beautiful princess of course had a dream prince. Though she didn't need a savior, she desired a person who was able to hear her unvoiced sound.

So one could imagine how elated she was when she found the personification of her dream prince. His name was Raven. Having a similar joyful personality, initially he got along well with Claire, blinding her eyes with a veil of illusion of her fated one. Blinded by a feeling she had never felt before, she craved for more of such a sweet emotion.

Little did she know, the person she considered her soul mate would be the very person who would offer her soul to death. Little did she know about those two-faced humans who were nothing less than the Devil itself.

Falling in love, still tasting the sweet poison, she further fell into the abyss of blind love as she took the oath to eternally bond with Raven. A few months of happy marriage added a layer to the veil of illusion blinding her eyes. Only if she had known that starting from the very first day of her marriage had the sweet poison started taking effect.

The pair of fiery red eyes of Raven that was similar to rubies having a hint of joy and warmth slowly turned into gazes filled with cold, deadly, murderous and a sadistic aura.

He first started verbally abusing her, making her mental health deteriorate since not even a single sound could come out of her throat, making her unable to deny even the most ridiculous blames that he started to put upon her unreasonably.

She often started having mental breakdowns, crying in the dark corners of her house, she felt secure as if the darkness could hide her from that monster, which surely did have a heart made of flesh but one had no way to know whether the flesh was of his own.

A crazy smile would appear on Raven's face whenever he would see her backing away from his torment in fear, wrapping her hands around herself, trying her best to survive. The pleasure he felt from those scenes gave him another horrific thought- what if he cut her flesh? Won't she look even more beautiful when covered in that dark crimson colour? Won't she become the most beautiful work he had ever made?

And thus began the physical abuse which washed away even the tiny bit of brightness left in her beautiful pair of emerald eyes. Neither was she capable of screaming nor was she able to fight back. Not a trace of liveliness was left in her. She slowly became numb to all emotions.

Not feeling the pain when she was given deep cuts with a knife, not feeling hate when she faced that monster, not feeling regret for her dreadful life, not shedding even a single drop of tear for the torment she had to swallow, she had become a figurine who was just waiting to be broken into a thousand pieces never to be recovered again.

The day had soon come when her horrible life ended. The news of her parents passing away in an accident snapped the last string left in her heart. Unable to even think properly she committed suicide in that very house which carried her dreams of a happy family. She had been enduring such unbearable agony only because she didn't want her parents who loved her more than their own life to worry about her after seeing her in such a dire state. She had refused to meet them once the physical abuse started only because of this reason.

Now she had nothing left, neither emotions nor the heart. Her soul, which once brightened the spirits of others, was now making even the darkness feel shame. Neither was there a single person to grieve for her nor was she able to find peace after death. Raven, who had found her dead body upon returning to home in the evening, grieved for her, no, not for her soul, but for the loss of his masterpiece that he had made with such great efforts. He went crazy like a child who lost his precious toy. Such insane was his grievance that he inflicted many more cuts on Claire's lifeless body before taking his own life saying- how could he live on without getting the chance to even complete his piece of work? God was so unfair to him!

Miracles don't often happen but when they do, they can be described in just one word- unbelievable. The soul of Claire, unable to find peace, attached itself to the house where she had taken her life. Her heart turned into a nightingale of the rarest colour- white.

In the daytime the house gave off an aura of liveliness and warmness making one desire to enjoy the comfortable feeling inside the house. When one would open the door, a fine-looking lady would greet with a really bright smile without saying a word. Bearing an elegance no one could match, she would welcome the person into the warmth of the house. When asked questions, she would simply stare at the person and maintain a gentle smile on her face which made the person forget about curiosity and just enjoy the peace.

Nevertheless at night, the beautiful lady would be nowhere to be found and the house would be filled in such heinous sensations that anyone who witnessed it would not be able to recover from the fear which one felt upon seeing the state of that house. A white nightingale bearing the beauty of a bird from heaven, could be seen roaming around the house while one who dared to live one night in that house would be able to feel the cry of someone in the dark corners of the house. A cry, which one knew it was there, but one can't hear it. Those who survived a night there either stopped talking or became a completely mad person. Even though the house remained silent, the silence wasn't that of a peaceful category, rather it gave off the feeling of death approaching, slowly, with an evil smile on its face to consume its prey.

When one tried to hear the cry with one's heart, this sentence could be heard really distinctively-

Can you hear my unvoiced sound?