Unheard Echo

Written by Solace · Memory Fiction

Word Count: ~500   |   Reading Time: 4 minutes

They won’t find this. Or if they do, it won’t make sense to them. That’s all right. This was never meant for anyone else.

✦ Initial Sound

It started as a sound.

Faint. Rhythmic. Like water tapping through rusted pipes or a heart that had forgotten how to beat properly. I only heard it at night, in that strange blue hour when even my breath sounded wrong. It came from nowhere. No source. Just a pattern at the edge of hearing.

At first, I thought maybe it was the apartment settling, or the radiator. So I stopped listening closely — it was easier that way.

✦ Mirrors and Dreams

But then I heard it in mirrors.

Not from them. Inside them.

I’d be brushing my teeth, half-present, and the sound would start again. Muffled. Deliberate. Like someone tapping on the other side of glass. I’d stop and look, and there was only me. Blurred eyes. Skin I hadn’t really noticed in weeks.

I tried asking around. No one else heard it. No one even pretended to understand. They said I looked tired. I said nothing.

Grief does strange things. Or so I’m told. For me, it just emptied everything out. Colors, tastes, names. They passed through me without catching. I felt like I was made of netting — hollow and full of holes.

The sound got louder in dreams.

Not chasing me. Not calling me. Just there. It didn’t even want to be noticed. It just was.

In one dream, I followed it through a corridor that bent too many times. The walls were soft, like wet paper. The sound stayed ahead, leading me gently. It wasn’t urgent — just steady.

I woke up with my hands pressed against the wall.

✦ Final Realization

That day, I didn’t speak. Not from fear. Just didn’t see the point. People spoke to me like I was still someone they recognized. I nodded in the right places. But I felt like a photograph being mistaken for a person.

And it wasn’t until last night that I finally understood.

I was sitting in the bathtub, water gone cold, lights off. The sound returned. Closer than it had ever been. I didn’t move.

And then it stopped.

Not like it had ended.

Like I had let it go.

And I realized then—the sound hadn’t been following me.

I was the one who left it behind.

A part of me still calling out from wherever I had abandoned it. Maybe the moment they died. Or before. I don’t remember.

Still, it stayed there — tapping softly. Waiting for me to return.

I don’t know if I will. But at least I heard it.

At least now I know it wasn’t something haunting me.

It was something I loved.

Trying to find its way back.

Inspired by the study of sound symbolism, where certain sounds evoke emotion or memory.

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