I sat outside the glass sliding door and stared off into the field. My knees were curled up to my chest, and I had wrapped myself in a blanket. I was used to silence for the past couple of years. Not many people came around anymore, and the animals had changed. It was always a little bit quiet, but not like this. In a silence this quiet, you’d be able to hear your heart beat, and I couldn’t hear that either. I knew it would come back eventually, though, so I tried to enjoy it while I could. Think of the bright side.

  “What do we do about it?” Jacob leaned against the counter and stared out of the glass door. I was sitting on the bench, my back facing them. “She can’t be deaf forever, right?”

  “We would never have survived in Hartland if she didn’t have her hearing. We can't leave until she can hear again,” Phoebe sat at one of the chairs up against the counter. The snow was coming very, very soon. It was a matter of hours. I could feel it. I could even smell it in the density of the air.

  “Colt, how’re you doing?” Jacob called back to him. He was sitting on the couch with his head pressed against one of his hands. Peter and Andrew were sitting in there too, each of them not speaking a word and clearly showing signs of distress.

  “I’m alright,” He slightly turned his head to face Jacob. “You?”

  “Could be better, man. Could be better,” He walked into the living room and sat down. “I just hope Hunt has a full recovery. Amelia said his upper arm was completely snapped. It’s sick to think about,” The other nodded in agreement. “Any word on what the hell happened out there?”

  “Yeah, they’ve issued a warning on Facebook,” Breelyn said, her face glued to Andrew’s phone. She scrolled through the posts. “They’re telling everyone to stay inside and take shelter and cover. The bombers, unidentified, could come back at any time, and the snow is coming,” She turned the screen to show the images they posted from the football game. "These are pictures taken in action. There’s fucking dead people in this, what’s wrong with them?” She turned the phone off and handed it to Andrew.

  “There’s no way helicopters and bombing jets will be flying with this weather. I don’t know what they wanted from this place; maybe they were just passing through to get to somewhere bigger, but whatever it was for, they can’t come back until the snowstorm is over.” Peter spoke as if he knew a lot about planes and military patterns. Everyone suddenly turned their heads as I opened and closed the sliding glass door. I was tired, and my EMS shirt was still stained with blood. I could hear the low tones of their voices, but I had no clue what they were saying. I walked past without saying a word and went into Jacob's room to sleep.

  “I don’t know how she does it,” Emma brought her knees up to her chest. “She’s seen some terrible things. The football game is nothing compared to half of it.” They sat in silence, some of them imagining what could be worse, and others trying to push down the memories of what the "worse" actually was.

  A few of them went and sat around the table with a box of cards. The boys started to play poker, and the girls went back into Jacob’s room. They changed, washed their faces, and brushed their hair. They put themselves together however they could. It was a psychological technique that helped people gain control in a world they thought was spiraling out of their control. Controlling what you could was important, and what you couldn’t control, you had to release. I dreamed of those words my therapist told me. It’s out of my control.

  I opened my eyes and looked around. Phoebe was sitting next to the window and staring out of it. I could hear a low humming, but my ears still had a faint ringing sound. “Phoebe?” I could feel the vibration of my voice. She looked at me, clearly alert now, but I couldn’t hear what was coming out of her mouth as she spoke. A little good news for me, though, I could hear the lower tones of her voice. It sounded like a faint drum playing. The ringing was starting to get annoying, though. I waited for her mouth to stop moving to say what I needed her to know. “I can’t hear you,” I sat on the foot of the bed and rubbed my face. I looked down at the EMS shirt I was wearing. There were dark splotches on it. I took it off, and there was blood on my shirt, too, but a lot more noticeable with how light colored it was. “I need to wash this off.” I grabbed a brown and black hooded jacket lined with fuzz. The house was getting cold, so the extra warmth wouldn’t hurt if I wore a t-shirt underneath. My jeans were dirty, but not too bad. I stepped out of the room and went into the kitchen. The boys were sitting at the table and glanced up at me. Emma and Breelyn were sitting in the living room together, coloring on some papers.

  “I could say anything, and she wouldn’t be able to hear me,” Colton looked up from his cards. They watched me wet a rag and try to rub the stains out of my shirt. It wasn’t coming out. “Amelia?” He started to snap his fingers. I couldn’t tell if someone was speaking or not. The low tones of voices were mixing with the low tones of the space around me. “I could confess anything.”

  “Except all of us can hear you,” Breelyn yelled from the living room. He laughed and looked back down at his cards. It was no secret how he felt about me. He didn’t try to hide it when he was a kid, even after Jacob failed to keep him away from me. It was kind of funny. I walked out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, pushing the door behind me. I thought I shut it, but it had barely stopped right before the door frame. I took my shirt off and started to scrub it in the sink with cold water. It didn’t take me any more than five minutes to get what I could out of it before throwing it into a hamper with a bunch of dirty clothes in the corner. I changed into my shirt and jacket and walked out into the living room to join Breelyn and Emma in coloring. They handed me a sheet of the outline of a barn to color in. I enjoyed it.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I felt sort of locked inside my body as I colored. I didn’t speak at all, mostly because I wouldn’t get a response out of anyone that I could render anyway. I was deaf, and I felt mute. My thoughts were the loudest thing in my mind, other than the ringing in my ears.

  “Jacob,” Colton flipped his cards over. “I’m gonna go make a move on your cousin,” he said, got up, and patted Jacob’s back.

  “Dude, what?” Jacob turned around and watched Colton walk into the living room. Colton sat down on the floor next to us and grabbed a sheet himself, but he was writing on the back of it. He slid it over to me. “Colt, you dick!” Jacob yelled.

  How’re you feeling?

  I read his note. I looked over at him, and he stared back at me like a lost dog. I furrowed my eyebrows a bit and wrote back on the paper. I could respond out loud, but it felt like a more private conversation.

  I’m alright. My head hurts from my ears ringing all the time. I wish I were fully deaf; it's annoying. I’m sorry about Tristan. How’s Hunter?

  I slid the paper back over to him. He read it and wrote something back to me, then slid it over again. I glanced up at Breelyn and Emma. They returned glances but didn’t react. I could see Jacob staring from the table, Peter and Andrew laughing next to him. Jacob was shaking his head.

  Hunter’s going to be fine. I’ve known Tristan my whole life, and I don’t think it’s really hit me yet. When is your hearing going to come back?

  It’s slowly getting there. I hear low tones. Weird question, but do you know Ryker?

  I could see the expression on his face change. He looked up and said something to Jacob. It caught the attention of everyone in the room. “She’s asking about some guy named Ryker. Did you ever know him?” Jacob shook his head.

  “I don’t think I've ever heard his name before, unless it’s from her town? That’s weird,” Jacob got up from the kitchen table and sat on one of the couches. Colton started to write back.

  “No, he’s not. There was one that went to high school with us freshman year, but he’s not relevant?” Emma answered for them.

  I don’t know him. Why are you asking?

  He was a player. I treated him. I wanted to know if he was still alive. He was in really bad shape.

  “He was hurt, I guess,” Colton looked up from the paper. “Really badly hurt. She thinks he might be dead.” Jacob brought his hand up to his forehead and sighed.

  “I hope he’s still kicking. The poor kid didn’t have a chance; he was right in the blast zone.”

  “I could tell,” I replied to Jacob. There was no reaction around the room as we started to color again, but then I heard a gasp. A gasp from me. “I heard you!”

  “Oh shit, no way?” Peter stood up.

  “Yes way!” I could hear it faintly out of one of my ears, but it was well enough to tell who was speaking. “Thank God,” I reached my hand up to my ear and suctioned my palm to it a few times. It didn’t get any better, but it was worth a shot. “I’ve never been so happy to hear your grating voices,” I looked outside. I could hear the wind against the side of the house. It was a great sound. I turned back and saw one of them speaking, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying. “You’ll have to speak louder than that, I'm still mostly deaf.”

  “Just testing it out,” Emma laughed. “When are we going to bed, anyway? It’s the middle of the night.” I had forgotten about the time altogether. Without a routine, it was hard to keep it straight.

  “A storm’s coming, we’re going to need supplies from town. You guys can stay here and insulate the cracks and doors of the house.” Jacob got up, dug through a closet, and started to throw out a bunch of pre-cut foam. Most were in the shapes of triangles. “Every door other than the front one needs to be sealed. The basement can stay open, too. It actually stays kind of warm down there,” He started to toss the foam towards us. We caught the first few, but we only had so many hands. We stepped back and let it pile up in front of us. “We’re going to get a bunch of food and entertainment. Sounds like the essentials, yeah?” I shook my head and laughed.

  “Grab a dog while you’re at it. This is about to be the most boring week of our lives.” I picked up a few foam pieces from the ground.

  “Hell, it’ll be more than a week. See you in a few,” all of the guys filed out of the door and locked it behind them. I looked down at the foam in front of us and the box full of paste Jacob had stored up in this box. Now I knew why the bottoms of the walls were peeled from the paint.

  “This is going to take hours,” Breelyn leaned down and grabbed a few pieces. She took a flat tool next to the paste. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Wipe it in the paste and smooth it on the edges,” I grabbed another tool and started to slap it onto the triangles, then pressed it against the wall. I let go after a couple of seconds, and it came right off. I pressed on it again, held it for thirty, then it finally stuck. This really was going to take forever. "I'm going to need three minutes to talk about it before it eats me alive, then I never want to say his name again," Breelyn spared me a strange look.

  "What?" I looked over at her.

  "Tristan." A silence fell over the room. "He was buried under the rubble, and I had his hand, then he just... died." I turned back to the wall and started to glue in another piece. "I remember one time we all went driving around looking for houses. He was the only one with the guts to climb up onto the roof with me. The smile he gave me when he beat me to the top," I started to crack up. "It was crooked." Emma laughed for me, too. "It's horrible. This feeling is eating me alive," I could hear the sound of the battery-powered clock above me. It was ticking very loudly. "And that's my three minutes." I let the room fill up with silence. I wouldn't speak his name anymore. If I did, I wouldn't make it out in one piece.