The flakes had begun to fall again as Nikolas crested the ridge, melting into his worn parka, a steady white veil swallowing the valley below, making the horizon and the sky blur into an endless sea of white. He tightened the grip on the strap of his backpack and descended, each step crunching faintly beneath his boots, but the sound was swallowed almost immediately, absorbed into the dense, heavy quiet of the snow-covered wilderness.

It was a silence like no other. It pressed in on him from all sides, wrapping around him, seeping into him. It was the absence of sound but also the presence of something more—a tangible, oppressive quiet that grew louder the deeper he ventured. For days he had walked, his destination uncertain but his purpose singular—to find something. Anything to prove he was not the last.

The world had gone quiet months ago, cities buried beneath endless drifts, voices swallowed by frost. Whatever had come gave no warning and left no explanation, only the suffocating hush and a sky incessantly shedding frozen tears. He paused at the edge of a frozen lake, each breath adding to the fog rising off the ice. He forced himself forward, the cold biting into his cheeks, his parka, though thick, doing little to shield him from the damp chill that crept into his bones.

His bizarre sense of logic dictated that he wasn’t lost. How could he be lost when he had no destination? Yet, he felt like he’d been going in circles for days, the storm muffling all sense of direction, but he felt compelled to press on. There was no going back, not to a place filled with the echoes of emptiness and the frostbitten remains of those who had not survived.

At the valley’s floor, Nikolas passed the skeletal remains of a forest, its trees bowed and splintered under the weight of ice. He stepped into the shadow of a pine tree, imagining a world where laughter and shrieks of delight once rang out as children tumbled down snowbanks and had snow fights in winter. Families out for picnics during the summer swimming and frolicking in the now frozen lake. Now, only silence remained. Silence and the ghostly echoes of a vanished world.

And that was when he heard it.

Or had he?

A sound.

Or was it?

At first he thought it was the wind, a faint whistle weaving through the pine branches. But it wasn’t—it was soft and unyielding. It thrummed like a low vibration, more felt than heard, yet it grew louder the more he tried to listen. Nikolas froze, breath catching in his chest, turning in a slow circle, scanning the trees, but there was nothing there. Just snow and the sound of silence, which seemed impossibly louder now, resonating like a deep, hollow drumbeat filling every space inside of him.

“Hello?” he called, his voice rippling through the quiet like a stone dropped into still water.

The silence responded. Louder this time. It was as if the entire world was holding its breath. Watching. Waiting. Anticipating. And the snow continued to fall.  

Nikolas stepped back, his boot sinking into the drift with a muffled crunch before he tumbled backwards, crashing into a weathered signpost partially buried under the snow. It leaned at an awkward angle, its wood cracked, paint chipped, its edges worn smooth by age, but the letters carved into it, with a knife or a nail or sharp stone, were still legible. He leaned forward, tracing the disjointed lines with a finger.

‘Do you hear it?’

Beneath it, scrawled even larger.

‘Even silence has a voice’

Then came the first note.

It was faint as a bell struck in the distance. Clear and crystalline, it hung in the air for a moment before fading. Another note followed, then another, a haunting melody, as if the air around him had found its voice. It filled the silence, not breaking it, instead becoming it. A sound so pure it swallowed up everything else.

Nikolas staggered to his feet, half stumbling forward, following the thread of sound woven in the air. It was nowhere, yet everywhere at once, vibrating through him, compelling him forward. He pushed through the trees, branches clawing at his coat, and emerged into a clearing.  

There, in the middle of the white expanse stood a figure. It was cloaked in snow, its form hazy and iridescent, like a heat mirage in the snow. It stood still, like a sentinel of light, its melody drowning out Nikolas’ thoughts. He tried to speak, but the words died in his throat.

It turned toward him—though it had no face, he felt its deep, endless gaze piercing to his core. He heard its song, it sang not in words, not in emotion. It was something primal—a song of existence, of being.

And then he understood.

The silence was alive. It was something vast and eternal. Something that had existed long before the world and would remain long after.

As suddenly as it had begun, the melody stopped. The figure dissolved into the snow, the clearing once again silent. A different kind of silence. Yes, the silence was still too loud, but now Nikolas could hear its layers. The whisper of the falling snow. The barely audible groan of the ice beneath the lake. The rustle of snow against pine tree needles. And the rhythm of his own heartbeat.

He inhaled deeply, the cold air sharp in his lungs, and exhaled slowly. For the first time in months, he felt a sense of peace. He’d witnessed something infinite and been allowed to walk away.

The storm was letting up, dark clouds thinning to reveal a pale blue sky. Nikolas turned to make his way back up the slope, his boots crunching in the snow, the sound clear and crisp against the endless, beautiful silence.