The silence followed Ari home.
It moved with him, settled into his chest, wrapped around his thoughts like a thick blanket. For once, the world did not press inward. Sounds arrived muted, distant, manageable.
He noticed the difference immediately.
At dinner, the clatter of utensils barely registered. His parents' voices sounded far away, their conversation drifting past him without snagging on his attention.
"Ari?" his mother asked. "Did you hear me?"
"Yes," he replied calmly.
It was true. He had heard her.
He just hadn't felt it.
That night, he slept without waking.
No racing heart. No jolting half-dreams. No internal pressure building toward explosion. His body sank into rest as if it had been waiting years for permission to do so.
When he woke the next morning, the silence remained.
Ari tested it cautiously, the way one tested ice after it held your weight once. He listened for the familiar hum of agitation, the background buzz of discomfort that had always accompanied him.
There was nothing.
At school, the day passed smoothly. A chair scraped loudly behind him, and he barely flinched. Someone laughed too close, and it didn't slice into him the way it used to.
He felt… level. Balanced.
Ari's withdrawal softened slightly. He spoke when spoken to. He followed instructions without effort. Teachers exchanged relieved glances, mistaking his calm for improvement.
"That's better," one of them murmured.
Better felt accurate.
Throughout the day, Ari found his thoughts drifting back—not with horror, not with excitement—but with focus. The memory of that quiet space beyond the noise sat at the center of his mind like a solution waiting to be applied.
He didn't dwell on the animal itself. He dwelled on the after.
The silence.
That afternoon, as he walked home, the noise began to creep back in. Slowly at first—a faint buzzing behind his eyes, a tightness in his chest.
Ari noticed immediately.
He quickened his pace, breath shortening. The relief he had felt all day began to thin, unraveling at the edges.
By the time he reached his room, the pressure had returned to a low, simmering level.
Not unbearable.
Yet.
Ari sat on his bed, hands gripping the mattress, staring at the wall. He understood something with cold clarity.
The silence had not been permanent.
It was conditional. It could be accessed.
Repeated.
The realization did not thrill him. It steadied him.
For the first time, Ari felt like he understood the rules of his own body. Pressure demanded release. Release produced quiet. Quiet allowed him to exist without pain.
He did not want chaos. He wanted silence.
That night, lying in the dark, Ari felt the noise hover at the edges of his awareness, waiting. He knew it would return fully eventually. He knew the quiet would fade.
But now he also knew how to bring it back.
The thought settled into him without resistance, without fear. He turned onto his side, eyes open, breathing slow.
Next time, he would be ready.
And somewhere deep inside, beneath the returning hum of the world, a single, steady desire took shape—not to destroy, not to hurt, but to feel that silence again.
No matter what it took.