Some people say that the hardest part is the silence.

The quiet, metallic hum of nothingness as your world shatters apart; like glass, broken, discarded. Muscles loosening, heart falling to a standstill out of fear and despair; mind scrambling for an escape, but one that you know will never come to your aid. Your eyes closing, gently, but carelessly, savoring the last burst of light that seeps through their lenses, but loathing its very existence due to slyest subterfuge. Nothing left to fight for. Nothing left to care for. Nothing left to do, but wait.

It’s true that the silence is maddening. That lone type of song, void of notes, void of emotion, void of life and death combined; simply nothing. A tune that wishes it was there, and is, veiled under the masquerade of silence, but unheard by any who finds themselves lost in the planes of oblivion which are forged under its hand. A soul, wandering aimlessly in the forgotten lands that utter nothingness creates; a canvas void of paints, but something so alive and tense that we sense the beauty it holds within nonetheless of the mundane ordinariness it portrays. Silence. So bland and unremarkable that we can’t help but stop and gawk at its simplicity, and its hidden complexity.

It’s funny, actually, now that I think about it. I’ve felt that silence, the silence of the mind and body, the world nothing more than a memory, hundreds of times and over again; but it really isn’t the worst part about it all. No, the worst part, is the noise.

It comes right before the silence; right when it hits you that your life is cracked, and all that it has left to do is shatter apart. Muscles tense, heart hammering in fear, willing itself to fight against the unstoppable; mind searching relentlessly for some other way out, unknowing that there is only one option, and that it has already presented itself. Your eyes widening in shock, disbelieving, but stern, filling up the visions with watering flame, but putting them out as soon as they reach existence. No point fighting. No point caring. No point in anything, except waiting for the inevitable to coil around you and tie your hands behind your back, blade cold against your throat.

It’s deafening, the noise, the roar; the sound of the end. That blaring symphony, rich with with tunes, blistering with emotion, teeming of life and death combined; a whole universe captured in a simple, quaint melody. A melody that it is aware of existence, but dreams that it never were, for it knows that by coming, it can only give way to the utter silence that follows its climax. A simple voice trailing into the distance, anguish captured in the beauty of music, purpose obvious yet undecipherable; a painting just completed, colors so vibrant that they bleed in the fear of their own demise, so beautiful and yet so terrifying that it captures our gaze and holds it, pleading for a chance to escape. Symphony. The loquacity of the song tearing through our souls and holding on with all that it can until its fingers grow too old, too simple, too hopeless, to persevere any longer.

That’s the worst part, because then you know that there really is nothing else to do. Nothing else to fight. Nothing else to care. Nothing else, except the wait for the inevitable to saunter in and pick your limp soul up in its arms, and walk out, not a single tear shed. Not a single tune heard. Not a single sound, except the silence.

When you hear the symphony, you know that it is all over. It’s all about to end; that the silence is just a few minutes away. The relief - the torment. Just a melody away.

So you wait, because there is nothing left to do.
Until something else arrives. Something dark, but something light - something that you have never seen before, but are so familiar with. Something beautiful. Something ancient. Something terrifying. And it whispers to you, four warm words, hissing into your ear;

“Welcome to the Other.”