The Sound Between Silence by Bella Velasco
In a world where music vanishes, two teens rediscover sound through emotion, proving that silence still sings within the human heart.
Tip: Play this melody as you read to feel the story unfold
It started during third period. Someone’s music just… stopped. No warning, no glitch, just silence. At first, we thought it was a tech issue. Then the announcements came on, saying all music apps were down worldwide.
Instruments stopped working too. Guitars made no sound, pianos were dead, even people humming couldn’t carry a tune. Music was gone.
At first, I didn’t really care. I wasn’t into music much anyway. I didn’t play anything, and I didn’t listen to music the way other people did. I thought I’d be fine.
But later that day, something weird happened. I was walking past this old music shop, closed for years, and I heard a tune. Just a few notes, like someone tapping a piano key from far away.
I stopped and looked around, but there was no one there. I thought maybe I imagined it.
The next day, I told Sasha. She sits next to me in English and plays guitar. Well, she used to. She looked at me like I was joking.
“No one can hear music anymore,” she said. “It’s gone.”
“I heard a short tune,” I said. “It was soft, but real.”
“Hum it,” she said, crossing her arms.
So I did. Just a small melody.
Sasha froze. “That’s the lullaby my grandmother used to sing to me when I was little,” she whispered. “There’s no way you could know that.”
“I don’t,” I said. “It just came to me.”
After that, we started hanging out more. Sasha took me to quiet places. The music room, her backyard, even the woods behind school. Places where she used to write songs.
And sometimes, I’d hear little bits of music again. Not through my ears, but in my mind, like feelings turning into sound. She’d play her guitar, even though it made no noise. I’d hum the tune I heard.
It started to feel like we were making music, even if no one else could hear it.
Then something happened.
Ms. Reyes, our music teacher, walked by one day while we were practicing. She paused and said, “I felt something just now. Like a song I used to love.”
And Sasha looked at me and smiled. We figured it out. Music hadn’t disappeared. People had just stopped feeling it.
We used it for background noise, for studying, for parties, but we didn’t listen. Not really. Now, only people who felt deeply could hear it again.
Sasha and I started helping others remember their songs. Old favorites, childhood lullabies, even just sounds they missed.
Soon, little by little, people began to feel music again. Not through speakers. Through memories.
We asked to perform at a school assembly. The principal laughed.
“There’s nothing to hear,” she said.
“Let us try,” Sasha told her. “No speakers. Just us.”
The gym was packed. Sasha stood on stage with her silent guitar. I stood beside her. She started strumming, and I began to hum. Not loud. Not perfect. Just real.
And something happened.
People closed their eyes. Some smiled. Some cried. All of them felt it, the music. It was in the room again, even though there was no sound. We finished, and the gym stayed quiet for a moment.
Then someone whispered, “I heard it.”
Now, when I walk around town, I hear music again, not from phones or radios, but from people. From memories. From the heart.
Music never really left. We just stopped feeling it.