Maya learned early that silence keeps you alive. Silence at home when her father drank. Silence at school when the kids whispered about her clothes at the thrift-store. And silence in her own head when she lay awake, listening to her stomach growl.
Silence, ironically, was what brought her to the woods that night.
The library was closed, and the heat from its radiators kept her awake longer than she had intended. The sky outside had already turned the deep, bruised purple that came before total darkness. She hated walking home in the cold, but the long walk through the streets meant passing groups of boys who wanted to throw soda cans at her. It was darker to run through the trees… but safer. At least, that’s what she thought.
The air inside the woods was quiet, the kind that made your own footsteps sound too loud. She was halfway there when a faint scraping reached her ear – metal biting into the ground.
She stopped.
Another scraping. Then a dull thud. The kind a shovel makes when it hits something solid.
Maya’s first thought was to study. Who would be fixing a house at eight o’clock at night… In the middle of the woods?
She crept forward, as slowly as she could, and hid behind the rough bark of an oak. Through the bare winter branches, a circle of dim yellow light flickered. There was a flashlight on the floor, aimed at a patch of dirt.
The beam saw a man in a dark coat, hunched over, struggling with intense energy. His breaths came in sharp, visible bursts. The metallic chink of the shovel, the rumble of the disturbed earth, the sound of the cloth dragging on the ground – they all seemed deafening in the still night.
Maya’s forehead wrinkled. Something pale lay beside her. A sheet, perhaps? No… It wasn’t just clothing. It had a shape.
Her breath caught.
Two sneakered feet protruded from the bundle, angled awkwardly, the laces caked in mud. She recognized the pattern – black canvas with neon-green stripes. Leila’s shoes.
Leila had been out of school for a week.
Leila, whose missing posters were still taped to the glass doors.
Maya’s throat tightened.
The man lowered his shovel and bent to adjust the blanket, pulling it higher over her feet. The gesture revealed his face at the edge of the flashlight.
Mr. Collins.
Her history teacher.
The same Mr. Collins who smiled so much in lectures, who had once told her she was “the quiet type I like.”
She stopped, as if feeling something. Her head turned sharply.
Maya turned, pressing herself against the tree, her heart aching in her ribs. She heard its footsteps in the leaves, slow and deliberate, approaching.
Then – silence.
“Maya…”
Her name. A whisper, but carrying on the cold wind.
Her stomach dropped. How could she—
A branch snapped behind her. She spun.
Mr. Collins stood there, his face in shadow, the shovel in one hand.
“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice was low, almost calm. “But since you are… You will help me finish.”
The flashlight beam moved behind her, and briefly fell on the blanket.
And Maya saw it – the faintest movement. The shoe twitched.
Leila wasn’t dead yet.
Maya’s breathing was so heavy she almost choked. Leila was still alive.
Mr. Collins noticed her eyes pass him and turned just enough to block the view of the blanket.
“Don’t,” he warned, his voice still calm. “It’s worse for her.”
Maya’s mind screamed at her to run, but her legs felt locked in the icy ground. She forced herself to swallow, to speak.
“If she’s still alive,” she said slowly, “we need to get her to the hospital. Now.”
She gave a quick, humorless laugh.
His fingers crawled into his coat pocket, and found the small, cheap phone he carried. There was no service in the woods – but he could still record. He tapped the screen without looking, praying that it would be enough.
“Mr. Collins,” he said, forcing his voice steady, “please. Let me help you get her to a warm place. If she dies here…”t was his chance.
His eyes returned to the bundle. He saw the moment of hesitation. Tha
Maya reached over and picked up the flashlight from the ground. She gripped it tightly, and it made contact with her forearm. The shovel fell into the dirt.
Leila groaned under the blanket. Maya knelt down, and pulled the fabric away. Leila’s face was pale and soft, a bruise was blooming at her temple, but her eyes were open.
“It’s okay, it’s me,” Maya whispered, tucking one arm under her. “We’re getting out of here.”
Collins recovered quickly. He grabbed Maya’s shoulder, pulling her back.
“You think you can—”
A beam of light shot through the trees.
“Police! Drop it!”
Voices, heavy boots crunching through the leaves. Collins froze as two officers entered the clearing, guns drawn.
Maya nearly sobbed with relief. In the scuffle, her phone had slipped from her pocket – and fallen onto the narrow path she’d taken through the woods. A jogger found it, its screen still glowing with a recording app capturing Collins’ voice. He headed for the nearest road and called 100.
Fifteen minutes later, Leila was being loaded into an ambulance, an oxygen mask over her face. Maya sat next to her, holding her hand.
A detective crouched beside them.
“We need your full statement, Maya. But that recording … It’s enough to make her disappear for a long time.”
Maya nodded, too tired to speak.
As the ambulance doors closed, she peered through the gap – just in time to see Mr. Collins being pushed into the back of a patrol car, her face dried by the false charm she wore in the classroom.
For the first time in days, Maya let herself breathe. Leila was still alive. Collins had been caught. And Maya had learned something even more important than silence: sometimes, you have to make noise to survive.
ugh to make her disappear. Maya was in the same situation.