Chapter 6: Echoes Beneath the Surface

They say silence speaks louder than words. But sometimes… silence just echoes the things you're trying to forget.

It had been two weeks since the art exhibition. My drawing — that half-submerged boy — still stared back at me from the classroom wall. People saw it as talent. But to me, it was a wound in pencil strokes. I had drawn what I couldn't explain.

Since that day, I'd been… different.

Not louder. Not stronger. But present. Awake.

Kaiya noticed.

"Do you still hear the noise?" she asked once as we sat on the school terrace, watching clouds tumble in slow motion.

I didn't answer immediately. My fingers toyed with the hem of my shirt. "Yeah," I finally said. "But now, I'm trying to understand it."

That's when she pulled out a tattered notebook from her bag and placed it on my lap. Its cover was weathered, edges curled, and pages inked with sketches, formulas, half-written thoughts — chaos, but organized.

"My journal," she said. "From when I was… quieter."

I opened it. Every page was a storm. But there was a pattern. She had poured herself onto these pages to survive — not just thrive.

"It helped me. Maybe it can help you," she whispered.

That night, I began my own.

I started with rage. Scribbles. Questions. A confession: I don't know who I am.

But each night, my words became clearer. I was building a staircase from my own ruins.

I began waking earlier. Running until the ache reminded me I had a body worth fighting for. I read. Watched documentaries. Jotted thoughts that I didn't fully understand yet. And every time the voice in my head said, "You're still nothing," I would write instead: Not yet. But I will be something.

Kaiya became my anchor. She challenged my excuses. She asked hard questions and gave harder truths.

Then one day, she dropped a bomb.

"There's a national scholarship exam for underprivileged teens. They're looking for stories like yours."

I froze.

"Not sob stories," she added. "Stories that scream I didn't give up. Apply."

I said no. Then yes. Then maybe. But I filled the form.

The test was in a week. The competition was cutthroat — elite students from schools with glass elevators and English accents. I felt out of place just clicking the registration link.

But something bigger was coming.

A shadow had been circling for days. Strange messages on social media. Rumors in the hallways. Whispers of someone digging into my past — someone who didn't want me to rise.

And then… it happened.

The night before the exam, I got a message. No name. Just a screenshot.

It was my journal. Pages from it. Posted online.

Exposed.

Mocked.

Twisted.

I stared at the screen. My hands went cold. My chest clenched.

Who did this?

And more importantly…

Why now?

[End of Chapter 6]