Isn't it funny, how no one is listening? How there are no ears to hear even the most piercing shriek of anguish?

Every night I wake from fitful slumber, with the haunting remnant of my scream hanging in the frosty moonlight.  The cold, white silence frames it for crystalline moment, then absorbs the craven sound. I cower upright, trembling in my bed. My ears ring, and my heart races as sweat freezes on my chilled body.  Slowly, I peel my hands from my tear-stained face, and force myself to breathe.

Then morning comes, and with it, a silence more deadly than midnight stillness.

Noise—blinding, overpowering noise—that drowns out thought and hope of life. Noise that seeps with every deafening hour further within the very core of my soul, bleeding away a little more of my character with every poisoned second. Noise—crushing, devouring noise—that rips me apart with greater ferocity than any form of death ever could. Noise that swallows all else, even the desperate echo of my harrowing dreams.

We are all slaves to this noise, this sickened, twisted power. Oh, some are less willing than others; but flee from it, cringe from it—it will consume all in the end. Eternal, agonized torture we will helplessly bear; and in the cold, white nights, when the burning quietude freezes our marrow, and the phantoms plague our solitude, we will scream.

And isn’t it funny, how no one is listening?