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THE DAY BEGAN WITH A CRACK—sharp and sudden, like a scream breaking the silence. I awoke with a start, my heart racing. At first, I thought it was just a nightmare, a mind trick. But no, the sound lingered, jagged and unnerving, cutting through the thick silence that had swallowed our home for far too long. I threw on a shawl and stepped cautiously into the hallway, the weight of something heavy pressing down on me.
Father stood frozen at the end of the corridor, his face a storm of fury. At his feet lay the wreckage of a mirror, its jagged shards catching the weak morning light like shards of a broken soul. Once elegant, the gilded frame hung limply in his grasp as though it had also lost its will to stand.
"What are you doing?" My voice trembled, but there was a sharpness, a demand to pierce the thick air between us.
Father's eyes shot to me, wild and unfocused. "I can't take it anymore!" he spat, his voice a raw rasp, each word clawing out of him. His finger shot toward Gregor's door. "That room, that silence—it's suffocating. It's unnatural!" His desperation was palpable, a cry for help in a world of silence.
I was drawn to the door, a heavy, unseen force pulling at me. It was more than just a room—it had transformed into a symbol, a prison of unspoken truths. The weight of it bore down on my chest, a physical manifestation of the emotional burden I carried.
“Breaking things won’t help,” I said, though my words felt like a weak attempt at something I no longer believed.
Father's grip on the frame tightened, his knuckles pale and trembling. For a moment, I thought he might throw it at the door—smash it all to pieces, as if destroying the reflection in the glass could somehow shatter the growing distance between us. But instead, he dropped the frame with a dull thud. The sound echoed in the hallway, hollow and final, as if a clock had just ticked its last second.
The more I stared, the more I realized I no longer knew who I was. The girl who played violin for hours, who dreamed of stages and music, felt like a stranger.
The silence that followed was not peaceful—it was thick and suffocating, the kind that clings to you like a storm cloud, pressing on every breath. It amplified the emotional distance between us, a void that seemed impossible to bridge.
The rest of the day unfolded in disjointed moments, jagged and fragmented.
Mother stayed in her room, the faint sound of her sobs muffled behind the door. They were not the kind of sobs that come from raw grief but from someone who has cried themselves dry, someone whose pain has become too deep to voice anymore. Her silent suffering was a testament to the depth of her pain.
Father retreated to his chair, staring into space, his hands twitching as if he could still feel the shards of the mirror embedded in his palms.
And me? I cleaned up the glass. I picked them up one shard at a time, their sharp edges biting into my gloves. Each piece caught the light, and in the fractured reflections, I saw versions of myself—distorted, blurry, unrecognizable.
The more I stared, the more I realized I no longer knew who I was. The girl who played violin for hours, who dreamed of stages and music, felt like a stranger. The woman I was becoming—lost in the dark rooms of this house, crumbling under the weight of it all—seemed trapped, her own reflection fractured and slipping through her fingers.
That evening, I went to Gregor's door with another food tray. My steps were slower than usual, as though the floorboards resented me. As always, I set the tray down carefully and called softly, "Gregor? It's me, Grete."
For weeks, I had carried on this ritual—leaving food at his door, picking it up hours later, untouched. But tonight, something was different. As I turned to go, I heard a faint creak, the sound of movement behind the door.
I froze, my heart hammering. “Gregor?” I whispered, leaning closer.
The creak stopped, and the silence returned.
I stood there, my hand hovering over the handle, but I couldn't turn it. I wanted to see Gregor, force him to speak, and prove he was still there. But the thought of what I might find, of what he had become, rooted me in place. I backed away, leaving the tray untouched.
At dinner, the tension that had been building for weeks finally exploded.
Father slammed his fist on the table, making the dishes rattle. “He’s not our son anymore,” he growled, his voice thick with fury. “Whatever is in that room—it’s not Gregor.”
“Don’t say that!” Mother cried, her face pale, her tears a silent plea. “He’s still our boy. He’s just... unwell.”
That evening, I went to Gregor's door with another food tray. My steps were slower than usual, as though the floorboards resented me. As always, I set the tray down carefully and called softly, "Gregor? It's me, Grete."
"Unwell?" Father barked, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "This isn't an illness. It's madness! And we've all been dragged into it."
The words struck like a blow to my chest, a hard knot of pain that wouldn't loosen. "You don't know that," I said, my voice quieter than I wanted but firm.
Father turned on me, his gaze sharp, cutting. “And what do you know, Grete?” he sneered. “You’ve been babying him, playing your little violin, pretending everything will fix itself if you just leave him food and wait for a miracle.”
The sting of his words hit deeper than I expected, but I refused to let him see it. “At least I’m trying,” I retorted, my voice rising. “What have you done? Yelled at him? Broken things? Pretended he doesn’t exist?”
Father’s face turned crimson. His fists clenched. The room pulsed with a tension so thick it could suffocate us all.
“Enough!” Mother’s voice broke through, trembling but resolute. “This isn’t helping. None of this is helping.”
Her words hung in the air, fragile, like a last breath, but the damage was already done. Every word, every accusation, was another crack in the delicate structure of our family. The fractures were too deep to ignore.
That night, I sat alone in the kitchen, staring at the untouched tray I had retrieved from Gregor's door. The bread was stale, the tea cold, the soup congealed—each item a cruel reminder of our failure. We couldn't reach him. We couldn't even get each other.
I picked up my violin, its strings superb beneath my fingers. Slowly, I began to play. The melody was soft at first, but soon, it became mournful, filled with everything I couldn't say. The music swelled in the kitchen, spilling into the empty spaces of the house.
When the final note faded, silence pressed down again. It was heavier than before, a weight that refused to lift.
I stared at the violin, its strings still vibrating faintly. The echoes of the melody lingered, a haunting reminder of what we had lost—not just Gregor, but each other and maybe even ourselves.
And in that silence, I understood something I had been unwilling to admit.
It wasn’t just Gregor who had changed. We all had. The realization hit me like a wave, the weight of it pressing down on my shoulders.
We all had.
We had become broken reflections of the family we once were, fractured and distorted like the shards of Father’s mirror. And no matter how much I wanted to piece us back together, some things couldn’t be fixed.
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