The farm has fallen into a silence that feels heavy and unnatural, pressing into every corner of the land. It is not peaceful quiet, but one filled with memory and loss. That silence began when my younger brother Leo changed.

Leo was once loud, impulsive, and full of restless energy, turning farm life into constant motion. Last fall, that boy vanished, replaced by someone withdrawn and fragile, speaking only in cautious murmurs as if sound itself were dangerous.

At first, we dismissed it as a phase. But his laughter disappeared, his movements grew hesitant, and the spaces he once filled with noise became painfully empty. The shift traced back to one afternoon near the woods, a day neither of us could name aloud.