Cherreads

WHEN THE SILENCE TURNS DARK

misterytales
7
chs / week
The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 7 chs / week.
--
NOT RATINGS
459
Views
Synopsis
When the Silence Turns Dark – Synopsis: Mizu never fit into the noisy world around her. A quiet, artistic girl with a past full of loss, she finds solace in a hidden magical land—Elyzia—a place only introverts seem able to find. But peace never lasts. When real-world people begin invading the fantasy world with noise, garbage, and careless fun, Elyzia starts to rot. Animals get sick. The quiet ones twist into monsters. The silence turns… dark. Now, with her soul-bound cat Mimi, Mizu must protect a vanishing world. But when their bodies are mysteriously switched, everything changes. A cat trapped in a girl’s body. A girl stuck in a cat’s fur. And villains born not from evil—but heartbreak. What if the quietest voices had the loudest pain? What if paradise was only meant for those who listened?
VIEW MORE

Chapter 1 - Chapter 1:The Girl Who Sketched in Silence

Most people her age talked in noisy groups,

laughing too loud, scrolling too fast, existing in constant movement. But Mizu

Aoki?

She preferred the kind of quiet you could only hear with your heart.

Mizu was twenty years old, a college student

more in name than spirit. Her textbooks remained buried under sketchbooks and

novels. Her professors knew her as the girl who sat near the window and asked

nothing, said nothing, and vanished the moment class was over. But there was

one place she always showed up for — even if it meant bunking every lecture of

the day.

A hidden patch of land just beyond the college

gates. A place where grass grew tall, flowers bloomed freely, and animals

wandered as if no humans existed.

No signs. No benches. No garbage bins. No

selfies.

Just silence.

Most people didn't even know it was there.

Maybe it didn't want to be found. Maybe it only let in people who listened more

than they spoke.

Mizu first discovered it during her first year

of college. Everyone else had been crowding the canteen. She'd been following a

butterfly.

That's how she lived — following small, quiet

things.

Since then, she came almost every day with her

sketchbook and a book. She would lie in the grass, letting the wind flip the

pages of her latest fantasy novel while her pencil danced across paper. Her

drawings were soft, thoughtful. Sometimes, they were animals. Sometimes, they

were monsters she imagined from other worlds. And sometimes… she didn't even

realize she was drawing herself — only sadder, braver, or lonelier than she

looked in real life.

That afternoon, the sky was brushed with soft

clouds, and the air smelled like wet grass. Mizu sat cross-legged under a tree

that bent slightly toward her like it wanted to protect her.

Her fingers were smudged with graphite as she

shaded the fur of a small fox she'd seen earlier. Its eyes were too big, and

she didn't mind.

A small squirrel ran past, pausing just enough

to sniff her bag before disappearing into the bushes.

Mizu smiled faintly. "You're

welcome," she whispered, though the squirrel was already gone.

Then she heard it.

The low clink of a bell.

She turned, expecting to see another animal.

But instead, there was… nothing. Just grass and flowers and wind. And then,

right near the edge of her vision, a flicker of white moved.

She stood slowly, stepping toward it. Behind

the tree was a narrow path she'd never noticed before, half-covered by ivy. At

the very base of the path, sitting quietly and watching her, was a cat.

It wasn't just any cat.

Its fur was mostly snow white, soft and

glowing in the sunlight. But on its head was a small patch of brown, and on its

back — markings in brown and black shaped eerily like a cat curled into a ball.

A cat… with a cat on its back.

It tilted its head at her.

And the bell rang again — not from a collar,

but something around its neck that looked like a thin thread of gold, almost

invisible unless you looked closely.

Mizu crouched, her voice barely above a

whisper. "Are you lost?"

The cat didn't meow. It walked up to her and

sat down, placing its paw gently on her sketchbook as if saying, Draw me.

So she did.

That night, she stayed up late sketching the

cat again and again, its markings, its glow, its eyes — deep and endless like

they carried pieces of stars.

As the clock ticked past midnight, her fingers

stilled.

Something strange had happened while she was

drawing. Her lines weren't just lines. They felt… alive. The last sketch she

finished had a strange shimmer under the light.

She blinked. It was gone.

Maybe she was just tired.

She closed her sketchbook, placed it beside

the bed, and reached for the book she'd picked up from the old library earlier

that week — a strange, thick novel with a worn-out spine and a title that

barely made sense: Find Peace in the World.

The old woman who ran the library had looked

at her strangely when she bought it. "No one reads that anymore," she had said.

"It's just old paper."

But Mizu had felt drawn to it, the way she was

drawn to quiet paths and forgotten corners.

Now, curled in bed with her blanket pulled to

her chin, she opened the first page.

If you're holding this book, it's because the

world has already tried to steal your peace.

But don't worry. You still have time to find it.

Her eyes widened. The letters shimmered

faintly — like magic.

She kept reading.

Outside her window, the wind whispered through

the leaves.

And somewhere, in a world not quite real but

not quite imaginary either, the white cat with a cat-shaped mark on her back

watched the moon rise — waiting.

Waiting for the girl who would one day protect

the silence.

[End of Chapter 1]