Silence, Silence throughout the night time, the silence is deafening, I wasn’t able to sleep the whole night even though I was so tired. Not even sounds of crickets, I kept snapping my fingers and hitting my ears just to be sure that I could still hear. As the clock struck the first hour after midnight, I said to myself to hell with it and lit up a cigarette, and walked out of the confines of the hotel. As soon as I stepped outside the hotel door I took a nice long stretch while taking in the scenery, it was the first good look I had at the town. The only source of light at that time were the stars and the full moon, aah the full moon, spreading out its light into the night-time streets of Kryo as a phoenix spreads it’s wings as it rises from the ashes. The white light of the moon reflected off the white snow created an illustrious scenery like the best of dreams, just looking at the snow-covered trees gave me a sweet taste in my mouth. The white light of the moon also spread its wings to the roads made of stone unlike the concrete roads of modern-day Europe. The fresh, cold, and pollution-free air gave the feeling of coldness in my mouth not unlike chewing mint.

The clean and cold air, the roads made of stone, and the amount of greenery present combined to give me a sense similar to traveling back to the 19th century Europe. I felt like I was standing not in a 21st century cold night time but in a medieval market full of traders, buyers, and thieves. As I took another drag of my cigarette I started walking towards the snow-covered trees on the other side of the road. Someway somehow I was enamored by the trunk of the ice-cold and impulsively touched it.

The trunk was so cold that it made a two-second gap in my memory, possibly to forget the pain, after which it felt like I have kept my hands at the base of a great fire. Having made my fingers numb I turned around to have a look at the architecture of the city. The town not unlike the trees was painted white by the moonlight. The first thing I saw was of course the hotel I was staying, so large so looming a presence that it felt like it wasn’t on the ground but floating over the whole town. It was not the only large piece of architecture the town had to offer, there was but one another building, so large you can see it from a mile away using but your naked eyes as if a castle dropped in the middle of a small town. From what I could make with my naked eyes, it felt like a church or some other place of worship maybe devoted to the gods of this country. The church or whatever it was at the other end of the town, not a large town Kryo has only a population of, fifty, two, huh that’s odd, not regarding the students that travel from nearby towns to attend the I hesitate to call it a university since it was a 2 story house at the end of the lane in which my hotel stood.

Having calmed down a bit by looking at the scenery I went back to the room and was fast asleep before I knew it.

The next morning I woke up to the silence of the night, but I was now accustomed to it like a frog becomes accustomed to slowly boiling water or like how humans become accustomed to their mortality. I got out of bed and took a shower. I thought I should go out to have breakfast and also ask around for my sister.

As I stepped out of the hotel door, I sighed, and then while looking up asked myself aloud, how am I to communicate with people who do not speak. It was at that moment I heard the first sound that wasn’t made by me. “You new here.”