Chapter 21 I Can Finally Hear

• [Narrator's POV]
• Samantha had always known silence. It wasn’t the kind of silence that people experience in a quiet room or a secluded forest, but a silence that filled every waking moment of her life. Born with a congenital condition that left her completely deaf, the world around her was a place of muted visuals and silent gestures. Yet, despite this, she never felt handicapped. Her hands spoke for her, and her eyes listened. She had learned to live with the silence, to embrace it as her own world.
• But there was always something missing—a yearning to experience the world in a way she never could. The vibrations of the bass in a song, the subtle rustle of leaves in the wind, the laughter of children playing in the park—these were all mysteries to her. Sometimes, she would close her eyes and imagine what those sounds might be like. Would they be soft and soothing, or loud and jarring? She often wondered what it would be like to hear her mother’s voice, or the sound of her own laughter.