At school, the storm inside Safiyah's mind raged unchecked. The world around her felt muffled, distorted, like she was underwater, struggling to keep her head above the surface. Her classmates' laughter was nothing more than a blur of sound, a static that grated on her nerves. Their voices, once familiar and comforting, now sounded like they were coming from miles away. Words collided and twisted, their meanings lost in the haze of her thoughts. Safiyah sat at her desk, her pen poised above the blank page in front of her. The assignment for literature class was simple: Write an essay about your happiest memory. But to Safiyah, the words on the page felt like a cruel joke. Happiest memory? The question itself seemed to mock her, a reminder of something that felt so out of reach, so foreign. Around her, pens scratched across paper, the sound a steady rhythm of productivity that only amplified the stillness inside her. Samiya gripped her pen tightly, trying to force herself to write, but the words refused to come. Her hand trembled, and for a moment, she could barely feel the pen at all. She closed her eyes, hoping the memories would come. She searched her mind for any recollection of joy, of light, of a moment when she had felt safe and loved. Her thoughts drifted back to her childhood, to the days when her father would chase her around the garden, their laughter filling the air like music. She remembered the warmth of his embrace, the way he would lift her high into the air, and how, for a moment, she felt invincible. Her mother's lullabies at bedtime, soft and soothing, wrapping her in a blanket of comfort as she drifted off to sleep. But then the memories twisted, darkening like the sky before a storm. The laughter of her father faded, replaced by her uncle's face - distorted, sinister, his smile now a twisted mockery of everything she had once known.
The warmth of her mother's songs turned cold and distant, as though her voice had been swallowed by the silence that now consumed her. Safiyah set her pen down slowly, her hands shaking as she tried to blink away the tears that threatened to spill. Her chest felt tight, constricted by the weight of it all. The storm in her mind was growing louder, its roar drowning out everything else. She couldn't do this. She couldn't write about happiness when all she had known was fear and pain. That evening, as she sat in the quiet of her room, Safiyah opened her diary and poured her heart onto the pages, hoping that the ink would somehow carry away the suffocating weight inside her. "Happiness feels like a distant dream, like something I imagined but never truly had. How do you write about something you've never felt?" She stared at the words, her vision blurring as tears slid down her cheeks. The diary was a small comfort, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Still, it was all she had. All she could do was keep writing, keep searching for the words that might someday bring her peace.