The Whispers that grew.

At first, Layla’s voice was only a whisper. A memory caught between my ribs, surfacing when I lay awake at night. But with time, the whisper grew sharper, louder, more demanding.

It started small. A suggestion that didn’t feel like mine.

That bird… it’s weak. End it.

I remember crouching in the garden, watching a sparrow with a broken wing. My hands trembled as I picked up a stone, my heart begging me not to listen. But her voice hissed, insistent, until I obeyed. The crack of the stone still echoes in me, and the way my chest tightened afterward — not with horror, but with a strange, dizzying release.

Layla praised me. You’re stronger now, Amira. You did what had to be done.

No one else heard her, no one else saw. And so no one else knew when the whispers began to push harder.

At school, it was easy to smile and act the part of the quiet, good girl. Until the day another student shoved me in the hallway and Layla screamed inside my head: Don’t let them push you. Push back harder.

The fight that followed wasn’t like the ones children usually have. It was sharp, brutal, and I didn’t stop even when teachers pulled me away. Their horrified stares burned into me, but Layla’s laughter drowned them out.

Then came the fire.

I don’t know what I wanted that night, only that Layla told me the old shed behind our house deserved to burn. Watch how the flames dance, she said, and I did. I lit the match with shaking fingers and watched the wood catch. The fire roared into the sky, and for the first time since Layla vanished, I felt powerful. Alive.

But power has a price.

My parents began to look at me differently. They spoke less to me and more about me, behind half-closed doors, voices tight with worry and shame. “She’s not the same,” my mother whispered once, when she thought I was asleep. “It’s like she’s… someone else.”

And in a way, she was right. I wasn’t just Amira anymore.

I was Amira — and Layla.

By the time we moved to another city, I had already learned how to keep people at arm’s length. New classmates found me cold, distant. Teachers said I was restless, unfocused. My parents stopped trying to understand me, and I stopped trying to let them in.

Because why should I? Layla was always there. Layla never left.

And whenever someone tried to cross the invisible line between me and her, Layla’s voice would sharpen into a blade: Don’t let them in. They’ll leave you too.

So I listened. I listened until her whispers became my thoughts, until her anger became my decisions, until the girl who once ran in terror through the streets was unrecognizable — even to herself.

*I hope you people are enjoying my writing.*

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