It was a Sunday morning when Jonas spoke his first word.

He was jogging at an easy pace, listening to the sound of his breath and the soft pat of his feet hitting the pavement. The sun was beginning to peek out from the horizon, lazily ascending into the sky. The dew on the grass and plants glittered like tiny stars. The air was cool on his skin and smelled like wet grass and flowers. He passed the uniform white houses and red doors of his neighborhood, admiring the carefully trimmed bushes on their front lawns. As he neared the town square, he saw the same posters he’d been reading since he was a child.

YOUR SILENCE IS MANDATORY, read one.

WORDS ARE LIES. WORDS ARE HATRED, read another. The poster featured a strange man with a tiny mustache extending his hand over a large crowd of people. He had a strange symbol on the sleeve of his jacket—a cross, with the ends bent to form ninety degree angles. Jonas didn’t know much about the man in the picture, but he figured he wasn’t very nice.

DON’T SPEAK. FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE.

Words, Jonas knew, were the building blocks of hatred and chaos. The Devil used words to convince Adam and Eve to pluck an apple from the Tree of Knowledge.  Words could be used for insults, for lies, for propaganda. Words could be used to drive people to kill one another, to start wars. Words were a weed, sucking all the life out of Earth until it was nothing but a shriveled ball. Words were dangerous, fatal, the cancer of the human race.

Words were illegal.

He’d seen videos of what happened when people spoke. He saw the horror on their faces, heard the screams of terror, the horrible black things that scrawled across their skin the more they spoke, covering them, destroying them…

Jonas ran all the way to the edge of town, only stopping once he was halfway across the Antiquis Bridge. He placed his hands on his hips as he caught his breath, listening to the sound of rushing water beneath the bridge.

“Hey.”

Jonas nearly jumped ten feet into the air. He dropped his sweatshirt like it had burned him and whirled around, bewildered. There was no one behind him. Had he imagined it?

“Over here.”

His heart seemed to stop for a full ten seconds. No way, he thought. He slowly turned his head to peer over his shoulder again, towards the sound of the voice.

A young girl with long blonde hair sat on the silver railing of the bridge. She wore a light blue crewneck that hung off her frame, covering her hands. Her back was turned to him as she gazed across the water. Her shoulders were tense, her body strung as tight as a bow.

“I’m Eden,” the girl said, her voice soft.

Jonas’s mouth dropped open. Is she crazy? She’s breaking the law!

“I know,” Eden sighed. “Words and speaking are illegal. But I…” she trailed off, falling silent for a moment. “I’m sorry I stopped you. That was wrong of me. I just needed someone to talk to. I…I’m lonely.”

Jonas looked around him wildly. It was barely six in the morning, the sky only just beginning to turn a pinkish orange. No one was around to help him. He glanced nervously at the ground, as if it would open up and swallow him whole.

“Will you…will you speak with me?”

Jonas choked. That’s it, he thought. I’m getting out of here. Jonas turned to leave.

“Wait!” Eden cried. She grasped the railing, as if she were about to turn around. Still, she continued to face the water.

“Wait, please. Please stay.” She sounded close to tears. “Could you just, I don’t know…listen? Please.”

Jonas hesitated. Don’t do it, he scolded himself. Don’t you dare.

“Hello? Will you stay? Just for a little while. Please?”

I most certainly will not stay, Jonas thought indignantly. I’m not speaking, or even listening to you speak. This illegal. This is wrong. I’m going to turn around right now and report you to the police.

Jonas sat down.

Damn it.

He looked up at where Eden sat on the railing, flustered. I am a criminal. I am a felon. I am an idiot. But despite how many times Jonas scolded himself, he couldn’t leave Eden. She sounded like a broken toy that someone had tossed aside and forgotten. Besides, he reasoned, I can help her without speaking. Words are used to destroy, anyway. I don’t need to talk. Just hold my peace.

“Thank you,” Eden whispered.

You’re welcome.

Eden was silent for a moment. Then: “Do you ever consider speaking?”

Do you ever consider taking medication?

“It’s like the whole world is on mute,” she continued. “We’re always told that words are nothing but hate and lies, and that words will kill the human race. But what if we’ve got it all wrong? What if words were powerful? What if words can be good, too?”

Eden suddenly stood up and balanced on the railing, her toes hanging off the edge of the bridge. She curled her hands into fists at her sides.

What the hell are you doing?

Jonas rose to his feet, inching his way towards Eden. Get down from there!

“They say that speaking and using words is monstrous.” The wind began to blow Eden’s hair around her frame like a whip. “So that…that makes me a monster, doesn’t it?”

Eden began to sway like a tree in a hurricane. Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall.

Don’t jump.

Jonas was an arm’s length away from Eden. Before he could grab her, Eden turned to face him. “Am I a monster?” she repeated.

Jonas sucked in air through his teeth. Black words were written across Eden’s skin like tattoos, covering every inch of her. They were on her forehead, her cheeks, her neck. Just like the people in the videos, he remembered.

“Look at me.” Eden held up her arm. Jonas watched, horrified, as the same phrase scrawled across her skin like pen on paper. “This is my punishment. Every time I speak, whatever I said appears on my skin. Everyone will know what I am now. I’m a liar. A bully. A terrorist. A monster.” Each word she spoke materialized on her skin.

“Centuries ago, when someone was standing at the edge of a bridge like this, they’d get someone to talk them down,” Eden said. “They’d use words to save their life, not end it.”

Jonas was shaking. I have to stop her. I have to say something.

No. Words will only make it worse.

Words are hate. Words destroy.

Jonas opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. What do I do?

“Please,” Eden whispered. “Please say something.”

Jonas swallowed. He looked at Eden with pleading eyes, willing her to understand what he was feeling. I can’t.

Eden looked at him for a long moment. Her face seemed to crumble, like a burning bridge finally collapsing on itself. Her shoulders sagged, her body wilting like a dying flower.

I’m sorry.

Without another word, Eden closed her eyes, tilted her chin up towards the sky, and extended her arms out on either side of her like she was going to fly.

Time slowed down.

The sun was hot on his back. His ears were ringing. His legs were numb. His throat was tight. He felt his feet leave the pavement as he lunged towards Eden, extending his hand to grab her leg, her ankle, anything.

Eden leaned backwards, her feet slowly slipping…

“No!”

Jonas slammed into the bridge’s railing, his hand still outstretched to grab Eden. He peered over the edge of the bridge, his heart in his stomach.

A young girl in a light blue crewneck was quickly approaching the surface of the water, her long blonde hair billowing behind her. Her arms were outstretched on either side of her. She looked like a falling angel. She didn’t scream. She didn’t make a sound. She fell silently.

Jonas looked away.

SLAP.

The sound of Eden’s body hitting the water was sharp, deafening. Jonas was sure someone had taken a knife and stabbed his eardrums. He felt chills run up his spine, goose bumps spreading up his arms like he had just been submerged in a bathtub full of ice. He grasped the railing to steady himself, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He closed his eyes, bile rising in his throat.

Calm down. Maybe she survived. Maybe she’s just floating there in the water below, swimming around like she’s in a pool. Just take a quick peek.

Jonas cracked open one eye and glanced at the water below.
A body was floating face-down on the surface of the water, a dark cloud surrounding it. Its long blonde hair was tangled and fanned out around the head like a halo. Even from a distance, Jonas could see the black words scrawled across Eden’s hand in the back of his mind.

With a sob, Jonas stumbled back from the railing. His heart was pounding in his chest. The world was spinning, colors blurring together like spilled paints. He lifted his trembling hands in front of his face, falling to his knees as his legs gave out.

A single black word was scrawled on the back of his right hand, right by his thumb.

NO.

Black spots danced in front of his eyes, his vision blurring with tears. I killed her.

“I killed her,” Jonas said aloud, his voice raspy from years without use. “I killed her,” he repeated, watching with grim satisfaction as the phrase crawl across his hand like a spider.
Evidence. Evidence of the crime that I have committed.

“I killed her,” he whispered.

Jonas didn’t know how much longer he sat on the bridge. He assumed it was for an hour or so, but it felt like a decade. He would pinch himself to check if he was dreaming, but he couldn’t feel his hands.

A few policemen came to take him away. He didn’t mind. He could barely understand what they were saying. His head felt like it was full of cotton. He watched from the open window of the police car as they retrieved Eden’s body from the river and placed a white sheet over it. One of her hands stuck out from underneath, the fingers curled toward her palm, a phrase printed clearly on the skin: Please say something. When one of the policemen came over to arrest him, Jonas vomited on his shoes.

He stared at the blue buttons on the policeman’s uniform as the officer reached over and pressed a button on the car. “You are required to remain silent unless questioned,” a computer-generated voice intoned from the radio. “Anything you do or say can and will be prosecuted and held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one shall be appointed to you. Knowing your rights as has been explained to you, your silence is mandatory.”

The policeman wrote a list of charges Jonas would be facing and handed it to him. Jonas had committed treason against the human race by speaking—the evidence, the words on his skin. He was charged with one account of verbal homicide in the first degree.

But they didn’t understand.

It wasn’t Jonas’s words that killed Eden.

It was his silence.