Fiction

The Woman Who Was Taken

A Story of Loss, Silence, and the Unspoken Bonds That Bind Us

Created with the assistance of MidJourney

The gray stone walls of the nursing home, worn down by time, stretched endlessly in every direction. A lone woman sat huddled in the corner, her frail form barely noticeable against the backdrop of faded bricks. The shadows clung to her like old memories, thinning her figure to the point of insignificance. Was it the weight of the years that had carved her out of existence, or was it the darkness of the world that had swallowed her whole?

Her eyes, vacant and distant, were fixed on the sky above, though her gaze seemed to pierce through the clouds, through time itself. She looked like someone who had lived countless lifetimes, each more painful than the last. Her cracked, weathered hands rested on her knees, unmoving. When the wind stirred, the faint rustle of her hospital gown was the only sound in the stillness. The soft, gray-striped fabric fluttered slightly, like the last remnants of a life now long past.

It had been more than a decade since I last saw her. Back then, I had been a child, but now, here she was again, at the same nursing home, reduced to a figure of silence and sorrow.

She wasn’t from my village — not originally. But she had lived in the Li family compound for a time…