The Iron Queen

The Silent Nightfall

There are sounds that a child remembers even though they don't know why. Not the obvious ones like the laughter, the music, and the gentle murmur of bedtime stories, but the quieter things. One such sound is the pause that occurs before a door closes. Another one is the hesitation in a voice that should not hesitate and the way silence changes shape, as though something unseen has stepped into the room and is waiting to be acknowledged.

Prisca Collen was eight years old the first time she noticed silence had weight. It began weeks before the night everything ended.

At first, it was small things like her father forgetting to kiss her forehead before leaving for work. Her mother, Alessia, standing too long at the kitchen window with her hands wrapped around a teacup that had long since gone cold. Their house, once filled with the predictable rhythm of order, had begun to breathe unevenly, like a body struggling to remain composed.

Colonel Frido Collen had always been a man of structure. His presence was a constant: polished boots, ironed shirts, a voice that carried certainty. When he entered a room, things aligned themselves around him. However, recently, even his confidence had started to crumble. He checked the locks twice. Then a third time.

Prisca watched him once, late in the evening, as he moved through the hallway. He pressed each lock down with deliberate force, as if expecting resistance. His movements were precise, but there was something else beneath them, something that made her small chest tighten without understanding why.

“Papa?” she had asked, standing barefoot in the doorway.

He turned sharply, too sharply, like a man pulled from deep thought into danger. Then, seeing her, his expression softened, but not completely. The tension lingered, tucked behind his eyes.

“You should be asleep,” he said.

“I had a bad dream,” she replied. He studied her for a moment longer than necessary. Then he knelt, his large hands settling gently on her shoulders.

“There are no bad dreams in this house,” he said.

It sounded like a promise. But promises, Prisca would later learn, can be made even when the speaker already knows they will be broken.

********

The arguments came next.

Not loud, was never loud. Her parents were too composed to be shouting. But there were conversations that stopped when she entered the room. Voices that dropped to whispers when they thought she was asleep.

Once, she crept down the stairs, her small feet careful against the wooden steps.

“You are overreacting,” her mother said, though her voice trembled around the edges.

“I am not,” her father replied. “You do not see what I see.”

“Then tell me,” her mother said.

After a long pause, he said. “They are everywhere now.”

Prisca did not know who they were.

She only knew the way her father’s voice sounded when he said it, low, like something being buried.

“They do not come to houses like ours,” Alessia insisted. “We are not involved in…”

“That is the point,” he interrupted. “No one is until they are.”

There was a scraping sound. A chair, perhaps.

“You need to stop this,” her mother whispered. “You are frightening me.”

“I should be frightening you,” he said.

The silence that followed was heavier than anything Prisca had known. She crept back upstairs before they could spot her. That night, she dreamt of shadows standing at the edge of her room, watching without moving.

**********

The day of the attack did not feel different. That was the cruellest part.

It was a Thursday. She remembered because Thursdays meant drawing in school, and she had spent the afternoon carefully sketching a house with a garden full of impossible flowers: blue roses and golden leaves.

When she came home, her mother smiled too quickly. Her father did not smile at all. Dinner was quiet. The clink of cutlery against plates sounded louder than usual, sharp in the stillness.

Afterwards, her father walked her upstairs himself. “Stay in your room tonight,” he said.

Prisca tilted her head. “I always do.”

His mouth twitched, as if he had almost smiled. Almost. “Even if you hear something,” he added.

That was new. “What kind of something?” she asked.

He hesitated. “Just… stay where you are.”

She nodded because he was her father, and his words had always been rules that made sense.

He kissed her forehead then, pressing his lips there a fraction longer than usual.

For a moment, his hand lingered in her hair as if memorising it.

********

Night fell without ceremony. The house settled into darkness, its familiar creaks and sighs wrapping around her like a thin blanket. Prisca lay awake longer than usual, staring at the ceiling, tracing shapes in the faint patterns of light.

She did not remember falling asleep. She remembered waking.

A sound had pulled her from dreams, not loud but strange. A disturbance in the rhythm of the house. There were voices.

She sat up slowly, her heart already beginning to beat too fast. At first, she thought it was her parents arguing again. But the tone was different. Her father’s voice was firm, but there was an edge to it she had never heard before.

And there were other unfamiliar voices.

She slipped from her bed and padded to the door, pressing her ear against the wood.

“…not leaving with anything,” her father was saying.

Another voice answered, calm and measured. “That is not your decision anymore.”

A chill crept through her. “What you are asking…” her father began.

“What we are taking,” the voice corrected.

There was a soft sound then. Not loud enough to be a struggle. More like… controlled and deliberate movement.

Her mother spoke next.

“Please,” Alessia said, and there was something in her voice that made Prisca’s stomach twist. “There is a child in this house.”

There was a brief pause.

The calm voice again, almost thoughtful this time. “We know.” The word settled like dust.

“She has nothing to do with this,” her mother continued, more urgently now. “Take whatever you came for and go.”

“We will,” the voice said.

Then there was another pause.

“And you will cooperate,” the voice added.

Her father laughed then. It was not a sound Prisca had ever heard from him. There was no warmth in it. No humour. Only mockery.

“You do not understand what you are asking for,” her father said.

“No,” the voice replied softly. “You do not understand what happens if you refuse.”

The silence that followed stretched thin, fragile as glass. Then… A sharp noise.

Not as loud as the explosions she had imagined guns would make. It was smaller and more precise, but it cut through everything.

Her breath caught.

The sound came again. Her mother cried out, a sound so raw it did not seem human. “Please…!”

Another sharp noise came again, then something fell.

Prisca stumbled back from the door, her hands flying to her ears, but it did not help. The sounds seeped through her, into her bones.

Footsteps followed, not hurried or chaotic but measured; they were approaching.

She froze.

Her father’s words echoed in her mind. Stay where you are.

The footsteps paused outside her door. For a moment, there was nothing.

Then… A soft click. The handle did not turn.

Whoever stood on the other side lingered there, silent. Listening.

Prisca did not breathe. Her heart pounded so loudly that she was certain it would betray her.

Seconds passed. Or minutes. Time lost meaning.

Then the footsteps moved on, descending and leaving.

*********

The silence afterwards was unbearable. It was not the quiet of the night. It was the absence of everything that had made the house alive.

Prisca remained where she was, her hands still pressed to her ears, even after the sounds had stopped.

Eventually, the quiet became too much. She opened her door.

The hallway stretched before her, dim and unfamiliar. She stepped out.

“Papa?” she called softly. No answer.

“Mama?” Nothing either.

The air felt different, thicker.

She moved slowly toward the stairs, each step hesitant.

When she reached the top, she stopped.

Something was wrong. She could smell it, something metallic and sharp. It filled the air, clinging to the walls.

Her small fingers tightened around the railing as she began to descend.

Halfway down, she saw it. A dark shape spreading across the floor below.

At first, her mind refused to understand what it was. Then it did. Blood.

Her breath hitched.

She took another step and another. At the bottom of the stairs, the world broke.

Her father lay near the doorway, his body unnaturally still, his uniform darkened in places it should not be.

Her mother was closer to the kitchen, her hand outstretched, as if reaching for something she could not quite grasp.

For a moment, Prisca simply stood there. The scene did not feel real. It felt like something she was watching from very far away.

“Mama?” she whispered.

Her voice sounded small and lost. She took a step forward. Her shoe touched something wet. She looked down.

The scream that tore from her throat did not sound like her own.

*************

By the time the others arrived, the house had already begun to change. Strangers filled the space where her family had been.

Men in uniforms moved with practised efficiency; their expressions were unreadable. Men in suits stood apart, speaking in low voices.

And then there were the others. The ones who did not wear uniforms or suits. They watched. Their eyes were too cold and too still.

Prisca sat on the stairs, wrapped in a blanket someone had given her, though she did not remember when.

A woman knelt beside her, speaking gently, but the words slipped past without meaning.

“…going to take care of you…”

“…everything will be alright…”

Nothing was alright, and nothing would ever be.

As they led her outside, she looked back. The house stood as it always had. Solid, familiar and unchanged. Except it wasn’t. Not anymore.

In the yard, she saw them all together. Uniforms, suits and those other men.

For a moment, their eyes met hers. One of them held her gaze. He did not look away.

His face showed no pity, no guilt, only recognition, like he knew this would happen, like he had been waiting.

Prisca felt something shift inside her then. Something small and fragile… cracking.

Even at eight years old, she understood one thing with terrifying clarity: this had not been chaos. It had been planned, decided and chosen, and someone, someone standing in that yard, knew why.

As they placed her into the waiting car, she twisted in her seat, searching for that face again.

But he was gone, or perhaps he had never been there at all.

The car door shut, and the engine started.

And as the house faded away behind her, lost in the distance and darkness, one question dug deep into her chest, sharp as glass and just as unyielding:

Who made the decision that her family had to die?

The answer had already begun to follow her, even though she didn't know it yet.