The Roar 2024 Winter Writing Contest – Middle School Runner-Up
The clock ticked softly in the corner, the sound shattering the tainted quiet of the house. Liam sat upright in bed, his hands gripping tightly on the blanket, his knuckles whitening as the silent fury rushed to his head. His mother’s words rang in his ears, their weight crushing him heavily.
“It’s your job to protect her, Liam,” she’d said, her voice tight with sternness. “You’re mature for twelve, and she’s… she’s…” Her hesitation had spoken more than her ludicrous lies ever could. She spent quite a while searching for a word, for a word to describe Luna’s spiraling into what her mother most likely had already mentally deemed madness.
“Not.” She stated with a small sigh, as if proud of herself for the mediocre clarification she offered.
The words weren’t the ones that stung, not precisely. It was the casual way she’d treated it, the weight of meaning hidden beneath the surface of the subtle neglect she’d so ignorantly imposed on Luna.
She’s just not stable. His mother would complain.
Not normal.
Not…….not worth trying to fix. Not for me nor you, Liam.
Liam exhaled slowly, his breath misting faintly in the freezing room. It had been three years since their father’s death.
Three years since Luna—then thirteen—had withdrawn into herself.
Three years of people whispering behind her back, dismissing her as “that poor girl” at first and now as someone who simply refused to move on.
Three years since Luna had personally witnessed her father drown, powerless to do much but watch in horror.
She had never stepped foot near a body of water after that day.
Not that Liam or his mother had seen, at least.
Three whole years of Liam’s mother fabricating a new, perfect life for Liam and her.
One that never included Luna.
Even their mother had stopped trying. There was no gentleness in her tone when she mentioned Luna, no spark of hope that she might someday get better.
“She’s too old to be acting like this,” their mother had muttered once in the kitchen when she thought Liam wasn’t listening. “Sixteen and still throwing these little tantrums. She needs to grow up.”
Liam despised how easily everyone had written her off.
His sister wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t crazy. She was just… different. But usually he could explain the things she did.
Yet not this.
Every winter night for months, Luna would slip out of the house and vanish into the cold, dark forest.
“She has her own way of coping. Everyone does.” Their mother had said it more than once, but Liam still didn’t believe it. Coping people didn’t vanish into the woods every night like ghosts, didn’t return before dawn with frost on their hair and a blank, though relieved look in their eyes.
Coping people didn’t have a vacant, traumatized look in their dry eyes after watching their father drown.
Coping people didn’t avoid contact with every single person they claimed they ever loved.
When he heard the soft creak of the back door, he knew it was her. Luna was slipping away again, just like always. Liam wanted to stay in bed, to let her go and pretend it wasn’t his problem. But the weight of his mother’s words wouldn’t let him.
It’s your job to protect her.
He climbed out of bed and pulled on his coat and boots. The cold stung as he stepped outside, but he ignored it, tracing her fading figure into the woods. She moved with the eerie confidence of someone who belonged out there, her white coat blending into the snow, her dark hair trailing behind her like a shadow.
The forest was silent with the exception of the crunch of their footsteps. Liam hung back, keeping his distance as the trees closed in around them. His breath misted in the icy air, the realization of where they were going struck him as suddenly as a train in the dead of night.
“Why does she do this?” he murmured to the howling wind.
The bite of frost was his only response.
They reached the clearing by the lake, and Liam stopped abruptly, hiding behind a tall pine.
The lake stretched before them, its surface frozen and treacherous as it gleamed under the moonlight. He shivered, not just from the cold.
This was where their father had drowned. Three years ago, in water so dark and deep that divers had never recovered his body.
Luna walked to the edge of the ice and knelt, her movements slow and weak, her stance similar to that of praying. Liam watched, his chest tight, as she placed her gloved hands on the surface and began to tap.
Lightly, rhythmically, as though the ice might answer her.
“You can hear me,” she said, her voice soft but steady. “I know you can.”
Liam froze. He wanted to step forward, to call her name and pull her back to the warmth of the house. But his feet wouldn’t move. He was paralysed, helpless to do nothing but watch as she sat there, her breath fogging the air, her face calm.
Too calm.
“They all think I’m crazy,” she said, her voice breaking the stillness. “Mom, the neighbors, my teachers ….e-even Liam.” Her voice stuttered as she admitted that part and Liam’s heart nearly broke into a million pieces. Although they never had the most amazing relationship, they had been there for eachother when it mattered. At least, Liam had begun to realize Luna had been there for him. But there was no one for Luna.
No one at all.
Luna continued. “They think I’m some stupid girl who needs to grow up. But I don’t care. They won’t believe you’re here. They would never believe you stayed. But you did. You would never leave me or Liam or mom. Never. You love us.” Her voice broke as she said the last line, the one crack of emotion in her calm facade.
Liam’s heart pounded in his chest, as his breath caught in his throat, stifling a gasp.
She wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to the lake.
To their father.
“They don’t understand,” she went on. “They think you’re gone, but I know the truth. I know you didn’t mean to leave us. You just…got stuck. And I’ll wait. I’ll keep coming back until you’re ready.”
Her words hung in the air, cold and melancholy the winter night, the only light being the full moon, shining upon the lake and Luna’s tranquil but eerie expression. Liam’s stomach twisted. Her steadiness unsettled him, the quiet certainty in her voice.
It wasn’t grief nor madness—it was something else entirely.
When Luna finally stood, brushing the snow from her knees, Liam ducked behind the tree. She turned and walked past him, her expression unreadable in the pale light. He stayed still, breathing deeply, attempting to halt his trembling until the sound of her footsteps faded into the sound of the silent night, confirming his solitariness.
He then allowed his shuddering to continue, and it didn’t stop.
Not even when he stepped inside the house that had once been his warm, comforting home.
He entered his room, his mind racing with the newfound knowledge.
In his room, Liam sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor.
He had replayed the scene in his mind–the tapping, the words, the way she’d spoken to the lake as though it were alive.
Just how scarred was she? Or did she truly believe herself?
He assumed the second, observing her activity for the last three years. But he couldn’t tell anyone.
Not a single soul.
The pressure of the moment settled in his chest, heavy and unrelenting. It wasn’t just Luna’s secret now—it was his, too.
As the house grew still and the frost crept back into his bones, he frowned and hugged his knees to his chest, wondering: Was it always this cold?
The thought lingered like a sorrowful ghost, a chill shuddering his spine, more from the haunting uncertainty than the icy air itself yet throughout the night, he refused to commence his repetition of the question, his guard up til dawn and even then, his senses remaining alert.
It was as if his consciousness tattooed the phrase on itself.
Was it always this cold?
The Roar 