She walked up to the yawning hole that dominated her back yard. She peered inside, probing its infinite depths just as she had so many times before. The hole, or the Void as it was so appropriately called, had always been a source of fascination for Ayn. She would come as close to the edge as she dared, look inside, and walk away, wondering exactly how deep the Void was. On a few occasions, she would even throw things into it, listening to see when it hit bottom.

And the frightening thing was, there was never a sound.

Many times, she had asked if they could have the hole filled in. When she asked, her parents said, "We've tried before. It's simply too deep."  For though it held a fascination, it also held terror for Ayn. Something about how it loomed up from the ground frightened her.

This day, she stood watching sticks and leaves being swept by the wind into the hole, and being swallowed up by the untearable darkness below. She heard the leaves rustle softly, bidding the world of light goodbye, but after a few moments she heard nothing. Nothing but the silence that was as thick and unfathomable as the miasma of darkness that seethed within the hole.

Ayn kicked in a pebble, one of countless many that had met the same fate. Never did she hear it make a sound, hit a wall, anything. It did not whisper its farewell like the leaves did. She liked the way the pebbles were silent. Silence was her element.

At last, she turned to go back inside. But something stopped her. Something as tangible as human hands gripped her and made her turn back. She could feel the Void calling to her, within her very bones and being. It wanted her. It had to have her. It was insatiably hungry...

She walked forward, calmly, quietly, as was her manner. She went to the very edge where she had stopped all the other times before. It was different this time. She went past the invisible line that she had drawn for herself. And then she stepped in.

Ayn fell, feeling a sensation of losing all consciousness of weight and time. She saw the opening of the hole above her growing smaller and smaller, retreating from her and the velvet darkness that was enveloping her. The blackness felt soft and inviting, to Ayn's mild surprise. And she found that the further she fell, the more quiet it got. This silence was different from other silences of before. It was complete. It pressed on her from all sides.

Ayn grew afraid. She opened her mouth to scream, but when she did, she heard nothing. The silence began to drip down her throat and into her lungs like thick honey, clogging her throat and stopping her breathing. The very blackness that she had so feared was killing her slowly, suffocating her and suppressing her will to live. Finally, her body grew limp and submissive. She no longer had any will of her own. Now it was only the Void that had control. The Void was pulling her in, lulling her like a mother to a child.

It felt sweet, this thing that was perhaps Death. Ayn felt she liked it. And the last thing she saw before she ceased to exist was the darkness, the darkness of the Void.