Pick a Word, Paint a Story #24

Hi friends! I am back , How are your feelings? Today , for this contest I chose the word "Footsteps". This is an emotional story that walks between memory and love. This follows Ayesha, who start to hear familiar footsteps in her silent home. Very good starts when fear slowly turns into a heart-touching journey of remembrance, healing and the unbreakable bond between a daughter and her passed mother.

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The house was silent, but she heard them again. Footsteps.
Soft and Slow. Like someone walking barefoot on old wooden floors. The kind of sound that does not come from outside but from within. Deep within the walls of memory.
Ayesha was sit on the corner of her bed 🛏️. Her heart beating fast. This was not the first night. For weeks now, she had been hearing this, always at midnight. Always stopping just outside her room.

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She told herself it was the wind. Or may her tired mind playing tricks after long hospital shifts. But deep down, she knew better. These footsteps were familiar.
Before 19 years these same steps to her mother. Every night, she would walked in hallway. Her soft feet brushing the floor, humming a lullaby. This voice Ayesha can still hear in her dreams. Presence of her mother was warm like sunlight wrapped in a shawl. Until cancer took her away. And the house turned cold.

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After the funeral, the footsteps stopped. Until now.
That night, Ayesha can not fell in sleep. Silence like weight which presses against her chest and refuses to move. The clock ⏰ strike12:00 AM.
Thud... Thud... Thud...
Her breath caught. She opened her door.
Empty hallway.
But the smell, it was there. That soft scent of rose oil her mother used on her hands. A fragrance long lost now floating in the air like a whispered memory.

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Ayesha stepped into the corridor, feet trembling. She followed the scent, one foot at a time. The footsteps ahead grew fainter, but guided her, like a trail made of time.
Down the hall. Previous family pictures into the room which had been locked for years.
Her mother’s room.
It had not been touched in last 10 years. Dust covered everything like a thick blanket of sorrow. Ayesha reached to door knob. She was unsure like she was dreaming.

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It turned without resistance.
She stepped in.
And froze.
The mirror in corner, where her mother sat before every morning was fogged. Like someone had recently breathed on it.
And written with a fingertip, were the words:
Don’t forget me.
Ayesha listened👂. She reached with tears blurring her eyes. Her mother had said that once the night before her final breath. When her voice was silent and her hand trembled.
Don’t forget me, Ayesha.
And she had not. Not for a single day. But she had also never free herself truly remember. The grief had been too heavy. So she locked it away, just like this room.

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The next day, she opened all windows in that room. Allow to light in. Let the wind carry the dust away. She took out her mother’s shawl, smelled the fading rose oil and wrapped it around her.
Then she did something she had not done in years.
She hummed the lullaby.
That night, at midnight, she waited.
But the footsteps never came.
Not because they had gone but because they had reached.
Her mother’s soul had walked through the house one last time. Just to make sure her daughter had not forgotten. Just to leave behind the echo of love.
Ayesha smiled through tears.
Because sometimes, the loudest love is silent.
And sometimes, footsteps do not come to scare you.
They come to remind you that love never dies.