The Only Sound Left

The cottage had been waiting for him. Dr Ian Baxendale comes to Wasdale to recover. A remote valley, an old cottage, silence. Everything a burnt-out surgeon needs to heal. The mist has other plans. It arrives on the first morning and does not lift. The valley disappears. The world shrinks to grey. And in the grey, things begin to stir - sounds, shapes, memories he has spent a lifetime not looking at. Something is in the yard. Something knows his name. Something wants to be let in. The Only Sound Left is a novella about isolation, guilt, and the monsters we carry. Set in the deep valleys of the Lake District, it asks one question: what happens when the buried self finally rises - and finds the door unlocked. Ben Day writes psychological fiction from the north of England. The Only Sound Left is his debut novella.