The forest is still when I wake.
For a moment, I don’t know if I ever fell asleep at all. My head rests against damp moss, the faint shimmer of moonlight breaking through the trees above. Everything smells sharp and clean — wet bark, cold air, and something metallic beneath it.
My fingers twitch against the ground. The soil hums faintly beneath my palm, like it’s alive, like it remembers.
I sit up slowly, every muscle aching. The trees around me are bowed, frozen mid-motion, as if still caught in the pull of my anger from before. My chest tightens at the sight.
I did this.
Or… something inside me did.
The mark on my wrist glows faintly, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat. When I focus, I can almost hear something inside that rhythm…a whisper beneath the pulse.
Not words. Not yet. J
