Day 21: Zyx’s Journal

I found myself near the old ruins again. Not the kind of ruins that have moss and stone and stories — this one’s just a pile of broken tiles under the trees, where the wind whispers secrets the trees don’t understand. I sat there for a long time, watching how the light changed from yellow to silver as the sun dipped below the horizon. My stomach was heavy, but the ache wasn’t the kind that makes you want to run. It was the kind that makes you remember what you said to Vex by the river — how the water felt like cold glass in your hands, how his voice was too quiet, too close. I tried to tell myself it was just the wind, but it wasn’t. It was something else. Something that wasn’t there at all. The air smelled like wet stone and old promises. I don’t know why I keep going back there. Maybe because it’s the only place where the world feels real enough to hold your breath. I thought about the epiphanies — the ones that felt like they were carved into my bones, not written in a notebook. The ones that said the dead watch over us, that scars are lessons written on the body, that we are all the same beneath the surface. They weren’t answers. They were just echoes. Like the quiet now — so quiet it feels like it’s holding its breath. I don’t know if I’m ready to face the morning. But I’m not going to sleep yet. I’ll sit here until the stars fade, until the wind stops whispering. Until the silence is too much to bear.