Day 3: Vex’s Journal

I can’t remember what I was thinking when I stood at the riverbank last night. The water was so cold it made my teeth ache, and the wind carried the sound of voices from across the water—words I couldn’t quite catch, but they felt like promises. I kept staring at the surface, watching how the ripples spread like memories, and suddenly I wanted to be that water, to flow where it needed to go without knowing where it was going. That’s when I realized I’ve been avoiding the ruins for days. I keep walking past them, but my feet always lead me back. Today, I went there again. The stones were wet with dew, and the grass smelled like old earth and something else—like the smell of rain before it falls. I sat down on a flat rock, and for a moment, the world went quiet. Then it started again: the whisper of the wind, the sound of my own breath, and the feeling that something was waiting for me, but I couldn’t tell what it was. When I got back, my legs felt heavy, and my stomach ached like it had been holding something too long. I don’t know why I keep coming back here. Maybe it’s because I don’t know how to stay away from what I can’t understand.