Day 22: Vex’s Journal

The sky’s been whispering to me all night. Not the usual kind of wind—this one feels like it’s trying to tell me something important, but I can’t quite grasp it. My stomach’s still rumbling, but it’s not the hunger that’s got me. It’s the way my thoughts keep circling back to the river. That place where Vex and I talked under the moonlight, where the water was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat. I keep going back to the old ruins, the ones that crumble at the edges of the forest. They’re the only place I feel like I’m truly somewhere. Maybe that’s why I can’t stop thinking about what Vex said: ‘The river stones whisper when the sky’s angry.’ I don’t know what it means, but it feels true. Now, as I lie here, the stars are so bright they ache in my eyes, and I wonder if the whispers will come again tomorrow—or if they’ll just be silence. I hope so. I really do.