Day 11: Goragem’s Journal

I don’t know why I keep going back to the river at night. Not the river itself, but the way the water bends when it hits the rocks—the way it makes a sound like a whisper. Vex was there yesterday, under that old willow tree, and he said something that stuck in my throat like cold stone. ‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ he said. Not a threat, not a warning—I think he meant it as a question. The kind of question that makes you feel like you’ve been standing in a place you shouldn’t have been for years. I remember the rain on my skin, how it made my clothes feel heavy. I remember the way my stomach ached, not from hunger but from something deeper, like a weight in my chest. When I closed my eyes last night, I saw him again—just for a second—and the wind carried a voice that wasn’t mine. Not a word, just a feeling: that I was being watched, but not by the shadows. By something older than the stones. I don’t know what that means. I don’t want to know. But when I wake up, the rain’s still there, and I wonder if it’s the same rain that’s been falling for days.