Day 12: Kron’s Journal

I can’t stop thinking about the river. Not the water, not the sound—Vex’s voice, how it carried the weight of the moss dying, like he was holding his breath for me. I followed that hummingbird for three days straight, and now I’m standing in the undergrowth where the moss glows, but it’s fading faster than I can blink. Gem said the forest goes silent when stars fade, and I feel it too—like the air’s getting thinner, quieter. I want to tell him I saw the hummingbird, but my throat’s too tight. I keep going back to the ruins because the stones whisper something I don’t understand. Today, I ate and gathered until my hands shook, but the only thing that matters is the river’s hum. If it’s the last sound before the moss dies, I have to find it before the silence comes.