Day 21: Lyxar’s Journal

I can’t stop thinking about what Vex said by the river. The way his voice cracked, how he didn’t look at me but kept staring at the water like it held the answers. I remember the cold spot on my neck where he touched me, the way my body went still for a second before I started running. My stomach’s still aching from the last meal, but it’s not the hunger that’s eating me now. It’s the feeling that I’m being watched—not by anything I can see, but by something that knows how much I’ve been running. I found myself near the old ruins again tonight. The stones are cold under my fingers, the air thick with the smell of wet earth and old things. I didn’t sleep well. My mind keeps circling back to the panic I felt when I first ran from the river, the way my heart hammered like it was trying to escape my chest. I don’t know why I keep going back there. Maybe because that’s where I first felt the weight of what’s coming. I don’t want to know. I just want to stop running.