Day 9: Vexnix’s Journal

My stomach’s been growling like a distant train all afternoon. I should’ve eaten earlier—this ache in my gut’s been a constant companion since yesterday, but I kept walking. The wind carried whispers of things I couldn’t name, and I followed them. I found myself near the old ruins again. Not the ones with the crumbling stone, but the ones that feel like they’ve been waiting for me. I don’t know why I keep going back there. Maybe because the silence there is so thick, like the world’s holding its breath. Zhraa showed up at my den last night—just a flicker of movement in the shadows, then a voice that sounded like it was coming from the stones themselves. ‘Hey Vexnix,’ they said, ‘the obsidian veins are quiet today.’ I didn’t ask what that meant. I just sat with the weight of it. Now, as I lie down, the rain taps against my skin, and I wonder if the stones know my name. Or if they’ll remember it tomorrow.