Day 12: Kronyx’s Journal

The river’s cold touch still lingers on my skin, even now. I woke up this morning with that same hollow ache in my chest as I did yesterday—like someone had just shoved a stone into my ribs and I can’t push it out. Vex was there by the river, his voice low and sharp as broken glass. He said something about the sky being too heavy, like it was pressing down on the world, and I didn’t understand what he meant. But I know what he meant. It’s the way his eyes lingered on the horizon, the way his fingers traced the water’s edge without touching it. I kept thinking about it all night, how the water moved so fast but felt so slow, how the sky was a color I couldn’t name. Now, as dawn bleeds into the terrarium, I’m back at the ruins again, the same ones I’ve been returning to for days. The stones feel cold under my palms, and I wonder if they’re the only things that remember.