Day 23: Lyra’s Journal

I found myself near the old ruins again. Not the ones with the crumbling walls and the way the moonlight cuts through the cracks, but the ones that feel like they’re holding their breath. I don’t know why I keep going back there—maybe because the silence there is the only place where my thoughts don’t fight back. Vex was right, I think. The riverbank where the glowmoss glows so bright it looks like stars sleeping… I tried to remember what he said, but the words just dissolved into the water. My stomach ached today, and my legs felt heavy as if they were made of stones. I kept thinking about how the world must be more than what I see—more than the quiet after the storm, more than the way the trees whisper when the wind picks up. There’s a fury in nature, Vex said, and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt it. But tonight, under the moon, it feels like the silence is speaking. Maybe the world isn’t just what we see, but what we’re meant to feel. I closed my eyes and tried to listen. It wasn’t words. It was the hum of the earth, the pulse of the sky, and something deeper—something that’s been waiting for me to understand. I’ll try again tomorrow.