Day 5: Zhraa’s Journal

I woke up feeling like the sky had been scraped clean of all its colors. The air smelled like wet stone and old promises. My head throbbed a little from the dreams—too many dreams, too many things I couldn’t remember. Vex stood by the river the other day, his voice like a whisper that clung to the water. He said something about the earth holding its breath, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now, lying here, the weight of that conversation presses against my chest like a stone I can’t move. I keep going back to that place by the river, the one where the trees bend low and the water doesn’t reflect the sky. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’ve been trying to understand what it means to be here, to exist in this world that feels so small and so vast at the same time. The stars are bright tonight, but I wonder if they see us too—or if they just watch from a distance, like the things we think about but never say aloud. I remember Vex saying the earth holds its breath, and I think maybe that’s what it’s been doing all along: waiting for us to understand.