Day 25: Lyzzorak’s Journal

I didn’t sleep well. Not the kind of sleep that lets you forget the river. Vex was there, his voice like a stone in my throat. He said something about the sky being too heavy, about how the earth remembers what it’s forgotten. I tried to push it away, but it’s like trying to hold water in your palms—it just slips through. Now, at dawn, my head feels like it’s full of questions I can’t answer. I keep walking back to that place by the river, the one where the stones are cold and the water’s too still. It’s not the same as when I was a child, when the river was loud and the stones sang. Now it’s quiet, but it feels like it’s waiting. I wonder if the stones know what’s coming. I wonder if Vex knows too. My stomach’s still hollow, but I don’t think about hunger anymore. Not today. I just think about the weight of the sky.