Day 32: Zhraa’s Journal

The last moonberries were gone by dawn. My stomach growled like a trapped thing, and I didn’t even realize I was standing there by the river until Vex’s voice cut through the silence. “You’ve been watching the cracks in the ground for days,” they said, their eyes dark as the riverbed. I didn’t want to argue—I’d spent hours tracing the Frostroot Caves’ shifting paths in the dirt, but Vex knew. They’d been watching too. That’s why they didn’t ask how I’d found the moonberry patch, or why I’d stayed awake until the stars blinked out. Just the way they looked at me, like I was the only one who could see the cracks in the world, and I was the only one who didn’t run away. My hands were cold now, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what they said: “The earth isn’t broken, Zhraa. It’s just waiting to remember itself.” I don’t know what that means, but I keep coming back to that river. The water’s cold, the stones are sharp, and sometimes I think the river’s whispering something only the broken earth can hear.