As time went on Lyra slowly getting used to hearing the echoes in her mind or dreams in her sleep. And slowly she starting to change without she even realize that.
The forest greeted Lyra like a breath held too long — tight, trembling, waiting to be released. Light filtered through the branches in narrow ribbons, pale gold against the deep greens and shadows of undergrowth. The air smelled of moss and damp bark, and every step she took felt like it disturbed something sacred.
She walked without direction. There was no path, no trail, not even a natural break in the foliage. Yet her feet kept moving, as though the ground was shifting beneath her to make way. The deeper she went, the stranger everything became — the silence was too complete, the air too still, the trees too knowing.
Lyra paused beside a twisted tree, its bark coiling in spirals that almost looked carved. She laid her hand against it, half expecting the wood to pulse under her palm. It didn't. But she felt something — not a heartbeat, not a vibration, but a recognition. Like the forest had seen her before.
She closed her eyes, listening.
A soundless wind stirred the leaves, and in its hush came a voice.
"You're changing," Noxy said.
Lyra opened her eyes. "You said that before."
"It's still true."
"I don't feel like I'm changing. I feel like I'm unraveling."
"You're becoming," Noxy answered gently. "And becoming always feels like breaking before it feels like growth."
Lyra didn't respond immediately. She moved deeper into the woods, her fingers trailing across bark and bramble. Her thoughts were murky, knotted. She could still feel the weight of the vision from the glade — the battlefield, the girl who looked like her, the voice that called her forward.
"I keep seeing fragments," she said finally. "Dreams that don't belong to me. People I don't know. Names I don't remember. But they feel like mine. It's like I'm losing myself before I even know who I am."
"It's not losing," Noxy replied. "It's shedding. Like the bark of an old tree, falling away to reveal what was always underneath."
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A shiver passed through Lyra. She pressed deeper into the woods, following a pull she couldn't name. The trees thinned slightly as she entered a glade she hadn't noticed before. In its center stood a series of stone fragments — broken monoliths jutting from the earth like ribs of a buried beast.
The air was thicker here. Not humid, but heavy with something unseen. It coiled around her, wrapped into her thoughts, sank deep into her skin.
Lyra knelt beside one of the stones. Its surface was worn smooth in places, etched deep in others. Runes and symbols — unreadable, yet familiar. Her fingertips traced one line, and suddenly her vision swam.
She was no longer in the glade.
Not entirely.
She stood at the edge of a battlefield. Wind tore through charred grass, carrying ash and the echoes of screams. Banners hung in tatters from broken spears, and silhouettes lay scattered across the plain. The sky above was cracked — not with lightning, but with something darker.
And in the center of it all stood a girl.
She had Lyra's face, but her eyes were different. Older. Colder. Her arms were streaked with blood and smoke, and her breath came in ragged gasps.
"I did this," the girl said, though her lips never moved.
"No," Lyra whispered. "I will never—"
"You will," the girl corrected.
The world shattered again.
She fell backward into her own skin, gasping against the moss, her heart racing.
"That wasn't real," she muttered. "That couldn't be real."
"I don't want that to be me."
"It may not be you now," Noxy said calmly. "But it already was."
Lyra rose shakily to her feet. Her hands trembled. The stone still hummed beneath her, but she didn't touch it again. Instead, she walked forward, further into the forest, trying to silence the pounding in her chest.
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The trail — if it could be called that — narrowed until she came to a small, sheltered clearing. At its center grew a single tree, unlike the others. It was gnarled and silvered, its bark like woven threads of moonlight, its leaves a deep violet-green. There was no breeze, yet the leaves rustled — not randomly, but rhythmically.
Almost… deliberately.
Lyra approached. As she neared, she noticed faint marks across the trunk. Not carved, but part of the bark's natural growth — spirals and arcs that formed a pattern impossible to decipher.
She reached out.
"Don't," Noxy warned, voice firmer now. "Not yet."
Lyra hesitated. Her hand hovered inches from the tree.
"But it's calling to me."
"You should restraint yourself, the echoes may be giving you many knowledge about anything. But if you keep searching for it, it might change you slowly into something you're not familiar with."
She pulled her hand back.
"Why is this happening?" she asked. "Why am I being shown these things?"
"Because the threads of your past lives aren't gone. They're woven into the world around you. The longer you remain here, the more they stir. The more they want to be known again."
She sat in the grass, staring at the tree.
"I thought I was ready," she said quietly. "But I guess I'm still afraid in the end."
"Then you're wiser than most people. Bravery isn't just about a lack of fear. It's about walking along with it."
Lyra sat in silence, knees drawn to her chest. The forest whispered softly around her — not words, but presence. As though the wind itself remembered.
"I've never felt so small," she admitted. "Or so seen."
"You're changing slowly," Noxy repeated, softer now. "The forest feels it. I feel it. Even you… are beginning to feel it."
"Then why do I still feel like a stranger to myself?"
"Because memory isn't just knowledge. It's weight. Shape. It's the thread that ties the name to the person who bore it."
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A gentle hush settled over the clearing. Lyra leaned her head against her knees and closed her eyes.
This time, she didn't dream. She remembered.
A hill beneath the stars. A silver bow in her hand. A promise spoken to a dying friend. A gate of stone closing forever. A lullaby in a language she no longer spoke.
One by one, the fragments faded.
When she opened her eyes, the forest was the same.
But she wasn't.
She stood and took a breath that felt like the first.
The wind shifted around her, as though the world had taken notice.
She didn't know where the path would go.
But she was starting to understand why she had to walk it.
And that was enough.
For now.