Lyra followed the stream, each step muffled by the velvet hush of moss beneath her bare feet. No beasts stirred. No birds called. Even the wind seemed to hush itself, slipping through branches like a whisper told to keep quiet. It was as if the forest wasn't just watching her—but holding its breath.
The stream's trickle became her only companion, soft and rhythmic. It filled the space where thoughts should have been. But her mind—fragmented, tired—could only float. She moved not with direction, but with inertia. Every step forward was not guided by purpose, but by a pressure in her chest that said: keep going, or you will drown.
She had lost track of time. The light bleeding through the canopy had long since become meaningless—a scattered dance of gold and silver that changed too subtly to count hours. She didn't know if it was morning or dusk, only that she was moving through something ancient and listening.
Then, without warning, the trees parted.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The clearing ahead yawned like a held breath released. A great thorn tree rose at its center, gnarled and blackened, its bark twisted as if scorched by time. Silver-thorned vines spiraled its trunk like veins, many hanging low to graze the moss with their tips. The branches spread out above, shadowed and reverent. The tree pulsed faintly—like it was dreaming.
And beneath those branches, nestled among its tangled roots, lay a boy.
Lyra stopped breathing.
Her limbs stiffened. Her stomach knotted. The sight of another human shape—a boy, no older than she was—startled her so deeply that it felt unreal. Her first instinct was to call out. Her second was to run.
She did neither.
Not since waking had she seen another soul. Noxy, with her calm voice and invisible presence, did not count. But this—this was flesh. Breath. Blood.
The boy was crumpled, curled halfway onto his side like he'd fallen mid-sprint. One leg bent wrong. His clothes were torn. Dried blood stained the fabric dark, crusted around a wound at his ribs. Bruises colored his arms like ink blotches.
He looked far too still. As if he's already died.
Cautiously, Lyra approached. Her feet made no sound against the moss. She knelt beside him but didn't touch. Her hands hovered just above the boy's chest.
"He's alive," Noxy said softly. "Barely."
The boy's breathing came shallow, uneven. His eyelids flickered, but they didn't open. The wound—dark and ugly—had begun to close on its own. Slowly. Strangely.
"He's healing," Lyra murmured.
"Weak regeneration. A rare gift, just enough to barely save him."
"Can you do something to him?"
"I can ease the pain. But more than that would stir things that should stay sleeping within this forest."
"That's should be good enough for now"
The air shimmered faintly above the boy's chest—no light, no color. Just a soft hush, like the exhale of a breath too old to name. The tension in the boy's limbs loosened.
Lyra let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She sat beside him, drawing her knees close. The clearing pulsed with a quiet weight. The thorn tree loomed above them, its branches curved like an old creature folding its hands in prayer. Its roots spread in arcs that reminded her of circles—ritual, not random.
She didn't speak for a long while.
When she did, her voice was low, nearly a whisper.
"You said I was changing."
"You are," Noxy replied. "In ways you cannot yet name."
Lyra's hand traced a spiral in the moss.
"I don't feel like I'm changing. I feel like I'm losing pieces. Like I'm unraveling and every step just pulls a thread that was supposed to stay tied."
"Change often looks like loss from the inside."
"But what if there's nothing left when it's done unraveling? What if I was only ever made of threads—no core, no center, just… echoes?"
Noxy didn't answer right away.
"Then the act of weaving again will make you real."
Lyra stared at her fingers. Dirt beneath her nails. Scratches across her knuckles. Traces of her journey—of who she was becoming, whether she wanted to or not.
Her gaze drifted back to the boy. He looked younger than her at the first thought. His face, slack in unconsciousness, was softer now. Fragile. Alone.
"I wonder if he remembers how he got here."
"Likely not. Trauma does more than hurt. It buries."
Lyra tilted her head toward the tree. Its silver thorns gleamed in the dim light, sharp as memory.
"It feels like we're intruding. Like this place belonged to someone else, long before we came."
"It did. And it still does."
"Then why did it let us enter?"
"Because it remembers you."
Lyra's heart fluttered. She didn't ask what that meant. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.
She turned back to the boy.
"Why is he here, do you think?"
"Running from something. Or being dragged toward it. Maybe both."
Lyra leaned back slowly, lying on the moss beside him. Her head tilted to watch the branches above.
"I want to ask who I was before all of this. Before the flowers. Before your voice. But I'm afraid I won't like the answer."
"You won't," Noxy said simply.
"Then why keep going? Why not just stop here and let the forest claim me? Let the moss remember me instead of the stars."
"Because even in your fear, you hunger for truth."
"Truth just hurts."
"And yet you keep walking to it."
She closed her eyes.
The boy's breathing had evened out. The thorns above no longer seemed threatening. Just present. Aware.
"I used to think strength was being able to keep moving forward," Lyra murmured. "But maybe strength is admitting you don't want to. And doing it anyway."
Noxy didn't respond. Not with words.
A gentle breeze passed, lifting the strands of Lyra's hair. The air around her warmed briefly. She imagined the forest listening.
She whispered into the silence.
"I'm tired of not knowing. Tired of missing pieces I can't name. I want to scream. I want to shake the sky and demand why I'm the one left wondering."
Still, the forest did not speak. But it didn't turn away either.
"Maybe that's why we're both here," she said at last, eyes opening. "Me and him. Two broken stories, left in a place that only remembers silence."
"You're not broken," Noxy said softly.
"Then what am I?"
"Becoming."
Lyra sighed.
"Then let it come. Let the forest test me. Let the memories haunt me. But not today. Just… not today."
The wind curled around her again. Almost like an embrace.
She turned her head to look at the boy.
"Don't die," she whispered. "Not now. Not when I finally found someone who doesn't vanish."
And slowly, without fear, she closed her eyes beside him.
For now, that was enough.
The thorn tree watched over them, silent and still.