The light settled into a softer gold as the day continued. It didn’t rush forward. It didn’t fade. It just held, steady and warm, like the world understood they needed time.They stayed near the forming trees, not because they had decided to, but because there was nowhere else to go yet. The world was still quiet and mostly unshaped, but it no longer felt empty. The leaves rustled gently overhead. The river moved with a slow, even sound. The ground was solid beneath them.Selene shifted slightly, adjusting the child against her. The child had fallen asleep, their breath deep and even, their small hand curled loosely against her arm. She didn’t wake them. There was no reason to.The woman sat nearby, her posture relaxed for the first time since they arrived in this new world. She traced the dirt with her fingertips, drawing slow lines that didn’t form any shape in particular. Just movement. Just presence.The boy had stopped arranging stones. Instead, he sat with his knees pulled up, h

The sky began to lighten slowly. Not with a dramatic sunrise, but with a soft shift darkness thinning until pale light stretched across the horizon. The world wasn’t loud when morning came. It didn’t rush. It simply opened its eyes.Selene woke first.She lay still for a moment, listening to the quiet. The child was warm against her side, breathing softly, their small hand curled near their chest. The leaves beneath them had flattened during the night, but the ground stayed warm, like the earth itself had kept them close.She sat up slowly.The air was cool, but not cold. A thin mist hovered above the river, moving gently with the breeze.Kaelen was awake too.He sat where he had been last night, knees drawn up, forearms resting loosely on them. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, where faint shapes were forming — the suggestion of mountains, valleys, forests that didn’t exist yet but were beginning to settle into the world.He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.Selene shifted carefully

They didn’t move at first.The air around them felt still in a way that didn’t belong to silence. It was the stillness of something watching. Something remembers them. The world itself felt like it was holding its breath.Selene kept her eyes forward. Her heartbeat was slow, steady, but heavy. She could feel the presence, not with her senses, but with something deeper. The way one feels a storm before clouds gather.Kaelen stood ahead of them. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He didn’t shift his stance. He simply watched the tree line. His entire body was still, but not frozen. Ready. Listening.Lyra stepped a little closer to Selene, though she did not seem afraid. Her expression was calm, steady, her gaze soft but focused. She could feel it too.The trees were forming fully now. Bark held colour. Leaves caught light. The shadows between branches deepened. The world was learning how to be real. But within that forming life, there was something else. Something that wasn’t born from light

The light changed slowly as they waited. It softened, deepened, as though the sky was drawing in a slow breath. Selene didn’t move from her place near the water. Her hand remained close to the surface, not touching now, just resting there. The river moved steadily, carrying something unseen toward them.Lyra watched the treeline.Kaelen stayed completely still.The presence drew closer.It wasn’t dramatic. No sound broke the quiet. No flash of light or sudden wind. Just a figure emerging between the trees hesitant, slow, unsure of how their body worked in this place.He was a man.Young, but worn. Dark hair. Shoulders that looked like they once held too much. His clothes flickered like memory rather than fabric fragments of what he had worn at the end, unfinished by the world that formed him.His eyes moved from Kaelen to Lyra, then finally to Selene.He looked confused. Tired.Like he had been running for a very long time, and only now realised he had stopped.He didn’t speak.Selene

The face in the water didn’t speak.It only watched them, its features flickering like something caught between shapes. The eyes were the clearest part wide, frightened, and full of something Selene knew too well:Memory that had nowhere to live.The river’s surface trembled. The reflection broke, then formed again, sharper this time. The outline of a person shoulders, hands, and something like breath rising but not rising, as if the water itself was holding them back.Lyra stepped closer, slow and careful. Her voice was soft, but it didn’t waver.“They’re not trying to harm us.”Kaelen didn’t move, but his attention shifted slightly toward her. “Fear does not always strike with intent. Sometimes it follows instinct.”Selene looked at the figure again. The light in the clearing was gentle, but the shape in the water looked like someone holding onto a ledge with shaking fingers.Kian stood behind them, silent. His expression had changed. Not pain. Recognition. He took one small step fo