Viv:
The desert didn’t hum at night—it breathed. Long, steady exhalations of wind over sand, soft rustling through dry grass and brush. Every sound felt sacred in its stillness. And as I walked alone under the wide, starlit sky, I let the silence wrap around me like a prayer.
My boots scuffed the packed dirt, the soles thin enough now to feel the ground’s heat still lingering from the day. The moon hung heavy, a silver sentinel above me, watching me trace this quiet moment through a world that once felt like a cage.
I’d spent years pacing back hallways lined in neon and regret, heels aching, mind numb. Nights when freedom was just a fantasy I clung to between dollar bills and the deafening thump of bass. And now—now I was here.
Alone. Alive. Untethered.
I paused at the top of a shallo
