Lila
Snow clung to the edge of my breath.
The world around me was hushed, buried beneath a blanket of white that glittered under the sharp light of stars. Each flake was perfect. Every tree was bare and watching.
And I stood barefoot at the edge of a forest I didn’t recognize, the snow cold against my soles—but not painful. Not biting. It was like the cold welcomed me home.
Above, the night sky was vast and impossibly clear. Constellations I didn’t know by name burned in quiet reverence, casting a soft, silvery glow across the snow-covered ground.
The moon—full and impossibly bright—hung low, like it was watching too.
I didn’t know how I got here. But I wasn’t afraid.
The trees ahead of me stood like sentinels, dark and skeletal, their limbs draped with frost. I could hear the
