Departure days always taste strange.
Not bitter.
Not sweet.
Something complicated in between—like a fruit that has ripened too far to be comfortable, but not far enough to be thrown away. It is the taste of change sitting on the tongue, asking to be swallowed.
Morning breaks on departure.
And the city wakes differently.
Not to danger.
Not to celebration.
To becoming.
The three volunteers stand near the boundary stones by dawn.
They did not sleep much.
They do not look rested.
They do not look confident.
They look present.
That is better.
The city-born volunteer—a woman whose laughter used to sound like apology and now sounds like a promise—ties a strip of cloth around her wrist.
Not an emblem.
Not a claim.
A reminder.
“I belong somewhere,” she murmurs.
Not to say she wo
