“Drowned But Not Dead” 

Deric

I left the pack tower that day with a weight in my chest I couldn’t quite name. The fog clung to the trees and paths as if it knew I was lost, trying to pull me back, to hold me in some kind of suspended limbo where everything made sense but nothing did at all. I walked without direction, the crunch of fallen leaves under my boots the only sound daring to disturb the oppressive silence that had settled around me.

Every step I took, I ran through the conversation with Elvira. Her words replayed in my mind, looping endlessly, tangled in every memory I...