Books.
There were books everywhere.
On the table.
Beside the bed.
Stacked against the wall.
Some were open.
Others had pieces of paper between their pages.
A few looked so old that Ayla had learned to turn their pages with the same care one would use to touch something already breaking.
She had told herself she would stop hours ago.
One more page.
Then another.
Then another.
Until eventually—
Ayla lost.
Her head rested against the open book in front of her.
She was asleep.
For once...
peacefully.
The room around her was silent.
But the question that had followed her for days had not disappeared with consciousness.
If anything—
it followed her deeper.
Safsan.
She had read his name too many times.
His history.
His life.
His death.
Things that should have remained exactly where they had been written.
But they didn't.
That was the problem.
The book changed.
Not metaphorically.
Not because she had misunderstood something the first time.
The words themselves changed.
History changed.
A sentence she remembered reading would no longer be there.
A detail would appear where nothing had existed before.
Sometimes an entire passage seemed to know something it had not known yesterday.
And every time it happened...
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Safsan was there.
Somewhere.
Ayla had checked herself.
Again.
Again.
Again.
She had compared pages.
Dates.
Notes.
Her own handwriting.
She had even begun writing down sentences separately just to make sure her memory wasn't deceiving her.
It wasn't.
The book was changing.
Safsan's story was changing.
But how could a history change...
after it had already happened?
That question had kept her awake for too many nights.
Yet it wasn't the strangest part.
The strangest part was something Ayla couldn't prove.
Something she had always felt.
Long before she understood why.
Long before she had enough information to even form the question.
Something was there.
Far away.
Not beside her.
Not behind her.
Not somewhere she could point toward.
Just—
there.
A presence separated from her by something she could feel...
but could never measure.
Tonight, exhaustion finally defeated curiosity.
Ayla slept.
Her breathing became slow.
The candle beside her books continued burning.
The pages beneath her hand remained still.
For now.
And then—
the room disappeared.
Ayla opened her eyes.
Wind.
She stood beneath an enormous sky.
Grass stretched farther than she could see.
A vast savanna moved beneath the wind like an ocean made of earth.
There were no books.
No walls.
No candle.
Only distance.
Ayla looked around.
"Hello?"
Nothing.
She took a step.
The grass moved around her feet.
Another.
Then—
a voice.
Distant.
So distant that it should have been impossible to hear.
Yet somehow...
it reached her clearly.
"I think the invisible thread that binds our ayaana..."
Ayla stopped.
"...our souls..."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"...is tangled in a web of time and great distances."
She turned.
There was nobody there.
The voice continued.
"It is as though we are walking across the vast savannas of Oromia without ever seeing one another."
Ayla's breathing slowed.
She knew that voice.
Or—
No.
That wasn't right.
She didn't know it.
So why did it feel as though she had been waiting for it?
"Maybe that's why it takes you so long to find me."
The wind grew stronger.
Ayla began walking toward the voice.
"Wait."
No answer.
She walked faster.
"Who are you?"
The voice came again.
Farther now.
"And maybe..."
Ayla started running.
"...that's why my voice has to travel so far..."
The savanna seemed to stretch with every step she took.
The horizon moved away from her.
"...before it reaches you."
Ayla stopped.
Silence.
Nothing but wind.
She looked across the endless land.
"Where are you?"
No answer.
Ayla closed her eyes.
She didn't know why.
But she could feel something.
Not a location.
Not a direction.
Something else.
Something impossibly far away.
And yet—
for one brief moment...
it felt close.
Ayla opened her eyes.
There.
On the horizon.
A figure.
Too distant to recognize.
Ayla took one step toward it.
The figure disappeared.
Her eyes widened.
"Wait!"
She ran.
The world beneath her feet changed.
Grass.
Mist.
Grass.
Stone.
Mist.
Darkness.
Distance.
Too much distance.
Then—
Ayla woke.
Her head rose sharply from the book.
The candle was almost gone.
She breathed heavily.
For several seconds, she simply stared ahead.
Then she looked down.
The book.
Safsan's history.
Still open beneath her hands.
Ayla slowly lowered her eyes toward the page.
She stopped.
There was a sentence there.
A sentence she had never seen before.
Her fingers hovered above it.
She didn't touch the words.
She only stared.
And somewhere deep inside her...
that same feeling returned.
Far away.
Across something much greater than land.
Much greater than a country.
Perhaps even greater than time.
Someone was there.
CUT TO:
BAAČ.
MIST FOREST.
STEP.
Jalatta stared into the fog.
STEP.
Safsan's eyes followed the identical footprints.
STEP.
JHARAA moved between the trees.
The same distance.
The same rhythm.
The same precision.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Halkan stood in front of the house.
Motionless.
Jalatta looked at her.
"Halkan."
She didn't answer.
JHARAA moved.
One step left.
Turn.
Lower the shoulder.
Right foot forward.
Hand toward the waist.
Safsan recognized it.
The sequence.
"Move."
The blade left JHARAA's hand.
Halkan didn't.
"Halkan!"
The blade crossed the mist.
And stopped.
Not against a wall.
Not against a shield.
It simply—
stopped.
Safsan's eyes widened.
The blade hung in the air.
Halkan slowly raised her head.
Something had changed.
JHARAA stood completely still.
For the first time...
the hunter was watching her.
Not Safsan.
Her.
Halkan looked at the suspended blade.
Then toward JHARAA.
Her expression was calm.
Too calm.
SEENEE:
Oh.
I knew that look.
Not because I knew what was about to happen.
I didn't.
That was becoming an irritatingly common problem lately.
But there are moments when a person stops carrying something...
the way they carried it yesterday.
And BAAČ—
of all places—
understands the difference.
Halkan took one step forward.
The mist around her shifted.
JHARAA moved again.
Step.
Turn.
Lower.
Forward.
Draw.
Perfect.
Halkan closed her eyes.
For the briefest moment—
Isa's face returned.
His eyes.
His blood.
His final breath.
We tame the pain...
until it learns to become strength.
Halkan opened her eyes.
And for the first time since Safsan had entered Mist Forest—
something inside her answered.
SEENEE:
Origin.
Halkan had activated hers.
SCRATCH.