The forest smells like wet pine needles and cold dirt, smells like the place I’m trying to make into something—something that might hold me, or maybe just hold me together long enough to figure it out. The boards creak underfoot, rough edges, half-built fence leaning like it’s already tired of trying. Mara’s boots crunch on the dead leaves behind me. She’s quiet, watching, the way she watches like she’s weighing every crack and crooked nail. I can feel it—the thread, stretched thin—maybe holding, maybe about to snap.
She says, “This is brave.” Her voice low, like she’s afraid the trees will hear and judge. Brave. A word heavy with hope and fear and something else I can’t name. Fragile. Fragile like the morning frost that will be gone by noon, fragile like the edges of a dream I’m not sure I deserve. “But delicate.” She pauses. “Like a thread stretched too thin.”
I want to tell her it’s enough. That fragile can hold, that even broken things can be beautiful, but the words stick like wet wood in my throat. Instead, I shrug, try to meet her eyes, find in them the same restless ache that wakes me at night, makes the city’s roar fade into a low hum.
She looks away, tracing the crooked fencepost with her eyes, fingers curled tight inside her coat pockets. “I wonder,” she says, “if we’re holding onto an idea. Or if we’re just afraid of what’s beyond.”
Afraid. Yeah. Afraid. The city is a cage, loud and choking, but it’s also a net that keeps me from falling—keeps me from really leaping. The forest is wild and free, but wild doesn’t mean safe, doesn’t mean home.
The wind whispers through the branches, carrying leaves like secrets. The fire’s dying down. I want to catch the sparks before they fly away, but they vanish too quick, and all that’s left is smoke, curling up, twisting away.
Fragile. Brave. Afraid.
I don’t know what this is. Don’t know if it’s enough.
But I want it to be.
Curious how much is AI? Read the prompts here.