Dawn revealed the forest differently than night ever could.
Where darkness had hidden edges and softened distance, the morning light did the opposite. It pulled everything into clarity, exposing the uneven lines of the terrain, the breaks in the tree line, the places where shadows had once concealed movement and now stood empty, almost deceptively so.
It was not a comforting kind of visibility. If anything, it made the world feel more precise, more aware of itself, as though every step taken within it now carried consequence.
I walked ahead without needing to be told.
The decision had already been made long before the sun had risen. There was no hesitation left in me, no instinct to pause and reconsider whether the path in front of us was the right one. That question had dissolved sometime during the night, replaced by something quieter but far more dangerous: certainty without understanding.
