The ferns… followed me. Without a sound. Without haste.
Their leaves stretched toward me, slowly, too slowly, with a gentleness that unsettles more than it soothes. Like vegetal fingers, supple and insistent, gliding through the air as if trying to brush against me without grasping.
A silent crowd. A voiceless assembly, reaching their arms toward me—not to stop me, nor to hold me back, but like one reaches out to the condemned. Not to judge. Not to punish. Just… to be there. Around. Present. Until the end.
And the song continued. Discreet. Persistent.
A lullaby. But not just any lullaby. The kind sung only to a child too fragile to survive the night. The kind whispered when there's nothing left—nothing but tenderness, naked, trembling, helpless.
A song that doesn't try to save. Just to accompany.
— You know it, murmured the voice. — You've heard it.
I swallowed. My throat was dry. Rough. Tight as an overstretched cord. Ready to snap.
— That's not true, I whispered.
