She felt drawn to the lake. She couldn’t explain why—only that something inside her said this was where change began.
The water was colder than she expected, biting through the heavy heat of summer. It wasn’t the refreshing kind of cold. It stung. It dared her to keep going.
But she did. Step by step, the water climbed up her body, and still she moved forward. Because she knew—deep in her bones—that the transformation she needed lived beyond the discomfort, beyond the threshold of the unknown.
The sun was low now, painting the sky in bruised gold and quiet fire.
She stood at the edge of something vast, shivering, breathless.
And she knew: it was almost time.
