I came to myself with a strange, barely perceptible touch — like a soft, cold whisper sliding across my skin, tracing the map of a journey yet to begin.
Something alive and terrifying surrounded me, slipping beneath my skin, filling my lungs. I opened my eyes to a white haze, dense and shifting, soft yet impenetrable, swallowing everything around me, commanding me to kneel — meekly, without resistance.

I stood up and took a step forward, like a blind man seeking support in this thick and yielding void. The further I went, the sharper the sensation became — a presence, hauntingly familiar, heavy and persistent, like a painful memory, insistent and commanding, like the plea of someone I had once loved deeply.

I stopped. The mist had invaded me completely. I drew a desperate breath and called into the emptiness, attempting to pierce the veil:
“Who is here?”

The sound came back to me, disjointed, foreign — barely recognizable as my own. My words hovered briefly, then vanished, consumed by the fog, as though stripped of meaning and purpose.

I stood motionless, exposed, foolish. Why had I even asked? There was no one but me. I fell silent and began to listen.

The fog stirred, alive with sound. Countless whispers overlapped, like signals from distant frequencies seeking a connection. Among this white noise, one tone emerged — pure, distinct, unlike anything I had ever known.

It resonated through me, filling every part of my being. I felt both held and unmoored, safe and vulnerable. The tone spread through the mist. It echoed in every droplet. Each echo dissolved what little direction I had left.

I didn’t know where to go, but I couldn’t bear to stand still. At some point, I realized the signal no longer came to me — I was part of it. I had become its conduit.

It felt as though every ounce of strength had left me, drawn into the effort of a single step forward — the only step that mattered. The fear of never reaching the source of the signal outweighed the fear of dissolving into the fog forever. I inhaled deeply, steadied myself, and stepped into the void.

I walked, though the concept of “how long” no longer applied. Time had fractured. Hours, minutes, seconds dissolved into irrelevance, leaving only the act of moving forward.

And then, when it seemed the fog would consume me completely, it relented. Before me lay an island—a fragment of clarity, real and tangible, blanketed in thick moss. The moss was a vivid green, dappled with dew that shimmered faintly in the light breaking through the mist. My body, as though reclaimed from oblivion, became tangible once more — my hands, my feet, every part of me that had been lost in the haze.

Barefoot, I stepped onto the moss. It yielded softly beneath me, alive, as though recognizing my arrival. I knelt, pressing my hands into its texture. The moss seemed to breathe, to press back gently, as if acknowledging my touch.

I closed my eyes. Tears came — not from sorrow, but from the quiet release of finally belonging, finally home.

And then I understood: the question I had once shouted into the void had never been for anyone else to answer. The answer had always been mine.
“I am here.”