“One crack in the silence can change the rhythm of everything.”

The forest did not fall all at once. It whispered first, dry branches rattling like bones against each other, before a single splinter cut through the air. The pause between splinter and collapse was long enough to hold an entire world of wonder, what direction, what cost, what unknown was about to unfold.

When the fall came, it thundered against the earth, stirring the geese from the shoreline. Their wings beat heavy against the fog as if carrying a message, move, shift, find new ground before the next branch decides.

Even the lake absorbed the sound, sending rings of movement outward, carrying the echo into places unseen. It was not destruction. It was instruction. A reminder that endings are also beginnings, and that the weight of silence is never empty, it is waiting for its next note.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

Tomorrow, the echo will return in another form, one carried on wings.