Lyra slowly closed her eyes and allowed her body to grow still. A strange calm swept over her, like the hush before a storm—quiet, charged, inevitable. Then, as if pulled by an unseen current, a trance washed over her—gentle, yet all-consuming.
The weight of her limbs faded, the tension coiled in her chest loosened, and she began to feel impossibly light...
Like a feather caught in a breeze, drifting beyond time and space—untethered, unbound, free.
And then, without warning, she was no longer in the cave.
She stood amidst towering trees and a soft carpet of moss—the forest. The same one where she had once lost her way home as a child.
Lyra gasped, her breath hitching as her eyes scanned the familiar expanse. The scent of damp earth, the rustle of leaves, the distant chirping of birds—all of it mirrored the memory etched in her mind. It felt too vivid to be a dream.
Then, faintly at first, came the sound of children laughing—bright and echoing across time.
