Dawn bled through the cracked shutters of a shack built too close to the tree line. Rafi lay awake long before the light found him. In the half-dark, he traced the splinters in his palms — reminders that the hush had not loosened its teeth as cleanly as he liked to pretend.
The village was nothing but a scatter of crooked houses nailed together by survivors who thought themselves braver than the forest's shadows. Some mornings, Rafi believed them. Most mornings, like this one, he did not.
In the corner, the braid girl stirred under a moth-eaten blanket. She had never told him her name. He had given up asking after the last time she woke screaming, voice raw from dreams of roots cracking through her skull. Sometimes she bit her wrist until she tasted blood, just to feel it was hers.
He swung his legs off the cot, boots finding the dirt floor, and listened. No birds. No insects. Only the hush of the hush, even after all they had burned. He wanted to wake her gently but he knew better.
She bolted upright before he touched her shoulder, pupils wide as pits. For a heartbeat, he thought she might claw his eyes out.
"It's gone," he lied, pressing his palm to her damp forehead. "We burned it all."
She looked past him to the slit of forest through the shutters. Her lips twitched at a smile, but the lie fell between them like a rotten branch.
Outside, the village stirred. A child cried for bread. Someone cursed about wolves near the fence again. Rafi pulled on his coat and shouldered the door open. The wind was damp, scented with sap and wet ash — proof that the hush still bled where no one could see.
Behind him, the braid girl leaned against the doorframe, blanket dragging in the mud. She did not speak. She never did anymore, except when she screamed.
Rafi spat into the dirt. The hush might be ash now, but its roots ran deeper than any fire.
And he was still too much of a coward to run far enough to forget.