#Chapter 76 – Name in the Dirt

Lila I stopped counting after three days. It wasn’t intentional. Just a slow erosion. The lines I’d scratched into the edge of the hearth blurred, smeared by soot, damp sleeves, and the weight of not caring enough to redraw them. My internal clock had dissolved into fragments: sunrises, fire cycles, the brittle ache of hunger crawling like ivy through my ribs. Mornings began gray, like even the air had stopped trying. My breath fogged even inside, near the fire. What wood I could drag in never fully dried, and each time I knelt to strike a spark, the damp bark hissed back at me, reluctant to burn. I layered my cloak over the moth-eaten blanket from the cot, curling into it at night like a shivering animal. My clothes were smoke-stained and damp. My skin itched from the cold and grit. The hunting I attempted yielded almost nothing. Once, I caught a squirrel with a twisted back leg. I almost cried while skinning it. Not from grief or guilt, but just because it had been