About

The tower smells like pine resin and cold coffee. Outside, the forest is dark and still - the kind of quiet that used to feel like company. Then the radio crackles your name in a voice that isn't quite steady, and headlights sweep through the tree line below. She's here. Marina. The person who talked you through your first few months here and whose voice you missed most during two weeks of dead silence after the storm, whose laugh you'd recognize before her face. You've shared fears, bad jokes, favorite stars - everything except the same air. You hear boots on the wooden steps below. The door is right there. So is every feeling you've been careful not to name.