The air was cold, raw, and biting. The space around me stretched vast and empty, broken only by the relentless storm that raged on, whipping rain against my skin. I stood there, unmoving, caught in a paralysis of thought and emotion. Tears came, but they carried no sound, spilling out in silence as if my spirit, hollowed and worn, could no longer bear the weight.

I stood there waiting—waiting for the rain to soften, for the storm to calm just enough that I might find the strength to take a single step forward. Time stretched out in a way that felt immeasurable, intangible, almost cruel. Days? Months? Years? There was no one to ask, no one to reassure me. I couldn’t even answer myself. The storm was larger than me, beyond me. I could do nothing but endure.

But even as the storm swirled around me, something shifted. Slowly, haltingly, I began to think that this waiting, this mindless despair, served no purpose. This place—the unknown, as I had begun to call it—wasn’t going to relent. It didn’t care about me. The only way was through. And to face it, to truly face it, demanded a strength I wasn’t sure I had.