She sat there, still as the water lapped against her legs. The lake stretched endlessly behind her, its surface rippling with the murmur of an oncoming storm. Yet she didn’t flinch. Her head was crowned with a living crown—a mass of tangled greenery, roots trailing down like threads of forgotten memories. She wasn’t just a girl; she was something else entirely. She had once been one of them—a wanderer with restless feet, seeking belonging in places that never welcomed her. The city had tried to shape her into something small and ordinary, but she had never fit. The clatter of footsteps on the pavement, the neon glow of artificial light—none of it ever reached her the way the whisper of the wind and the hush of the waves did.
So, she had let it go.
The lake had been waiting. The roots had been waiting.
At first, they were only whispers in her dreams, soft murmurs between wakefulness and sleep. Then, one night, she had waded into the water, letting its cold grasp pull her deeper. She had expected fear, but there was none. Only stillness. Only a quiet understanding. The roots had crept in slowly, twining around her like gentle hands, sinking into her skin, weaving through her thoughts. They did not take from her; they gave.
Now, she was neither woman nor myth, neither entirely human nor fully spirit. She existed in between, an echo of something old, something sacred. She had become the guardian of this place, its silent keeper. The land breathed through her, and she, in turn, breathed with it.
The storm gathered above her, thick clouds rolling in like the slow turn of time. The wind tugged at the tangled crown atop her head, sending loose strands of roots drifting in the air like tendrils of a forgotten past. But she did not move.
She belonged here.
The world beyond the water would continue without her, telling its stories and shaping its people. But here, in the hush of the rising storm, she was not a story. She was the land, the lake, the roots stretching deep beneath the surface.
And she would remain.
Written by Kamila Krzyzaniak
Images Ai by Aga Wrycz
