The One who believed in world.

      A dry twig snapped almost inaudibly underfoot. Last year's leaves rustled. Footsteps receded into the depths of the forest. To a place where no other people had ever been. To a place accessible only to Her…       The spring sun caressed Her face. Here it felt different than there, beyond the forest line: thick and almost tangible. Reach out your hand, and it seemed, you could touch it. She reached out her hand… Rays pierced through the dense canopy, playing with light on the fresh grass. The play seemed deceptive… Too bright and alive against the silence reigning all around.       She walked on. Away from the city, the air felt different – thick, filled with the scent of awakened earth and blooming wild gardens. The wind carried the smell from afar, from the very heart of the forest. She lowered her gaze. Old footprints were visible underfoot. Some were very small, children's. Some – as if someone had been running, not looking where they were going, leaving behind a mess of leaves and mud. A little to the side – uncertain ones, weaving back and forth. The footprints of a person who couldn't decide for themselves – whether to go on or turn back. Many different footprints in a place where there were no other people, only Her.       The wind stirred the leaves, rustled in the crowns…       She stopped, ran Her hand along the trunk of the nearest pine tree. The bark responded with illusory warmth, gathered during that short morning. Deeper down, cold could be felt. The deep, grave-like cold of the earth, which had not yet completely thawed in the shade. She raised Her gaze to where the sky should have been. The trees grew so close together that the blue dome had become tatters of torn fabric. In the light of the rays, a spark of hope flickered – hope that the world would respond. Hope that the world would accept Her, alive, among the shadows of the past. That She would not become another shred.       The footsteps sounded again, going deeper. The forest parted reluctantly before Her. Branches caught at Her hair, roots tried to trip Her up. An invisible force tried to hold Her back, to warn Her not to go further. But She walked on… And the silence thickened behind Her, becoming a dense wall, cutting off the path back. The air changed. Something damp and musty, with a metallic tinge, joined the scent of blooming gardens. And the trees parted. She came out into a clearing. The sun, unconstrained by tree branches, flooded the space with bright light. And in this light, amidst the tall grass, mounds were visible. "Uneven terrain, overgrown with moss"... A step inside. She lowered Her gaze.       Next to Her foot – a grave. One of many, scattered everywhere in the clearing. Old and new. Long and very short. Some were barely discernible – just depressions. Others, newer ones, still held their shape – the fresh earth had settled but was not yet overgrown with grass.       She walked slowly among them, counting steps and mounds. Here was a child's – tiny, the length of three of Her feet. Next to it, another, slightly larger. And another… and another… and another… Very small ones, sleeping under a thin layer of first spring grass. On some, flowers had already bloomed. On others – trees, covered with young foliage and the first fruit buds.       With each step, the graves became larger, newer. Each had its own headstone, but… not a single name… not a single date…       The wind behind Her rustled in the leaves with renewed force. The clearing remained standing in silence, as if sound itself was afraid to touch these places, to disturb the silent peace. As if nothing at all should sound here, except Her own breathing.       She stopped in the center, looking around. Circles of graves radiated from Her in all directions, resembling the ripples from a stone thrown into water. She lingered before one longer. Almost a child's, light, but with dark hollows at the head – the earth had sunk deeper there. She knelt, ran Her palm over the dry earth… A pained sigh escaped Her chest.       Her gaze returned to the path. Among the mud, Her footprints remained. Next to them – those others, left by predecessors. Old, half-erased. They led nowhere, but at the same moment – to the graves. The spark in Her eyes still burned. Quieter, almost at its limit, but it burned. The hope that the world would respond… She walked on… Without understanding why, She tried not to step on the mounds. The soft grass clung to Her ankles, tickled.       At the other edge, where the forest closed in again like a wall, She stopped by a tree. One among many. Branchy, covered in lichen. The branches were already dotted with white flowers. They exuded a cloyingly sweet aroma, like the one you can smell at funerals where too many wreaths have been brought. Beneath the tree, a void lingered. A level place, overgrown with grass and not yet occupied by a grave. Just a patch of earth that was waiting… She sat down, leaning Her back against the trunk. The bark smelled of resin and the flowers falling from the branches. Petals fell onto Her shoulders, onto the grass around – tender and alive. She closed Her eyes… —

      She is six years old.

      Summer. The river. The water is murky and therefore warm near the bank, but further out it becomes clear and cold. Her father holds her hands, wades in waist-deep, explains how to lie correctly in the water so as not to drown. She laughs, kicks her feet. Spray flies into her face. The sun reflects in every drop. "Don't be afraid, I'm holding you. Swim, I'm right here."       She swims. The water carries her by itself, supports her light body. Her father lets go for a second. She manages three strokes on her own. Three beats of small hands on the water. All around, laughter and splashing. Someone exclaims joyfully nearby: "look how well she's doing!".       She still believes. Believes that the water will always be warm. That her parents will always be there. That the world is a big river in which you can swim, and someone will always catch you if you get tired. —       The sun stood high, flooding the clearing with gold. Petals showered from the branches in the wind, falling on her face. One got caught in her hair – She felt its light touch. Deep in the forest, a bird cried out briefly and fell silent. —

      Eleven years old.

      Autumn. School. The last bell before the holidays. She stands in the corridor, clutching a stack of notebooks to her chest. Classmates chatter behind her, making plans. Someone calls her to go out. She turns around, smiles. Her lips begin to move, trying to say "yes". Falls silent. "Just not her," they nod in her direction, classmates. "She's such a bore!"       Laughter. Short and cutting, like the slap of a wet rag. She stands with a smile that hasn't yet had time to fade from her face, holding the notebooks. Something in her chest tears loose and falls down. "Come with me?" – a child's figure appears next to her. "Let's go!" – the smile becomes wider. That something that had fallen returns back. An unpleasant residue still lingers in her chest. She shakes her head, chasing away the nagging thoughts.       Later that evening, She stared out the window for a long time. Rain was falling outside. The world was grey and alien. And inside, deep down, a warmth persisted: not everyone can understand. But someone will understand. Someone will support. "Tomorrow" everything will be okay. The world cannot be evil, because the world is a river in which you can swim, and someone will surely catch you. —       Something wet trickled down Her cheek. She touched Her face, wiped the drop away. The sun had shifted. The shadow from the tree had grown longer. She sat in a white patch of light, surrounded by graves. The ground beneath Her had lost its grass. In its place was now fresh, slightly turned earth. —

      Sixteen years old.

      First love. A bench in the park. Evening. Streetlights come on. Light falls in yellow circles on the wet asphalt. He holds Her hand, says something funny. She laughs, throwing her head back. The first stars swirl overhead.       He kisses her for the first time – clumsily and quickly. Immediately pulls back, looks at her. She feels something hot spreading inside. It stretches like molasses. The world rings, sings. She glows from within in her small happiness. She believes. Believes that this is forever. That such things don't pass. That love is what makes life worth living.       A month later, he stopped replying to messages. Two months later, She saw him in the company of another girl. He walked past, didn't even nod.       She cried for three days. And then She got up and moved on. Because inside, at the very bottom of her soul, a thought still remained: this is just experience, just not the right person. But the world, the world – is good. It's just that people can be bad. You have to keep looking. After all, everything around is a river in which you can swim, and someone… someone will surely catch you… —       She shuddered. The air had become cooler. The shadow cut the clearing exactly in half. One half was drowning in gold. The other – fading into blue. She looked at Her hands. The skin was covered in goosebumps. Very close by, a twig crunched. She turned around – no one. Only the forest and the graves. Only the tree and the turned earth underfoot, strewn with fresh petals. —

      Twenty years…

      Student days. Dormitory. Friends who became as close as family. Sleepless nights in the kitchen, tea, conversations about the great and about nothing at all. It seemed like this would last forever. It seemed these people would walk through life with her, enter old age, sit together by the fireplace and remember their youth.       Graduation. Photos for memory. Promises to meet every year, regardless of circumstances.       Six months later, the group chat stopped notifying of new messages. Someone moved away, someone got married, someone… just disappeared. She and a few others wrote. They received short, dry replies. "Oh, hi, sorry… yeah, sure… I'll call you back…". No one called back, no one planned meetings. Then those few people also left. Disappeared from life just like all the others.       She was left alone in a city that had become foreign. With a job that brought no joy. With a room that was deafeningly quiet in the evenings. The spark still burned. She visited her parents on weekends. They laughed together, like before. Over time, she stopped visiting them too – didn't want to worry the old folks with her troubles. Didn't want to worry the world. Everyone has their own life. She is busy too. Everything will work out. After all… everything… is a river along which She swam… and someone… someone is about to catch her… —       She shuddered from a sharp gust of cold wind.       The sun had almost set, the clearing drowned in blue twilight. The graves merged with the earth, becoming indistinguishable. Only the white flowers on the tree and on the ground still glowed in the semi-darkness.       She sat there, on the fresh grave, unaware of time. Reliving her entire life while the world around died and was reborn again in the twilight. —

      Twenty… five?... years…

      Work, into which she invests completely. A project, into which she pours her soul. Sleepless nights. Weekends at the office. Smiles for management and hopes for a promotion. "You're good," they nodded at her. "But we hired someone else. He has more experience, you understand…"       She understood. Nodded, smiled.       In the bathroom, she stood for about ten minutes, looking at herself in the mirror. In the reflection, a woman stared back at her with hollow eyes, dark circles under them from sleepless nights. Deep inside them, hope still flickered. A forced smile frozen on her lips, stuck on like a mask. She washed it off with cold water. Went home. Went to sleep. In the morning, she was already looking for a new job. Because "you have to". Because the world moves forward, and she must. Because this is just another failure, and pleasant moments and achievements await her ahead. After all, the world… it's like a river… in which you have to swim, even if it's hard… because somewhere out there, those who will catch you are waiting… —       Night fell over the clearing unnoticed. Darkness flooded the grass, the graves. The first pale stars appeared overhead. She raised her head, looked at them through the flowering branches. The stars swirled, just like then, at sixteen, when she believed in love. Only now they promised nothing…       She sat on the fresh mound of an unnamed grave. Brushed away a petal tickling her nose. Closed her eyes again. —

      Twenty… thirty-something years.

      She stopped counting.       There were no more bright moments left to believe in. Grey days piled into weeks. Weeks flowed into months. Months imperceptibly turned into years. There were people who came and just as quickly disappeared, leaving emptiness behind. There were hopes that died out before they could even ignite.       Life turned into a monotone picture. Work… home… work… Sometimes meetings with similarly lost people who pretended everything was fine with them. Sometimes – alcohol on weekends to silence the voice inside. It kept asking "when will someone catch us?…". First loudly, then quieter… because there was no answer.       The spark was almost extinguished. A thin, blue flame at the very bottom of her soul. For some reason it held on there, didn't want to go out. Whispered: "A… what if… what if it's not over yet? What if… the world is just waiting for you to reach the right place?"... And she walked on. Hoped that someone would catch her… but she had no strength left… —       She opened Her eyes.       Night.       Deep, starry night. The moon had already risen, illuminating the graves. The wind had died down. The forest around stood like a black, soundless wall. The flowers on the tree glowed white, no longer falling to the ground.       The air had become denser, more tangible. Each breath filled Her lungs with coolness and the heavy smell of decayed leaves, damp bark, and the sweetish aroma of flowers and fresh grass. Far away, beyond the forest or within its depths – She couldn't tell – an owl hooted. Once, twice… and fell silent, as if choking on its own cry. Moonlight flooded the clearing unevenly. It flowed from the branches, broke against the trunks. In this light, the tombstones stood out more clearly than during the day. Each stone cast a long, distorted shadow. Sounds merged into one. Amidst the diversity, even someone's slow, deep breathing could be discerned. The earth itself was breathing.       She rose to Her feet. Her stiff body, as if not Her own, obeyed poorly. A step forward. The fresh, loose earth yielded under Her weight. She looked around. Above one of the old, small graves, an inscription glowed. Ghostly, woven from moonlight and soft mist. The letters wavered, flickered. They would disappear, then appear again.

"Here lies she who believed the river would always be warm."

She froze. Slowly shifted Her gaze to another headstone.

"Here lies she who thought people just make mistakes."

      Another one. A little further, under an old crooked birch tree growing right on the grave mound.

"... she who waited for love to last forever"...

"... she who believed in friendship until old age"...

"... she who hoped her labor would be rewarded"...

"... she who…"

"... she who…"

"... she…"

      She walked, and inscriptions flashed before Her eyes one after another. Some She recognized, remembered – each age, each loss. Each little death inside Herself. Others were unfamiliar, long forgotten in the struggles of life. She looked at them and couldn't remember when She had created those graves… Couldn't remember what She had killed inside Herself and buried in this clearing.       "Here lies she who…" – the letters beyond blurred, turned into murky nothingness. Age had eroded. Date had vanished. Inside, only a vague feeling remained that once there had been something important here, something without which one could not live. But what – memory did not preserve.       She knelt beside this grave. Ran Her hand over the cold, damp grass. As thick as everywhere else. On the same earth that was no different from the other mounds. The inscription remained silent, unwilling to return what time had erased. Her gaze darted to the side. Nearby, almost adjacent, another mound darkened. The oldest of all, overgrown not just with grass. Bushes of wild raspberries rested upon it.       Above it, there was nothing… not even ghostly light. She stared at it for a long time, trying to remember. Who lies here? When? What part of Her had lain down in this earth so long ago that everything had been erased? There were no answers… The forest was silent. The moon illuminated everything around with its silver. The flowers on the trees glowed white, unmoving, frozen in the night air like suspended tears.       Somewhere deep under the roots, under the thickness of years, They slept. All that She had been. All that She had buried, floating along the river of Her life. All whose almost forgotten names now hung in the air.       The moon rose higher. The shadows became shorter, sharper. The clearing lay before Her, dotted with mounds. Graves bearing Her name. She stood in the center, surrounded by Her deaths. The flowers on the tree trembled. One petal broke loose and slowly, smoothly floated down, as if in a dream. It swirled in the moonlight until it landed on one of the nameless graves.       She stood for a long time. So long that the moon managed to cross half the sky. The shadows from the graves stretched in the other direction. The flowers stopped glowing – just gleamed white in the darkness, like a reminder of what remains when life departs.       The ghostly inscriptions began to fade, retreating back into the air from which they had come.       She felt nothing anymore. There was no fear, no sadness. Not that aching emptiness in Her chest with which She had lived the last few years. Not even fatigue… only an even, absolute "nothing".       Her gaze rose to the sky. The cold stars burned with their indifference to earthly, to human problems. Millions of distant suns that cared nothing for one tiny point on a tiny planet, where a small woman stood in the midst of the graveyard of her life. She blinked. The spark in Her eyes went out. It resembled neither a star's explosion, nor the last flicker of a dying fire. It simply ceased to be. And in Her chest, just left of center, where it had lived for so many years, now there was emptiness.       She lowered Her head, looked at Her feet. At the grass and the new footprints from Her boots. Then She turned and walked.       Her footsteps sounded even, measured. She passed by the children's graves. Past the dark ones, the light ones. Past the one where the raspberries grew and the one where the name had been erased. Past all the versions of Herself, scattered across the clearing.       The forest parted before Her as silently as it had closed behind Her many hours ago. Branches no longer caught at Her, roots no longer tried to trip Her. The darkness accepted Her, as it had accepted everything before Her. Without questions or attempts to change anything.       And behind Her, beyond the clearing, nothing had changed. The moon still poured its light on the graves. The forest still stood like a black wall. The flowers gleamed white in the darkness. Only under the tree, in that very spot where She had sat all day and all night, where She had remembered her life, where previously there had been emptiness overgrown with grass – stood a headstone.       The one remaining inscription. Clear, new.

"She who believed in the world."

      In the distance, beyond the clearing, beyond the forest wall, footsteps sounded. Calm, receding further and further.       On the clearing, silence reigned once more. Only the wind, feeling free again, swayed the branches of the tree. Flowers showered down thickly. They fell onto the headstone, lay on the ground in a dense white layer, covering the hope that had nothing left to wait for.       The moon hid behind the clouds. The clearing plunged into darkness. And She – walked on…       She emerged from the forest when the sky in the east was just beginning to lighten. The city ahead was still sleeping. The windows of houses had not yet lit up, and the streetlights were going out one by one, giving way to the pre-dawn rays. The air smelled of dampness, young leaves, and that elusive scent that comes only in spring, when the world awakens from a long hibernation.       She turned around at the very edge of the forest. It stood like a dark wall, hiding the clearing behind it. She felt neither pain nor regret. Only a light, ghostly emptiness, akin to the inscriptions above the graves, had settled inside. There, where it used to ache, not letting Her breathe. Many footprints led back into the forest. From old, almost erased, children's ones. To fresh, adult ones of Hers.       The first ray of sun broke through the clouds, fell on Her face. She closed Her eyes. "Spring…"       Somewhere far away, a dog barked. A flock of birds flew overhead, crying out about something. Life continued to flow, unaware of what remained in the forest. She opened Her eyes and continued on Her way.       She knew: spring is always a new beginning. Always. Even if you have to leave something behind for it. Even if you have to bury a part of yourself in the frozen ground under the roots of old trees.       She walked, and with each step the awakening city accepted Her back. Her, in whom no spark remained. Her, in whom there was no longer any hope that someone would catch Her if She started to drown. Her, who had stopped waiting for the world to respond. And in this was Her strange, wrong kind of liberation.       Spring did not promise happiness.       Spring promised only a beginning. And a beginning is always the death of what was before.       She entered the city as the sun rose above the rooftops. Dirty footprints from Her boots remained on the damp asphalt. No one had noticed Her leave. No one noticed Her return either. No one would pay attention to the tracks She left behind, either. She no longer waited for anyone to notice. Another step. Then a second. Her gait became more confident. A smile appeared on Her face.

As empty as the morning sky overhead.