CHAPTER 37 – Morning Light

  Fleta woke to soft gray light filtering into the shelter and the cold bite of early morning air on her cheeks. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. The dream clung to her like fog—dark hallway, echoing footsteps, the voice that always seemed to find her no matter where she ran.

  But then the creek whispered.

  Birds chattered high in the branches. Wind rustled through leaves just outside the shelter.

  And the pieces clicked back into place:

  Stover Creek. Trail Mile 3. First real morning on the Appalachian Trail.

  Her breathing steadied.

  Jess was already sitting cross?legged on the shelter floor, braiding her hair and yawning in loud, dramatic intervals. Marco snored like a human chainsaw. Riley crouched near the picnic table outside, boiling water for oatmeal, her jacket hood pulled low over her forehead.

  The world felt peaceful in a way her old one never had.

  Fleta pushed herself upright slowly, rubbing her tired eyes.

  Riley glanced back. “Morning, kiddo.”

  Fleta nodded. “Morning.”

  “Sleep okay?”

  Fleta hesitated.

  The easy answer sat on her tongue—Fine. Good. Yeah. But the truth pressed harder, warm and shaky in her chest.

  “Not really,” she admitted. “I had… a dream.”

  Riley didn’t come rushing over. Didn’t push. She just stirred the pot gently. “A nightmare?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want to talk about it?” Riley asked softly.

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  Fleta shook her head at first. The dream felt tangled, sharp in places she didn’t want to touch yet.

  But then Jess looked over with sleepy eyes. “Nightmares are normal out here,” she said, voice thick with morning grogginess. “New place. New sounds. New everything.”

  Marco snorted awake just then, sitting up with wild bed?head. “What’d I miss?”

  Jess rolled her eyes. “Drama.”

  Marco nodded sagely. “Ah. Morning drama. My specialty.”

  The normalcy of it—the joking, the warmth, the lack of pressure—made something in Fleta’s chest loosen.

  “It was about… my old house,” she said quietly.

  Jess softened instantly. Marco stopped messing with his tangled hair. Riley turned off the stove burner.

  Fleta stared at her hands. “It was like… the hallway was trying to swallow me again. And someone was yelling. Not yelling exactly but… angry. The way they always were.”

  No one interrupted.

  “And I kept thinking I was little again,” she said. “Like I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.”

  Her throat tightened. She swallowed.

  “But then the wall cracked. And I saw trees. The trail. And I walked through.” She looked up, surprised by her own words. “I actually walked away.”

  Riley smiled gently. “Because you did.”

  Jess nodded. “You’re not there anymore.”

  Marco added, “Dreams get stuck on old stuff. But they can’t keep you.”

  The warmth of their voices settled around her, soft as morning light.

  For a long moment, Fleta let the creek’s steady murmur fill the silence. The dream still lingered, but it felt smaller now—like a shadow shrinking under sun.

  Riley handed her a steaming bowl of oatmeal. “Eat. We’ve got miles to crush.”

  Fleta took it, the heat seeping into her cold hands. “How many miles?”

  “Depends how we feel,” Riley said. Jess groaned. Marco pretended to fall backward dramatically.

  Fleta smiled.

  The tightness in her chest eased further.

  They ate together on the shelter platform—quiet, slow, peaceful. When breakfast was done, they repacked their bags. Jess tried (and failed) to fold her sleeping bag neatly. Marco made a big show of hoisting his pack like it weighed a thousand pounds. Riley tightened Fleta’s shoulder straps and checked her water filter.

  The dream still hovered at the edge of Fleta’s mind, but the forest felt stronger than the memory. The trail stretched ahead—green, winding, open.

  When they stepped back onto the path, Fleta looked once more toward the creek.

  She whispered, barely audible:

  “That house can’t follow me here.”

  The woods rustled as if in agreement.

  She tightened her pack, inhaled the morning air, and stepped forward.

  One foot. Then the other.

  Moving toward a world that finally felt like it might let her belong.