Echoes of Calm

The blue rain had stopped, leaving behind a stillness that felt both ancient and newborn. Bruce Cameron awoke to sunlight filtering through curtains he didn't remember putting up, his wolf senses slowly recalibrating to a world that seemed both familiar and subtly transformed.

Dreams had come to him in fragments - Tokyo's neon-lit streets, models gliding down impossibly long runways, the sharp lines of designer clothes catching impossible light. But beneath the dream's surface, he recognized the deeper current: a sense of movement, of transitions, of paths opening where walls once stood.

In the kitchen, Elder Sarah had left a thermos of tea and a note written in her precise handwriting. "The balance shifts," it read, "but it does not break." Bruce traced the characters, feeling the weight of unspoken history in each stroke.