Day 109: 24 February 2026

 Short Story -- Morning

She’d always remember the way the sun came over the mountains and across the fjord in the morning.

She’d wake up early, get dressed, pack her journal and her current read on her bag, and quietly leave the hotel.

It wasn’t dark exactly, but the sun hadn’t fully risen yet either.

As she walked through the town centre was waking up. Shop owners were arriving. Old women talked to each other out their windows. Cats sat out in the squares and swaggered down side streets.

She wound through the main square and up a small alley-esque road, climbing higher and higher. Eventually she’d be walking on a dirt path that lead to what was once — and actually up until WWII — a fort a top a nearby mountain.

Above the city, but below the fort, she’d stop. There was a flat slab of raised concrete there. Like a stage but without any seats for an audience. She’d scramble up and sit.

She had made it in time!

The pinks and yellows of the sunrise were cresting the mountains across from her. The mountains themselves casting long shadows across the water and the town below.

The air was crisp and cool in that way particular way that early morning air is.

She opened her bag, surveying and deciding… she pulled out her journal.

Turning to a fresh page, she dated the top and started writing. She wrote about the sunrise and the town in the morning and all the things she’d done yesterday. She wrote things she’d observed and things she’d learned.

And once she’d finished, she packed everything away. Admired the view now that the sun was shining and the sky was blue. And scrambled down from her perch ready to head back into town ready for another day.

‘Until tomorrow,’ she whispered.