After running away in a flurry that night, Gwen retreated into her home, avoiding the world outside for several days. Her father, Noah, meanwhile, busied himself with his new hobby of keeping turtles—purchased on a whim after his wife, Gwynn, teased him for being too old.

In an attempt to prove his youth, Noah even released the turtles back into the wild one evening, making a point of marking one with the name "Zion" on its shell in a bold act of petty revenge.

Gwynn, ever the pragmatist, found the gesture immature and pointless, but it brought him a fleeting sense of satisfaction.

Gwen, however, was unaware of the antics her father had indulged in. All she knew was that her father had been unusually concerned during her self-imposed seclusion, urging her to get out and take a break.

Noah's insistence that she shouldn’t remain cooped up at home was an attempt to draw her back into the world, to reconnect with life. But she couldn’t shake the weight of everything that had transp