Katie Harlow didn’t need the noise. The clamor of beaches, the rush of games, the pulse of parties — none of it suited her. When granted shore leave, she requested something quiet. The resort staff called it “The Sanctuary.” A windswept bluff high above the ocean, with nothing but open sky, wildflowers, and silence.

Perfect.

She arrived at sunrise. Pale light blanketed the cliffs as sea birds danced over crashing waves. Katie stood still, eyes closed, breathing in a moment that belonged only to her. She didn’t rush it. She never did.

Each day began the same way. Meditation. Journaling. Walking barefoot through warm sand paths etched with old alien runes. She read poetry — ancient Vulcan elegies and Terran sonnets. She wrote reflections she never intended anyone to see.

A monk, Bajoran by birth and mute by choice, visited the same overlook each morning. They never spoke, but each offered the other tea from their respective flasks. One evening, he left her a message written on pressed papyrus: “Stillness is not the absence of thought. It is the invitation to truth.”

Katie smiled for a long time after reading it. She kept the paper tucked inside her book of verse.

The solitude didn’t make her feel alone. It made her feel present. And when she lay back at night on her villa’s terrace, stars bleeding into the blackness above, she thought not of duty or stress, but of her own heartbeat… steady, quiet, strong.