Where the Winter Buries Us

Chapter I. Yesterday

Running doesn't mean escaping. A fact to many, but not acknowledged by nearly enough. Everyone runs from something. In a life marked by loss and driven by fear, survival isn't a choice—it's instinct, a constant pull forward, even when there's nowhere left to go.

He didn't know how quickly the so-called 'calm' could break, how fragile it truly was—something too easily taken for granted.

With each step his feet pressed into the snow, carrying him forward, further from something—though even he couldn't say what. Or perhaps he could, though he was likely lying to himself. With every step, a shadow followed. His movements were steady, purposeful, though there was an unspoken tension in the way he walked, the way he held himself—his posture like that of a predator, ready to strike.

A predator. The furthest thing he was from in this frozen wasteland. Here, he was likely the bottom of the food chain. His gloves, coat, and hood offered him no protection against the elements—save for the cold that gnawed at his bones, a hunger that never ceased.

Suddenly, he stopped. The motion was jarring, like a machine brought abruptly to a halt. The snow crunched beneath him as he knelt, swinging his bag off his shoulder with practiced ease. He reached into it—a seemingly bottomless expanse of clutter. His movements were methodical, each action deliberate as he sifted through the disarray. To an outsider, it might look like a mess of random oddities and miscellany, but there was an orderliness to it—a control imposed on chaos. His shoulders relaxed slightly as his hands moved through the belongings, the familiar rhythm momentarily soothing him. Then, the thumb of his glove brushed against something smooth, and his hand stilled.

He grasped it firmly, pulling it free—a dark, round, flat object, one side worn smooth, the other pitted and scratched. As if every mark, every crease, told a story. It probably did.

He held it up, tilting it slightly to catch the weak sunlight filtering through the gray sky. A heart was etched into its underside, its edges worn and faded by time, two initials nestled within: K and E. The letters were faint, almost illegible, but still there, clinging stubbornly to the metal as though refusing to be forgotten.

He stood, snow cascading down his leg, clinging to the worn fabric of his pants before falling away in soft clumps. He opened the object with a flick of his thumb—a compass. The dial spun and swerved like a lost bird in a storm, its erratic movements desperately searching for "home." Once it stopped for a moment, he looked up into the distance, the seemingly endless snow-covered "road" stretching as far as the eye could see, broken only by the distant sight of mangled, disfigured trees.

He gazed a moment, thinking. Pulling down his mask, he revealed his face to the watching frozen landscape. A snout emerged from beneath the fabric, its edges framed by frost-clinging fur. A subtle scar ran along the bridge of his nose, barely noticeable against the weathered texture of his skin, while a deeper, more prominent one carved its way along his muzzle—a jagged reminder of some past encounter. His breath came out in visible puffs, lingering in the freezing air as his eyes, a deep green, scanned the horizon, wary and calculating. The faint twitch of his ear betrayed the tension he carried, even in stillness.

There was nothing here worth lingering for.

The land lay blanketed in a frozen white sheet, broken only by the jagged silhouettes of trees lining the path's edges. Their trunks leaned drunkenly, twisted and shattered by the merciless weight of the endless winter. Some were splintered clean through, their gnarled remains clawing at the ashen sky like skeletal hands in a silent plea for mercy. Mercy that had long since abandoned this place—if it ever existed at all.

He stared at the lifeless tableau for a moment longer, the weight of it pressing against him like the cold he could never escape. Slowly, he closed the compass, the worn metal creaking softly in protest. Pressing it to his chest, he let his gaze linger on the horizon, his breath steady but shallow.