The lady and her Lighter

I've always been more comfortable in silence than in crowds. Maybe that's why my town, Winterlys, feels like a secret only I can hear-the echo of footsteps on empty streets, the way the wind carries stories through the trees.

It's been five years since I left this town behind. Five years since I walked away from its crowded hallways, its quiet streets, and the memories I never had the courage to face.

I thought distance would make it easier.

It didn't.

Now, my family has called me back, for the New Year's Eve festival, the one night when the town glitters with lights and laughter, the Mount Winterlys, washed in freshly fallen snow shines in the dark night, pretending nothing has ever changed.

But for me, everything has.

High school was supposed to be simple. Ordinary. Yet something happened here-something I buried so deep I almost convinced myself it never existed. Almost.

And now, as I return, I can feel the past pressing against me, soft and unshakable, like the whisper of a secret I can't outrun.

What was it that happened?
What do I want to leave behind?
What is it that still calls for me?
What do I want to forget?
Whom...do I want to forget?