The Obliterated House

The air around her was deathly cold, sharp enough to burn her lungs with every breath. Frost clung to her eyelashes and brows like shards of glass, and the silence of the forest pressed against her ears until even her heartbeat sounded too loud. The trees were unnaturally tall, their twisted black branches clawing at the pale sky like broken fingers reaching for mercy. A thin silver mist drifted between the trunks, crawling along the snow as if the ground itself were breathing. The moonlight barely touched the forest floor, leaving long shadows that seemed to move even when the wind stood still. The small broken hut in the distance looked abandoned by time itself-its roof half collapsed, its walls eaten by rot and ice-yet an unseen presence lingered around it, watching. The roots that bound Lyna's body were ice-cold and alive, tightening slowly like the grip of something that did not belong to this world.