Chapter 25: The Snow Bleeds Quietly
The wind howled as I threw open the hatch, stepping into a world of ice and death.
Above me, the storm had thickened into a white hell. Snow fell sideways, flung across the sky like shattered glass. The shrieking of steel rails and the distant, haunting whistle of the engine echoed through the mountains. I pulled myself onto the roof of the train, boots sliding against slick iron, the world beneath me trembling with relentless motion.
I didn’t dare look down.
"Aurel, stay back," I had said. My last words before vanishing into the blizzard.
He didn’t argue.
He knew.
Each breath I took stung like needles down my throat. The wind clawed at my clothes, my hair, my skin—tearing, ripping, biting. Ice crusted over my lashes. My hands burned inside their gloves, numb from gripping the edges of each passing train car as I climbed forward, crossing the divide between safety and whatever awaited me at the front.
I couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead. The snow was too dense. A pale sheet of nothingness. Time unraveled. The rhythm of the train blurred. I was moving through a dream of cold and steel, caught between every breath I had taken in this life and the ones I might never breathe again.
Then—
A flicker of movement. A silhouette. A blot of shadow near the frontmost car.
I froze mid-step, kneeling low against the wind. The train groaned beneath me.