*Day 29.*
The mornings always began the same way.
Cold.
Not the sharp, punishing kind that froze the fingers and cracked the lips — no, this cold was quieter. Lingering. The sort of chill that seeped through skin and sat in the bones. The kind you got used to, even when you shouldn't.
The cabin groaned as it stretched under the pressure of wind and age. A tired old thing tucked between the trees, crooked but standing. The forest wrapped around it like a secret — thick, unwelcoming, untouched.
Inside, the world was still.
Kian stirred beneath his thin blanket, curled in front of the fireplace. The fire had long gone out, leaving only ash and a soft glow from buried embers. He blinked slowly, adjusting to the faint gray light creeping in through the cracked windowpane.
Outside, the sky was pale. Another overcast morning. Another day in the middle of nowhere.
He sat up, stretching silently, wincing at the stiffness in his shoulders. A dull ache lingered in his ribs — an old bruise, one he barely remembered getting. Probably during the run. The escape.
The silence was familiar. Expected. Comforting in its own strange way.
Then, the sound of footsteps.
Ellie.
---
She entered from the back room, hair messy, sleeves rolled to the elbow, already halfway through preparing whatever breakfast could be scraped together.
"You slept in," she said as she passed him, heading to the small kitchen area they'd patched together with crates and a bent stove burner.
Kian shrugged.
"Lazy," she added.
He let out a soft breath that might've been a laugh.
Ellie poured water into a blackened pot, added a few dried herbs, and stirred. The scent wasn't unpleasant — earthy, bitter, but warm. It reminded him of a time before the Shattering.
They ate quietly, seated at a makeshift table — two old crates and a slab of wood. Kian chewed with one hand under the table, fingers twitching against the knife holstered at his hip.
Ellie watched him sometimes. Not with pity — she'd long stopped looking at him like he was broken. More like she was studying a mirror, one that reflected all the weight she was too tired to carry alone.
"I found the river trail again yesterday," she said. "Clean water's still flowing. Maybe tomorrow we refill everything."
He nodded.
"I saw tracks too. Small ones. Rabbits or foxes. Could set a snare."
Another nod.
Ellie leaned back and crossed her arms. "You know, a conversation has two people in it."
Kian raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
"Guess I'm doing fine," she continued for him. "Thanks for asking, Ellie. Thanks for keeping us alive. You're the best sister ever."
He gave her a look that could almost be mistaken for affection. Almost.
She smirked. It faded quickly.
---
Later that day, they went outside to gather firewood. The trees stood tall and gray, their leaves stripped bare by early frost. Everything in the forest felt… paused. As if nature itself was holding its breath, waiting for something awful to pass.
Kian moved ahead with quiet steps, scanning the ground. Ellie followed behind with a hand on the small hatchet she never let out of reach.
"Do you remember the first time we came here?" she asked after a while.
He glanced back.
"You fell in that ditch. Thought you broke your leg."
Kian looked away.
"And I yelled at you for like an hour straight."
He did remember. The fall. The panic. The pain. The way Ellie wrapped his leg with strips from her jacket and carried him half the way here. She was fifteen then — smaller, thinner — but somehow unbreakable.
He hadn't cried since that day. Not once.
---
They returned before sunset. The air was sharp with cold, and the wind carried the scent of pine and something distant — smoke, maybe. Or memory.
Inside, Ellie prepared dinner. Kian lit the fire with the little kindling they had left. The light flickered over the cabin walls, casting soft shadows that danced like ghosts.
As they ate, Ellie spoke again, voice lower this time.
"Do you ever dream of them?"
He froze.
"Our parents," she said. "Or the village. I keep seeing the schoolyard. The bakery window. The bell tower."
Kian looked down.
"I hear mom's voice sometimes," she continued. "In dreams. Just before I wake up. She always says the same thing."
She didn't say what.
Kian didn't ask.
---
That night, the wind howled louder than usual. It pressed against the cabin like it wanted in. Ellie lay curled under a blanket near the fire, breathing slow and even.
Kian stayed awake, sitting by the door, back straight, knife in hand.
It was routine.
The shadows outside the windows moved, but it was just trees. Just wind.
Probably