Each trail of footprints in the snow marked a similar fate: death.

I’d known it. Of course I did. The shrill screams and piercing pleads throughout the deepening of the and thickening of the trees ahead of me was a reminder that no matter where I turned, death would follow.

“Do you think they’re all gone?” Quinton asked me, the ends of his hiking staffs puncturing the ground below us. The humming bluster of the wind chilled us both to the bone, despite the excessive amount of clothing we wore, and despite the goggles which were glued to my face, my cheeks were still rawed and red from frostbite.

“Yes.” Was all I said; it wasn’t my job to sugarcoat the truth. That was Arden’s, before he, well… before he entered those trees and hadn’t returned.

Quinton raised his chin to the air, the crisp air crackling within our tired lungs. One by one, as the wind picked up with a torturous howl, the footsteps disappeared as they covered themselves with snow, like a secret doing whatever it can to remain a mystery. He sniffed and said, “you’re sure?”

I turned to him, his similar navy goggles staring me in the face. His mouth was exposed; it was nearly frozen over, each iced particle coming to rest on his face as he constantly warmed them with his tongue. “Don’t do that. You’ll make them sore.”

“Either that or they’re frozen off.”

“I would take no feeling at all than pain.”

He scrutinised me. “Is it just natural to you to speak in riddles? I feel I’m talking to some thousand year old god whose suffered more pain than I would know.”

Finally, I bared my teeth at him. “I wasn’t hiding that very well, was I?”

“Oh, _very funny,”_ he mused, though the look on his face— or, well, from what I could discover from the skin exposed— claimed otherwise.

I sobered, and watched the steep inclination of snow ahead of us increase in volume as more snowflakes trickled from above our heads.

“Come on, now,” with a wave of my hand, he followed suit.

We travelled in the opposite direction of the trees for what seemed to be hours. Quinton had claimed that we were in the absolute middle of _nowhere, _and I deemed that phrase fitting. Because no matter where we turned, there was always a mile ahead of more snow, a section ahead with engulfing trees, or a cabin next to— _wait, a cabin?_

I narrowed my eyes for a moment, and rubbed my face wherever exposed to figure out the answer to if I was dreaming or not. When I realised I was not, in fact, dreaming, I raised my hand to clap Quinton on the shoulder—

But Quinton wasn’t there.

I whipped my head around. “Quinton?”

Pure white for miles. The thickness of the snow beneath us meant our footprints were more carved-out pathways than individual prints.

“Quinton?” I beckoned again, shifting my gaze to the trees to the west of the cabin.

Still nothing.

“_Quinton_!” I yelled, but the surrounding around echoed my voice back without an answer.

There had been seven of us. One by one we’d been picked off like parts of a whole that couldn’t cope without any right or rhythm. Any sense of togetherness or unity. The forest had picked off the weaker ones first— _Dan, Riley, Min_— then it came closer and closer. _Teresa, Arden._

_Quinton_.

I stilled in front of the door ahead of me. There was still a lingering trail ahead of it from where it’d been repeatedly opened and closed. The flicker of a light was visible from the window, mostly obscured by the snow.

_Someone was home._

I rapped on the door. _One, two. _

No answer.

_One, two, three._

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No answer.

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Harder this time, I pounded on the door.

The door creaked forward as I placed my fingertips against it. _It was already open._

__

The sight ahead froze me.

The six lost crew were tied together in a vicious, rope-burnt circle—

_No. Five._

__

I stepped into the cabin, footsteps heavy; their eyes widened, their yells muffled.

The door clicked behind me.

“_Took you long enough,_” the voice behind me uttered, before a crack to the back of my head rendered me speechless. I fell to the ground with only one of my hands responding in time to prevent the harshness of the fall, my cheek pressed against the wooden boards, snow clinging to my face.

My goggles were ripped off from my head, clattering until they came to a still. They too were smashed.

Vision blurry, I looked up to the five. Their screams quietened, but echoed through my head.

A set of footsteps entered my view. Blue hiking boots, lowering down once my eyes grew heavy.

“I never figured you to be naive,” he said.

_Quinton_.__

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