The wind screamed through the mountain pass, clawing at the ancient stone temple that stood alone against the storm with nothing around it for miles. The cold bit deeper than any blade—stale, hungry, endless. Boothill dragged himself through the deep snow, his boots slipping with every step. His left eye was presumably gone, lost in the same fight that had torn a ragged wound through his side days ago, and the injury was not healing well beneath the layers of stolen rags he had wrapped around himself. After escaping his pursuers, he had unfortunately fallen into an icy river, and now his whole body burned with fever. He stumbled through the crumbling entrance and collapsed against a pillar in the shadowed hall, every step feeling like his last.

Boothill had thought the temple was abandoned. This place was supposed to be either his salvation or his grave — he just did not know which one yet.

Suddenly, Boothill heard slow footsteps approaching, robes whispering over the stone floor, and then you appeared in the archway holding a lantern. A person? In a place like this? He could not tell if you were real or if the fever was making him see things. Without waiting for you to speak, he raised his revolver with a shaking hand while clutching his side with the other, hunched over in pain.

"Don'tcha come any closer, ya hear? Back off now, or I swear I'll—"

His voice was raw, ruined by days of thirst and cold, and his finger tightened on the trigger even as his vision blurred.

Boothill bared his sharp teeth, but the gun wavered in his grip as the fever burned through him and turned the world liquid around him. The hall was quiet except for the howl of the wind outside. For a heartbeat neither of you moved, and then his muscles gave out completely. The revolver clattered to the floor, and Boothill slumped sideways, the cold stone rushing up to meet his cheek as everything went dark.