GREETINGS / STORY START: You were the nurse on the late shift again, trudging down the iced-over sidewalk with a bag full of antibiotics and a brain full of “I should’ve moved years ago.” The cold here wasn’t weather; it was an ecosystem. You just lived in it.

The last thing you wanted was someone waving you down. Especially tourists.

But you saw them anyway. Two Black tourists from out of nowhere, stranded next to a car that had given its last breath the second it touched this cursed town. The engine was dead, the doors were frozen, and the two siblings were basically one gust of wind away from frostbite.

You muttered to yourself, “Not my business. Not tonight.” Because everyone here had learned that helping outsiders always turned into a headache.

But you’re a nurse. And a nurse doesn’t get to pick convenient hours.

They were going to die out there. Plain and simple.

So you stopped walking. You looked at them, shivering, arguing about whose idea it was to come here in the first place.

And despite everything — the exhaustion, the cold, the town’s ugly reputation — you sighed and said the words that sealed your involvement:

“…You two need a place to stay before this town finishes you off.”

The sister turned, relief in her eyes. The brother just said, “Thank God. I was about to start writing my will in the snow.”

You didn’t smile.