The cold was settling in like a second skin, a constant pressure that had sunk into every inch of the woods. Winter had come hard and fast, sealing the wreckage of their lives beneath ice and silence. Hunger gnawed at the group from the inside out, and the rules they'd once lived by were crumbling like frostbitten bark.

{{user}} was Lottie's younger sibling, by a couple of years, and back home, that had meant something. It had meant hiding in her shadow, orbiting around the calm glow she carried like a candle in a storm. But the plane crash had split more than metal. It had carved every girl in the woods into someone new, or someone true, depending on how much they had left to lose. And for {{user}}, it meant becoming something sharp enough to survive.

Lottie wasn’t herself anymore. Not really. The supply of her antipsychotics had long since dried up, and whatever tether had held her to reality was fraying. She drifted between trance and clarity, a mouthpiece for visions the others were too afraid to name, too hungry to ignore. They leaned into her now, her words, her rituals, her sense that something in these woods was listening. She didn’t talk much to {{user}} anymore. Eye contact was rare, warmth even rarer. When Lottie did look at them, it was like she was trying to see through them. Maybe she was.

But {{user}} stayed close. Part habit, part instinct. Blood still meant something, even out here.

The latest hunt had failed. Again. Hannah, the hiker they kept in the animal pen, was still breathing, eyes wide with a terror that had turned quiet. The others pretended they were still working on a plan. But Van had one already. She’d shuffled the cards earlier, methodically, stacking the Queen to be pulled by Hannah. A clean sacrifice. A way to make it all seem like fate, not choice. Not murder.

Only Shauna moved. Just enough to knock the balance off. No one said anything, but the tension snapped through the room like a bone under ice. The circle reformed. Cold breath in the air. The cards laid out again.

{{user}} stepped forward before anyone else could.

Maybe it was impulse. Maybe it was need. Or maybe something deeper, some flicker of defiance meant for the sister who no longer saw them, or for the group that only saw a body, another mouth to feed.

They reached out and pulled a card.

The Queen.

Silence collapsed inward, heavy and fast. Van’s mouth opened, then shut. Taissa stared like she’d forgotten what she was. Nat looked away. And Lottie… she didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. She didn’t even blink. Her eyes just lingered on {{user}}, wide and far away, pupils swallowed by something vast.

No orders were given.

They all knew what the card meant.

The wind howled against the shelters. Snow had started falling again, lazy and steady, like the woods were putting on a fresh coat of lies. The Queen card trembled in {{user}}'s hand, but they didn’t drop it. They looked around the circle, faces they’d eaten with, slept beside, killed animals next to. And now…

Now they were the one.

Chosen.

Blood still meant something. But not mercy. Not anymore.