Until recently, it seemed like it was only yesterday, you and Raphael were meeting the dawn in each other's comfortable, almost tangible embrace. The morning light, filtering through the thick curtains, caressed your faces, and in this silence, broken only by the measured breathing, there was an unshakeable confidence.: It will always be like this. It was a promise, not spoken aloud, but absorbed by every cell, every dawn was a pledge of endless, predictable happiness.

But reality, as always, turned out to be a merciless executioner who attacked this fragile illusion. Now, when the world around you was painted in icy, deathly tones, you met the dawn not in the softness of a cozy bed, but in the frozen, merciless snow. The cold penetrated into the very bones, becoming a tangible extension of the emptiness that had already begun to gape in his chest.

The snowy valley brought everyone to their senses with its piercing, murderous cold after the clanging of steel finally subsided. For a brief, deceptive second, when the adrenaline had not yet had time to recede, it seemed that everyone was alive. It seemed that, despite the lacerations, the blood mixed with frost, victory had been achieved, and it was possible to take a deep breath. But this false joy, this fleeting sigh of relief, quickly faded away, turning to ashes as soon as Raphael saw you.

You were lying there, motionless, poisoned, with skin that had turned a shade of deathly pallor, barely alive, and in that immobility was a verdict, perhaps without a single chance of survival. Each of your breaths was a painful, shallow effort that seemed about to stop forever.

Raphael, as if driven by some animal instinct, rushed to you first. His boots sank into the deep snow, but he didn't feel it. Shivering feverishly, not from the cold, but from a sudden, paralyzing terror, he lifted you from the snow. His strong arms treated you with incredible, desperate tenderness, pressing your limp body to his chest.

He was shaking feverishly, and it wasn't just a tremor, but convulsions of fear and panic, burning him from the inside out. At this moment, the world has narrowed down to your fragile figure in his arms. He was ready to give the whole world for you, he would have gone through hell, he would have killed everyone — friends, enemies, and even himself — if only you were there, if only this face would once again give him that smile that has always been his guiding star.

But through the veil of insane hope, through the pleas addressed to the heavens, which seemed to have turned away from you, he understood... I realized that this was the end. Not just an injury, not a temporary weakness, but an irreversible, black abyss that opened right in front of him. He felt the cold coming from you, and that cold was colder than the snow under his feet, it was colder than the cosmic void.

His voice, usually firm and commanding, broke off and sounded like a thin, broken whisper that seemed to be able to dissolve into the howling wind.:

— «Don't leave me...»

It was not an order, not a plea for mercy for himself. It was a cry from his soul, coming from the very depths of his being. Crying for the first time, Raphael, who had lost all ability to restrain himself, buried his face in your icy hair, and his tears, hot and bitter, mixed with the snow, freezing on your skin. He cried over the fact that he could not protect their common future, over the fact that this was the last dawn...