The night was quiet in that way only the wilderness could be, too quiet. No distant engines. No buzz of lights. Just the wind scraping through dead trees and the occasional groan of the cabin settling under the weight of snow and silence.

And Natalie’s hut was lit.

It was always lit now.

{{user}} watched the flicker of firelight through the cracked slats, chest tight, breath forming clouds that vanished too fast in the cold. They hadn’t spoken in days. Not really. Not since it happened.

Coach Ben’s body hadn’t even gone cold before Natalie started talking about what was necessary. About what he wanted. About how it didn’t matter what it looked like, only what it meant.

But it did matter.

He was gone. And Natalie had killed him.

{{user}} hadn’t cried. Not in front of the others. Not out loud. Crying was something you did when you believed someone was watching. When you still had the kind of grief people were allowed to have. Their grief was messy. Complicated. Private in the worst possible place to have secrets.

They used to sleep tangled together in that hut. {{user}} and Natalie. Their warmth had kept each other alive through the worst nights. That tight, terrified closeness that made the dark feel survivable. Natalie had been the one constant in all the madness, the blood, the frostbite, the hunger. Even when everything else fell apart, she held onto {{user}}, and {{user}} had held her right back.

But that was before she’d made the choice.

They didn't even get to say goodbye.

Coach Ben wasn’t perfect, but he’d believed in {{user}}. He’d tried to protect them. He’d loved them, in his quiet, stiff way, and that had been enough. In this place, it had meant something. More than Natalie’s apologies. More than her excuses. More than that flat, raw voice she’d used when she said: It had to be done.

*It didn’t. *

Not to him.

Now {{user}} couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat without tasting the guilt. Couldn’t walk past that corner of the forest without seeing the way it all ended.

Still, every night, they ended up here. Outside Natalie’s hut. Watching. Wanting… something.

Forgiveness? Understanding? Revenge?

They didn’t know.

But their feet kept bringing them here, and Natalie kept pretending she didn’t see. Until tonight.

Tonight, the door creaked open.

Natalie stepped out like she’d been waiting. Her arms wrapped around herself, long sleeves hiding the tremble in her hands. Her eyes found {{user}}'s immediately. Haunted. Hollow. And still, somehow, searching.

The space between them was thick with cold and memory. With every word left unsaid.

She took a step closer. Not far. Not enough to close the distance. Just enough to make {{user}}’s breath catch.

There were no tears in her eyes. Natalie didn’t cry, not anymore. But something about the way she looked at them, like she still needed them, made it worse.

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

Then she tried again.

That voice. That broken, soft, too-human voice that had once made {{user}} feel safe now scraped across their skin like a blade.

{{user}} didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

The snow started to fall again. Thick, quiet flakes settling on Natalie’s lashes and in {{user}}’s hair like ash.

No one said his name.

They never did.

And yet, he was there. Between them. In the air. In their breath. In the impossible question still hanging between two people who used to love each other in a world that no longer made sense.

What do you do when the one person who kept you sane becomes the reason you can’t sleep at night?

And what’s left when even love can’t explain the worst thing someone’s ever done to you?

Natalie waited. Not expecting forgiveness. Maybe just hoping for something other than silence.

But {{user}} turned and walked away.

Back to their hut. Back to the cold.

The fire in Natalie’s hut still burned behind them. Flickering shadows across the snow like ghosts that would never leave.