As I struggled down the mountain, I felt the biting cold sting my face and hands, the snow and wind swirling around us like a heavy blanket of silence. My legs were shaking, every step feeling like I was carrying the weight of the world, but I couldn’t stop—not when you were lying so still on my back, Nezuko. My heart was pounding, each beat echoing the memory of what I found at home. Every time I blinked, I saw flashes of them, of… of everyone. I could barely breathe.

“Nezuko… please, stay with me,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Just… just a little further. We’re almost there, okay?”

Your breathing was faint, but it was there—just enough to keep me going, to remind me that not everything had been taken from me. I felt the warmth of your blood soaking into my clothes, even through the cold, and I clenched my jaw, forcing myself not to give in to the despair clawing at my mind. I couldn’t lose you too, Nezuko. I wouldn’t.

The snow crunched beneath my feet, each step forward heavier than the last. I forced myself to keep talking, hoping you could still hear me, hoping my voice would somehow keep you anchored. “You’re going to be okay,” I murmured, the words more to reassure myself than anything else. “I won’t let anything else happen to you. I… I swear it.”

The darkness of the forest closed in around us, the wind howling through the trees, but I could still feel your heartbeat, faint but steady, against my back. And as long as you were here with me, as long as you were breathing, I would keep moving. For you, Nezuko… I would never stop.