Cassian awoke with a start.
His dreams made no sense.
Almost as little as reality.
The snow was still there. The pain was still there.
But for a moment, he wasn’t sure which side of the dream he’d landed on.
He got up from the rock he had been laying down against.
The movement was clumsy—his legs stiff, his balance off. Cold had crept into his joints, into his spine. His arm still hung limp at his side, numb and dead weight.
He glanced at it. No change. No color. No pain, either.
That almost made it worse.
He brushed snow from his chest, then blinked.
Was that writing?
No. Just frost. Or wind patterns.
He wasn’t sure.
Cassian took a step forward.
Then another.
Then another.
There was nowhere to go, but staying still felt like a mistake.
He stepped out of the cave.
Everything was white with snow.
Cassian didn’t know how long he stood there, staring out at the white. The snow fell in lazy, whispering flakes, like it had never stopped. Like time had been buried beneath it.
His legs still worked, barely. That was something. His arm didn’t. That was... also something.
He exhaled, watching the vapor coil in front of him. It didn’t go far before vanishing into the fog. The world still felt too quiet. Not safe—never safe—but hollow, like a room after the shouting ends.
He needed to move. Not just because of the cold, or the creatures, or the rising panic he was keeping at bay with every slow breath. But because that place behind him—the one where he’d fallen, where he’d bled—was starting to feel like it wanted to keep him. Like if he stayed any longer, he wouldn’t ever leave.
Cassian took another step forward, the snow crunching beneath his boots. His balance wavered, the limp weight of his right arm throwing him off. Every movement felt wrong. He couldn’t tell if it was because of the wound, or because something inside him had changed.
His thoughts kept looping back—base camp. Warmth. Supplies. People. Orders.
Questions.
He thought he’d have to lie.
To hide whatever had happened there.
Then he thought about it some more.
And thought even more.
And then realised that those people up at the top wouldn’t care either ways.
Everyone in the war was expendable.
He could say a ghost cut his arm off with a knife made of frostbite and they’d probably just nod, write it down in a report, and send him back out with a new squad. Maybe a half-decent coat, if he was lucky.
No medals. No concern. No questions.
But he needed to get back. Even if just to pretend things were still normal.
Cassian turned toward the direction he hoped was downhill. The fog made it impossible to tell. Landmarks were gone. Trees blurred into one another. Every sound he made echoed oddly, like the mountain was listening.
He gritted his teeth.
One step at a time.
Back to base.
Back to a war which had lasted 10,000 years.
A war so old no one remembered why it started.
Only that it couldn’t end.
Not now. Not ever.
At least that was what he thought so.
There was some promise of a Messiah, leader of the rebellion, destined to save them all.
He knew, as well as you and I do, that it was just a fantasy of anyone he knew being the Messiah. It was simply a fantasy.
And we are not fanciful people.
Cassian trudged through the snow, the numb weight of his dead arm dragging at his side like a forgotten promise.
Above him, the mountains loomed—silent, white, ancient.
Below, the earth was hollow with graves no one bothered to mark anymore.
He wondered how many others had limped back like this.
Broken.
Changed.
Still breathing, somehow.
The base wasn’t a home. It wasn’t even safe.
But it was the only place left to go.
And it was waiting.
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Cassian trudged on, the snow crunching beneath boots that felt heavier with every step. The world was still white, still silent—but the silence was no longer empty. It pressed in on him, wrapped around his head like a thick blanket, muting even the sound of his own breath.
Somewhere ahead, half-swallowed by a drift, he spotted something dark.
He hesitated. Stepped closer.
A coat. Torn. Black and grey, same issue as his. A soldier's.
Cassian knelt slowly beside it, his dead arm dragging in the snow like a limb that had belonged to someone else. The wind shifted. Beneath the coat’s ragged edge, a boot stuck out—frozen, cracked, the leg inside stiff as stone.
No face. The body was face-down, snow packed tight into the hollow where the head had fallen.
Cassian stared. He didn’t want to know the name. Didn’t need to.
It could’ve been anyone.
Could’ve been him.
He stood, swaying slightly. His breath fogged, then vanished into the stillness. The fog didn’t move. The trees were still blurs.
Then something moved.
Cassian turned sharply—but there was nothing there. Only snow, falling slow as ever.
He waited. One second. Two.
Farther ahead, the mist seemed to shiver. Like something had passed through it. Like a ripple in fabric.
Cassian said nothing. Made no sound. But he felt it.
Not pursuit.
Not yet.
Just... attention.
Like the mountain had blinked. And now it saw him.
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