Back in the cabin...
The warmth from the fire gently danced across the walls.
The man slowly turned his head to his manager and asked,
"Where is that girl?"
The manager looked toward the spot near the window where she had stood for hours,
then back at him and said softly,
"I think… she left."
She left.
Those two words echoed in his chest—
heavy… confusing… aching.
She left?
His brows furrowed as questions began to flood his heart.
Who was she?
Why did she help me?
Why was she crying?
He tried to recall—
blurred moments from when he was unconscious.
Flickers.
A pair of trembling hands on his face,
a tear that touched his skin before it fell,
a voice—whispered but desperate—saying,
"I won't let anything happen to you..."
And then darkness.
But even in that darkness,
he had felt it—
her presence.
A warmth that wrapped around his frozen soul,
as if someone out there… genuinely cared whether he lived.
She stood by me...
Held on...
But didn't even say goodbye.
Why?
His heart tightened.
There was something in the way she had cried...
Like losing him would have broken her completely.
But she didn't even know him...
Or did she?
He looked toward the window again,
his eyes searching the falling snow outside.
But she was gone.
And something in him…
something he didn't understand yet…
missed her.
Already.