The snow had begun at dusk, a soft, hesitant fall that thickened as night deepened. By midnight, the world outside St. Marcellus Hospital had been transformed into something dreamlike: trees bent under the weight of crystalline white, rooftops wore powdered crowns, and the streets were buried beneath a silence broken only by the crunch of boots and the distant toll of church bells.
From his bed, Lucien Corvin watched the flakes drift past his window. They glittered in the lamplight like falling stars, mesmerizing in their endless descent. He had always loved snow, though he had never truly played in it. The closest he had come was pressing his palm to the cold glass as a child, imagining what it would feel like to hold something so fleeting and fragile. Tonight, as the flakes thickened, he whispered to himself, It looks like heaven's feathers.
The thought felt dangerous, as though speaking it aloud acknowledged what they all knew: he was slipping away.
Lucien was dressed in his softest flannel pajamas, patterned with faded little snowflakes, and a thick wool cardigan his mother had knitted years ago. It was far too big, swallowing his narrow shoulders, but it kept the chill from gnawing at his bones. Even so, he shivered faintly beneath the layers.
His family sat with him. His mother's hand lay atop his, her touch trembling though her face tried to be calm. His father, stoic and stone-faced, had the look of a man holding a dam from breaking. Clara, his nine-year-old sister, sat curled beside him on the bed with her ragged toy rabbit. She leaned against him carefully, as though afraid to break what little remained of him.
They tried to speak of ordinary things—the decorations Clara had seen in town, the carolers practicing by the square, the Christmas tree they would put up in two weeks. But the words fell like snowflakes into silence, fragile and melting too quickly.
Lucien smiled faintly, though his chest ached with every breath. "I wish… I could spend Christmas with you," he whispered.
His mother's lips trembled. "You are with us, sweetheart."
He wanted to believe her, but he knew better. Each inhale felt borrowed, each exhale an act of defiance. He was thirteen, yet his body belonged to an old man, tired and brittle. Tonight was his last night, and though the thought frightened him, there was a strange calm too—like standing at the edge of a frozen lake, knowing the ice would crack but finding the reflection on its surface too beautiful to look away from.
As the hours stretched on, Clara read fairy tales aloud, her small voice painting pictures of bells, trees, and snowy villages. Lucien listened with eyes half-closed, imagining it all. Snowmen with carrot noses, bells that rang out across valleys, families huddled by roaring fires. He wanted it—just once.
But instead, he lay in a hospital bed, counting the beats of a failing heart.
Near midnight, his family drifted into exhausted sleep around him. Clara's rabbit slipped from her grasp. His mother's head bowed against the mattress. His father stared blankly at the floor, eyes closed but too restless to dream.
Lucien alone remained awake, gazing at the falling snow until his vision blurred.
And then—he heard it.
A bell.
Faint, delicate, far away.
He frowned. Surely it was the chapel bell? But no—it was too soft, too perfect, like crystal struck by moonlight. Another chime followed, then another, until it became the only sound in the world.
The hospital walls dissolved.
Lucien's breath caught. He was falling—down, down into an abyss that stretched beyond sight. The snow and bed were gone. His frail chest no longer hurt. The air rushed past him soundlessly. And still, the bell rang, guiding him deeper into the void.
Then—light.
Blinding, warm, alive.
Lucien opened his eyes.
---
The room was small, wooden, and warm. Sunlight spilled through a window, painting the floor in golden squares. Dust motes floated like tiny stars, and a faint sweet smell lingered in the air—honey, perhaps, or baked bread.
Lucien sat upright, startled. He was not coughing. He was not weak. His hands trembled as he held them before his face—smooth, small, but full of strength. His arms no longer shook beneath their own weight.
He stumbled to a mirror hanging crookedly on the wall.
The reflection was not his.
A boy of perhaps seven stared back, with pale hair that gleamed like fresh-fallen snow and eyes green as spring leaves. His ears tapered into delicate points, peeking from beneath the hair. His skin glowed with health, cheeks flushed pink.
Lucien's jaw dropped. "What…?"
The bell's chime still lingered faintly in his ears. A memory of falling. A memory of dying.
"I… I reincarnated?" he whispered, the words trembling from his lips.
He stared longer at his reflection, then burst into startled laughter—half joy, half disbelief. "I'm an elf?!"
---
When he stepped outside, the cold hit him like a friend's embrace. Not sharp and painful, as it once had been, but invigorating. Snow stretched endlessly in glittering fields, reflecting sunlight like scattered diamonds. The air was crisp and sweet, filling his lungs with a rush of clarity.
He blinked, overwhelmed.
Children—elves, like him—ran past, bundled in furs, tossing snowballs that burst into sparkling powder. They laughed with voices like music. Some sculpted snowmen that giggled when patted, their coal eyes blinking mischievously before waddling off to join other living snow-creatures.
Lucien gawked. "The snowmen are alive?!"
One stubby snowman waddled past, tipped an imaginary hat to him, then promptly fell face-first into a snowdrift. Lucien burst out laughing, the sound strange on his own ears—so carefree, so unlike the weary chuckles he'd given in the hospital.
"Hey, you're new, aren't you?"
Lucien turned. Two young elves, twins by the look of them, stood with curious eyes. They were his apparent age, one with golden braids and the other with hair tied back messily.
Lucien nodded dumbly. "I… I guess so."
The girl tilted her head. "You talk funny."
The boy grinned. "Don't mind her. Come on—want a snowberry tart?" He held up a pastry steaming in the cold, its crust dusted with sugar. The sweet smell nearly made Lucien faint.
His stomach growled loudly.
The twins laughed. "You do want one!"
Lucien flushed. "I—I've never…" He trailed off, embarrassed. How could he explain he had never eaten much of anything but bland hospital food?
The boy shoved the tart into his hands anyway. "Eat!"
Lucien took a tentative bite. The crust crumbled, butter-soft, and the filling burst sweet and tangy on his tongue. His eyes widened. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.
He devoured it without shame. The twins giggled.
As he licked sugar from his fingers, tiny lights drifted past his vision. At first he thought they were fireflies, but no—their wings shimmered like glass, their bodies delicate as petals. Fairies. Dozens of them, fluttering through the snow like living fragments of starlight. One paused to perch on his nose, making him go cross-eyed. The fairies giggled like windchimes before darting away.
Lucien laughed until his stomach hurt. For the first time in his life, the world overwhelmed him not with pain, but with wonder.
Yet the sweetness, the laughter, the cold—it all stirred something else too. A hunger he had never truly felt. His stomach growled again, louder this time. The twins smirked knowingly.
"You're starving," the girl said.
The boy pointed down the lane, where warm light spilled from a building of stone and timber. Smoke curled from its chimney, and the faint sound of music drifted out. "That's the tavern. Go inside. They'll feed you."
Lucien hesitated. A tavern? Him?
But the smells wafting from the place—roasted meat, spiced cider, fresh bread—were too much to resist. His body, new and whole, demanded what his old one had always been denied.
He glanced once more at the laughing elves, the waddling snowmen, the drifting fairies. His chest swelled with awe, fear, and joy all tangled together.
Then, gathering his courage, Lucien stepped toward the tavern, heart racing with anticipation of warmth, food, and whatever wonder awaited next.
For the first time in thirteen fragile years, he felt alive.