Cold. A chill that pierced the spine. A biting frost that gnawed at the flesh.
Perhaps all of these could describe this small, modest cabin.
The table, and even the plates upon it, were frozen solid, reflecting a pale light. The windows were sealed with frost so thick that nothing of the outside world could be seen. Curtains, once flowing with graceful waves, had hardened into shapes that looked as though they might shatter at a touch. The hearth, stripped of purpose, was covered in a white shell of ice.
Everything inside the house lay beneath a thick coat of frost.
Upon the sofa, frozen stiff, sat a man—motionless, like a corpse long dead.
With his hood pulled low and his body utterly still, no one would have believed he lived… until his lips cracked open.
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"Go."
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The mouth that seemed never to have spoken moved, and the ice clinging to it splintered, falling in shards to the floor.
Standing before him, a boy of perhaps ten years old gazed into his father's cold, shining blue eyes. Without a word, without a flicker of emotion, he turned and walked toward the door.
His footsteps carried no sorrow, no fear of the unknown world beyond. He was only obeying his father's command, moving slowly toward the cabin door.
Thus he left behind the father who had been with him for his short lifetime, and stepped into the world outside.
He opened the door without a word of farewell, without a single belonging in hand.
The sight beyond was no different from the inside—frozen white, lifeless and still.
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The forest stood dense, every tree cloaked in frost, yet so vivid in form that one could almost imagine its true green color returning at any moment. It was as though everything had been frozen in an instant.
A bird clung to one tree—a woodpecker—its beak fixed against the bark mid-strike, frozen in place beside the trunk. At a glance, one could tell exactly what scene had been captured.
And the boy walked through this frozen world without emotion, step by steady step.
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How long did he walk?
The endless icy forest began, little by little, to change the farther he went from the cabin. Frost that had weighed down the leaves melted into droplets. Cracks spread across the bark that had been sealed in ice. Birds, once trapped, shook their wings and took to the air.
It was as if the cabin itself had been the very heart of the cold curse.
But the reason why… no one ever said.
The boy's pupils trembled faintly as he beheld landscapes he had never seen before.
He had never witnessed living creatures, never seen green leaves.
When warm sunlight brushed his cheek, for the first time he felt what it meant to be warm.
Following the path, a scent of the sea began to reach his nose.
Drawn as if by some unseen hand, he walked in its direction.
When the salt-laden breeze grew strong, he climbed a hill—and for the first time in his life, he saw it: the vast, endless blue of the sea.
The boy, who had never known emotion, parted his lips slightly in awe.
Sunlight sparkled upon the clear waters, and the sound of the tide seemed to soothe the heart with its gentle rhythm.
A faint light began to stir within his eyes.
The sound of the waves tickled something deep within him—something he could not yet name.
At that moment, voices drifted through the air.
Turning his head, he saw a merchant vessel anchored near the shore.