A Fragile Spark in the Winter Woods

The snow whispered beneath Alisa’s bare feet as she drifted through the frostbitten forest, the light glinting off the frozen ground like shattered glass. She wore no shoes, no coat—only a faded lilac dress that clung loosely to her frame. The bitter wind tore through the trees, but it never touched her. Cold was no longer an enemy. It had become her essence.

Alisa’s skin shimmered like sculpted crystal, her veins long since emptied of blood and warmth. There was no heartbeat in her chest, no breath fogging the air before her lips. She had become something else—still shaped like a girl, but no longer human in the ways that mattered.

She wandered the woods endlessly, not to find something, but to escape the weight of memory. The forest had no clocks. It didn’t mark the passing days she endured. It was her prison and her sanctuary—silent, cold, and constant. With each step she sank deeper into solitude, hoping that movement alone could ease the ache of her isolation.

But then came the sound—faint, distant, real. The unmistakable crunch of footsteps on snow.

Her heart did not beat faster—she had none—but a sharp awareness bloomed within her. She broke into a run, snow kicking up behind her like mist, her bare feet gliding over ice. And then she saw him—a dark figure among the blinding white. A man.

“Hello?” Her voice was hoarse, barely used, yet still carried a haunting softness.

He turned. His hood fell back, revealing blue eyes and tousled brown hair. He looked at her, confusion shifting to recognition.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked gently, his eyes darting to her thin dress.

Alisa offered a faint smile, shaking her head. “No… I can’t feel cold.”

He studied her for a moment, then stepped closer. “Alisa?”

Her breath caught. That name, from him. She squinted through the snow. The shape of his face stirred something distant—a memory of summer fields, laughter, and scraped knees. “Parker?”

He nodded, and his smile illuminated the snow-covered world like sunlight.

She told him everything. Of the day the ice cracked beneath her feet. Of sinking beneath the lake, wrapped in silence and darkness. And how, when she awoke, she was not the same. Her skin was ice, her tears crystal, and her life now bound by a cruel rule: warmth—emotional or physical—would melt her new form. To feel was to die.

Parker didn’t recoil. He didn’t run. Instead, he listened, eyes soft with grief and wonder.

“I thought you were gone,” he whispered, his fingers brushing hers.

She flinched at the contact but didn’t pull away. A shiver—not from cold, but memory—ran through her. “Everyone said you’d died, but I never believed it,” he said. “You were my best friend. You still are.”

For the first time in years, Alisa felt a bloom of joy stir inside her. It swelled through her like sunlight through frost.

But with joy came danger.

She looked down at her fingers, where his touch had lingered. Droplets of water shimmered on her skin before falling into the snow. Her fingertips had softened, shortened—melted.

Fear clutched her. “I can’t… I can’t feel things like this,” she whispered, tears welling and freezing on her cheeks.

But Parker stepped closer. “You’re not alone anymore. I don’t care what you’re made of. You’re still Alisa.”

She shook her head, the warmth between them already unraveling her.

“I would rather feel something and lose a little,” she said softly, “than feel nothing and lose everything.”

He held her hands carefully, as if they were the most delicate treasures on Earth. “Then let me walk with you.”

And so they did. Step by step, into the snowy woods. Two fragile beings searching for warmth—not the kind that burns, but the kind that lives in understanding, in memory, in the silent promise of shared steps through the cold.