The moment Theron hauled the heavy timber door open, the Morbid Winter became a physical enemy. It wasn't just cold; it was a biting, paralyzing force that snatched the air from my lungs and immediately replaced the fire of my rage with the dry ache of deep starvation. Blinding, fine snow was being driven horizontally by a wind that screamed like a banshee through the settlement's few remaining stripped trees.
Theron didn't wait. He threw me a thick, stiff cloak made of poorly-cured hides. "We check the snares in the river thicket. Three of them are still functional. If they are empty, we go hungry tonight." He moved with the practiced economy of a man who lived perpetually on the edge of the grave, his eyes fixed on the immediate necessity.
I tied the cloak around the boy's bony frame, every simple movement—the lifting of an arm, the bending of a knee-demanding a painful expenditure of energy. The man in me knew calculus and combustion engines; Elian's body knew only the language of famine and fatigue. As we stepped out, my foot sank past the ankle in the dense, icy snow.
"Don't waste the heat," Theron grunted, already several paces ahead, his boots crunching rhythmically. "We move fast. Five minutes out here will take your fingers."
The walk was a nightmare. The landscape was a silent, beautiful death trap—everything was muted white and frozen blue. The sheer physical effort of lifting this starved body through the drifts was brutal. I stumbled repeatedly, the dizzying momentum of Elian's traumatic memories returning in small, nauseating waves with each exertion.
When we finally reached the thicket, a cluster of dead reeds near the half-frozen riverbank, hope was a frail ember. Theron knelt by the first snare, a cunningly fashioned loop of sinew tied to a spring-bent branch. It was empty. The second snare, too.
"The last one," Theron muttered, not looking at me. He was breathing heavily, his face white with rime. "If it's a rabbit, we'll eat well. If it's a squirrel, we eat."
He pulled the snow away from the final trap. Underneath lay not the prize of meat, but a small, stiff body—a field mouse, frozen solid, caught in the loop. Theron simply picked it up by the tail, his expression unreadable. He looked at me, his eyes hard and pragmatic.
"It is not a rabbit," he said, tucking the minuscule, frozen form into his pouch. "But it is food. Now, we move for fuel before the light fails."