Section 1: The Final Fall
Not the pain.
Not the cold.
Not even the certainty of death.
Just that sound.
A hollow metal ring inside his skull, like someone struck a pipe miles away.
Once.
Twice.
Then the world slammed back.
Snow.
Everywhere. Slanting knives driven by a screaming wind.
Alex tasted iron before air.
Face crushed into packed ice, blood branching red across white.
Bootprints fading behind him.
Victor's stride, arrogant, unhurried.
Sophia's lighter steps, a nervous laugh trailing like a cracked bell.
They never looked back.
They never did.
Three breaths to realize he was alone.
Four to feel nothing in his fingers.
Five to know he might not survive the next minute.
He dragged a hand anyway, carving weak lines in the snow.
A shadow cut through the storm.
Running toward him.
Small boots punching deep, slipping, rising again.
A blue scarf snapped like a whip.
Long dark hair iced with glittering shards.
She looked impossible in this dying world.
She skidded, fell to her knees, hands digging him out of the snow.
"Hey, hey, stay awake—"
Voice torn by wind.
She pressed her forehead to his cracked lips and whispered something that broke his heart open:
"You're not an orphan... you never were."
He knew that voice.
Or had dreamed it.
Didn't matter.
The world flipped sideways.
Last sensation: two small hands refusing to let go.
Then everything went soft.
Section 2: The Orphan's Tag (1908, age 7)
The blood on the blanket had crusted stiff.
1908. A cart rattled to the orphanage gates.
Seven-year-old Alex, wrapped in army wool that stank of rain and gunpowder, was dumped like luggage.
A tag pinned to his collar: Alexander. No surname. No parents.
Sister Margaret carried him down, blood smearing her habit.
"Another war leftover," she muttered.
Children watched from the doorway.
In the back corner stood a girl with tight braids and sharp eyes, clutching her apron.
Lena. The dean's daughter.
No one noticed her.
Alex didn't either.
That night fever burned through him.
The door creaked.
Lena slipped in with a basin, pressed a cool rag to his forehead.
"Shh. Hold still."
One minute, then she was gone, quiet as a ghost.
Days later, in the yard.
Three bigger boys had Lena cornered, yanking her braids, pushing her toward mud.
Alex charged.
Fists flew.
He took every hit, shielding her until the sister's whistle scattered them.
Lena, panting: "Why?"
He wiped blood from his lip. "Couldn't just watch."
She shoved a plain handkerchief into his hand and ran.
From then on, her eyes followed him across the yard.
Three months later, the Harringtons' car arrived.
Eleanor pointed.
Victor kicked Alex's bundle into the mud.
As the car pulled away, Lena screamed his name through the gates.
He never turned around.
She stood in the snow clutching a half-finished red scarf, crying until her legs gave out.
Section 3: The Day They Bought Me (1915, age 7)
The motorcar stank of new leather and Eleanor Harrington's violet water.
Victor sat opposite, ten years old, legs swinging, shoes worth more than the orphanage roof.
He looked at me the way boys look at stray dogs, curious how many kicks it takes to stop them moving.
When I reached for the small cloth bundle that held everything I owned, he kicked it out the window into the mud.
Eleanor never turned.
"Leave it," she said. "He won't need rags where he's going."
The estate gates opened like jaws.
That night they gave me the attic above the stables.
A cot. One blanket. One rule: stay invisible.
Victor tested the rule before supper.
A casual shove down the back stairs.
My lip split on the banister.
He smiled like he'd just unwrapped a present.
"Welcome home, mute."
As the car pulled away I glanced back once.
Behind the iron fence stood a small girl in a faded blue coat, clutching the bars with both hands.
She was shouting something the engine swallowed whole.
I never heard a word.
.
Section 4: Twelve Years of Lessons (1915-1927, age 7→19)
They taught fast.
Age seven: dropped a plate. Three days in the coal cellar, pitch black, rats for company.
Age nine: looked too long at Victor's new bicycle. He pinned my hand to the chopping block and brought the hammer down.
Three fingers snapped like dry twigs. Eleanor glanced over: "Wrap it. Don't bleed on my Persian rug."
Age twelve: Christmas Eve. Someone left a red hand-knitted scarf on the gatepost.
Victor held it to the fire and watched my face while it burned.
"Thanks for the gift, orphan."
Age fifteen: caught copying Victor's homework. He told the teacher I stole it.
Punishment: kneel on rice until my knees were raw meat. Victor sat eating apples, juice dripping onto my Bible verses.
Age nineteen: I was taller than him now, but I still kept my eyes on the floor.
Because I knew if I raised them, tomorrow I'd lose teeth.
Sometimes, on market days, I'd spot the same quiet girl with braids standing by the church steps, basket clutched to her chest, eyes following me while I carried sacks twice my weight.
Whenever I looked up she'd turn scarlet and vanish into the crowd.
I forgot her five minutes later.
Section 5: The Summer She Loved Me (1927-1928, age 19→20)
Sophia first came to the estate delivering handmade lace for Eleanor.
Her parents had died in the flu after the war; she lived by sewing for pennies.
I was splitting wood. She stood in the doorway holding the lace, knuckles red from cold.
I handed her a log to warm her hands. She smiled at me like someone had cracked winter open.
After that she found me every Sunday, riverbank, behind the granary, inside the broken windmill.
She talked enough for both of us: her father coughing blood, her mother's last words, "Marry money or starve."
I never spoke.
She said, "You're prettiest when you're quiet."
When she kissed me her fingers shook across the scars on my back like she was reading braille.
Victor noticed.
Started bringing ribbons, perfume, paying her father's medicine bills.
She came to me crying every time, swearing she'd never leave.
Her tears got hotter and hotter.
Spring 1928 I spent three stolen years' worth of sawdust and sandpaper carving an oak ring.
Knelt by the river.
She said yes with tears cutting clean paths through the dust on her cheeks.
That night she climbed into the attic, crawled under my blanket, shaking.
"Promise you'll never let me go hungry again."
I promised.
I believed her when she wore white.
Section 6: Two Years of Silence (1928-1930, age 20→22)
The wedding was cheap. Twelve people in a cold church.
Sophia's dress was the only white thing in town that wasn't yellowed.
Her hand shook the whole ceremony, but her voice didn't.
That night above the saloon she teased the words out of me.
"Say it."
I croaked, "Love you."
She cried harder than when she'd said I do.
Three months later the posters went up.
WAR.
Victor bought a desk in the capital.
I was handed a uniform and a one-way ticket.
Sophia chased the train halfway down the platform, screaming until her voice gave out: "You have to come back!"
Letters came thick, then thin, then not at all.
The last one was folded into a perfect square, smelling of expensive tobacco:
Victor has been kind. Father is gone. Don't hate me.
A faint pink lipstick kiss, the one she left on my collar the day we married.
I learned to sleep sitting up, rifle between knees.
Learned shells always landed one inch away from my head.
Learned the taste of blood never leaves your mouth.
1930 winter. Shrapnel in my thigh. Honorable discharge.
I limped home through the first heavy snow.
Pushed open the door.
Fire roaring.
Sophia on the sofa, seven months round, Victor's hand spread across her belly like a brand.
She looked up.
Guilt flashed, then died.
"Alex," she said softly, calmly. "You're back."
Section 7: The Snow That Remembers Everything (1930, the night he dies)
Victor's fists fell like hail.
I heard ribs snap.
Sophia tried to pull him off, then stopped.
Her last kick landed in my stomach, voice cracking but ice-cold:
"Stop making a scene. Just go."
They dragged me past the gate and dropped me where the drive meets the forest.
Snow filled my mouth, my ears, my lungs.
Then frantic footsteps, too light, running toward me, not away.
Someone crashed to their knees.
A red scarf, violent against the white.
Small gloved hands scooped snow from my face; the gloves turned red instantly.
She was sobbing so hard the scarf was soaked, but she held me like I might break.
I couldn't see her face anymore.
Only the scarf and a pair of eyes swollen with tears.
My fingers found the frayed tassel.
Memory hit like a mortar round:
Years ago, a smaller hand hanging that same scarf on the orphanage fence, then running before anyone could see.
So... it was always you.
I tried to speak.
Blood poured out instead.
"...red... scarf..."
She understood.
Bent over me, forehead to mine, voice shattered:
"It's me... it's me... I've been waiting... I've always..."
Snow kept falling.
Everything went soft.
Heartbeat slowing.
Beep... beep... beeeeeeeeeep