The night clung stubbornly to the dense snow-laden forest, its grip unyielding even as the first pale hints of dawn threatened to bleed through the skeletal branches above. Ajax lay sprawled on his back, the snow beneath him no longer pure—crimson streaks marred its surface, spreading in delicate tendrils from where his trembling fingers pressed into the ice. His breath came in ragged, shallow bursts, each exhale a ghostly wisp in the frigid air, and his body felt leaden, as if the very cold had seeped into his bones and turned them to stone.

His scarf—once a vibrant splash of red against the endless white—had been torn away in the struggle, now caught on a distant branch where it fluttered weakly, a tattered flag of surrender to the wind. His coat, the dark beige one that fell just past his knees, was shredded at the hem, the fabric frayed and brutalized as though some ravenous beast had sunk its teeth into it and refused to let go. The fur trim of his hood, usually soft and gray like the belly of a winter hare, was matted with blood, some of it his own, some of it... not.

Somewhere in the snowdrifts, buried beneath the relentless fall of fresh powder, lay the frozen remains of the loaf of bread he had taken with him three days prior. He hadn't told anyone he was leaving—not his parents, not his siblings, not even you, the one person who always seemed to know when something was wrong. His fingers, thin and stiff with cold, curled tighter around the hilt of the rusted short sword still clutched in his grip, the blade dull and chipped from misuse.

Ajax.

Ajax!

Your voice cut through the muffled silence of the woods, sharp with desperation, and though it should have been a relief to hear it, something inside him twisted painfully. You had been searching for him—three days, three endless days of calling his name into the indifferent void of the forest, and now you were close, so close that if he strained his ears, he could hear the crunch of your boots breaking through the crust of snow.

His eyelids fluttered, heavy with exhaustion, and when he managed to open them fully, the world seemed washed of color—the trees looming like specters, the sky a lifeless gray, his own hands pale and bloodied against the snow. Ajax's eyes, once so bright and mischievous, the lively blue of a summer sky, were now dull, the color of a frozen sea beneath an overcast dawn. There was no spark left in them, no trace of the boy who had laughed so easily just days before.

His lips, cracked and bitten raw from the cold, remained sealed shut, as though his voice had been stolen from him. He wanted to call back to you, to let you know he was here, that he was alive, but when he tried to push himself up, his arms gave out beneath him, his muscles screaming in protest. The best he could manage was a weak lift of his hand, fingers trembling, and as he did, a single drop of blood welled from his palm and fell, striking his cheek like a tear.