17
It’s Caleb! He’s alive!
His voice was hoarse, every word scraped from his throat.
I frantically tried to pull off the scarf covering my head, but my hands were still tied behind my back. I couldn’t move.
Footsteps approached.
A slightly childish voice called out, “Teacher, we’re here to help you.”
It was the older children from the orphanage.
They had hidden, and when the noise stopped, they’d found the courage to come out.
The scene before me was chilling–several bloodied corpses sprawled messily across the ground.
Caleb had collapsed not far away, lying in a thick pool of dark blood already beginning to congeal.
His chest and abdomen were slashed open, the wounds gaping as blood poured from him like a breached dam, staining the dirt beneath him crimson.
His face was deathly pale, lips drained of color–only exhaling, no breath drawing back in.
In a panic, I tried to stop the bleeding with my hands.
But there were too many wounds, and too much blood!
I pressed on one, and another gushed open.
“It’s no use…” he whispered, barely lifting a trembling hand as if to reach for mine.
I wanted to yell at him, to tell him to stop talking, but all I could do was cry–tears falling like a snapped string of beads.
I had studied medicine. I knew he was hemorrhaging beyond saving.
Still, he smiled. With the last of his strength, he raised a blood–slicked hand and gently wiped a tear from my cheek.
“Don’t… cry…” he whispered, so softly it hit harder than a scream.
“I’m sorry…” His hand dropped.
His eyes stayed fixed on me as the light faded from them, then finally went dark.
I don’t know how long I sat there, until I heard a timid sob nearby.
A child.
I snapped back. These children still needed me.
Together with the older ones, we dragged the corpses out to the wasteland beyond the orphanage.
The stench of blood and death clung to the air.
Back inside, we scrubbed away the blood and soot, trying to calm the younger children.
I found food and told them bedtime stories, my voice steady and soothing, as if nothing had
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3:42 pm
happened.
When night finally came and the children slept, I walked alone to where Caleb’s body lay.
The moonlight was pale, casting a glow over his still face.
Around his neck was a necklace–the one he had once given me.
Tucked against his chest, a letter. An apology.
I unfolded it.
The writing, though uneven, was familiar. Under the cold moonlight, the strokes seemed to bleed
through the paper:
“Elena, I’m sorry.”
“I know it’s too late to say anything now.”
“I don’t ask you to forgive me. Just live well.”
“If… there’s another life, let me love you in that one.”
“I’d give you everything. Even my life.”
“So please, just walk away from me. Let me go.”
I held the letter, laughing through tears, crying through laughter, until my throat was raw and no sound would come out.
I staggered to a spot near the broken wall of the orphanage and chose the cleanest patch of earth I could find.
With my own hands, I dug a grave and buried him there.
Sometime during the night, the snow began to fall.
The flakes settled on my hair, my face, my body–cold and numbing.
The world turned white.
Finally, my strength gave out, and I collapsed backward.
–
Winter came, heavy snow burying the only road down the mountain.
The potatoes and pumpkins we’d stored were nearly gone. The children’s eyes grew emptier each day.
Then one day, just when we’d nearly given up, a breathless, dusty voice called out:
“I’m late!”
Lucas had returned!
It was the first time I saw him looking so unkempt, his beard wild, icicles clinging to his brows.
As he opened the car door, a gust of freezing air swept in–along with an entire load of food.
Bread, flour, canned goods, dried meat!
The children cheered, dancing around Lucas as if he were a hero from a fairy tale. Their eyes sparkled brighter than the winter sun.
For the first time in months, my nerves eased.
I laughed, freely, from the heart.
DIA
01.7%
Lucas held out his frostbatten hands, groaning, “The planes were grounded and the goversy shut down Elens, do you know how helish that journey was? He progetto’s wid with exaggerated grace, his eyes playful “Now that I’m snowed in, I guess you’ll have to take ma
“Mr. Zane is our orphanage’s savior” I replied, pointing to the row of child sized beds. “But you have to squeeze into two kids beds posted togethe
That night, for the first time in ages, the orphanage smelled of mest.
Together, we cooked a feast that felt like a holiday
The children’s laughter drove away the shadows Over
“Mo Zane” I asked the next day, “can you teach me how to shoot?”
He paused mid cleaning a pistol, the steam rising from his mug fogging his glasses,
“Oh?” he smirked, “Elena’s fingers are too delicate for a gun. Wouldn’t you rather have me as you personal bodyguard?”
1 looked down. “I’m serious, Lucas”
He chuckled, stood, and approached slowly, suding familiar, disarming pressure,
“If you want to learn, fine” He leaned closer, his breath brushing my sar
“But first, Elena owes me a favor”
“What kind of favor?” I asked warly
He pointed to the scruffy stubble on his chin.
“Shave me”
In the bathroom, steam fogged the mirror and softened our reflections.
Lucas was shirtless, lounging back with that infuriating laziness, her head tilted just so
Why did he need to be half–naked just to shave?
held the foaming brush in one hand, gently cupping his chin with the other
His skin was warm, his breath brushing against my cold fingers, sending strange tingling hrough me.
The foam was light. I held my breath, set the razor on his jazz
What are you thinking?” He asked suddenly, his voice husky in the steam.
My hand flinched. A faint scratch appeared on his cheek.
Sorry” I whispered, reaching for a tissue.
de caught my wrist–not harsh, but firm.
‘Elena, have you really not thought about me?”
dis gaze pierced right through my mask.
My heart jumped.
te leaned in, nearly brushing my nose. “Don’t get distracted. Keep going,”
steadied myself, pushed all thoughts aside, and picked up the razor.
He taught me how to shoot, patiently and thoroughly,
3:42 pm
From holding posture, to aiming technique, to breath control–he didn’t miss a thing.
He even led the older kids to chop wood and build makeshift traps around the yard.
“Better to be ready,” he said.
The children who once feared him now looked at him with admiration.
Life gradually found rhythm again.
Lucas shed all airs of a gangster boss.
He fixed broken doors and windows, sweating under the sun, just a man doing chores.
He built snow castles with the kids, unbothered by getting dirty.
He leaned on the pillars at dusk, humming tuneless songs as the sunset stretched his shadow long across the yard.
In those moments, he wasn’t a gangster. Just a man next door.
Spring arrived, soft and warm.
Lucas said he had to leave.
He stood in the afterglow, tall and solemn.
“Elena,” he said–my full name, for the first time. “If I died, would you…. regret it a little?”
looked at the snowy peaks and answered with something else. “The sunset is beautiful today.”
He suddenly grabbed my hand, firm and trembling, eyes blazing,
“I’m a citizen of Canada. My homeland is at war. I must go to the front.”
My heart gave a strange, unfamiliar throb.
“Wait for me,” he said. His voice was low, but resolute–like a vow.
I opened my mouth, but no words came.
I didn’t say yes.
I didn’t say no.
I just let him hold my hand, letting his warmth linger in my palm, burning into memory.
AN
