A tired boy trodded onwards and his sled scrapped behind. A mug filled with flakes was the sled's sole rider. The boy, his sled, and his red mug. They were bound to a journey home.

    Snow. What a distraction, a cruel and beautiful one. Cruel, because: like numbing pills, frosty flakes cascaded from the sky. Or perhaps they descended like silent bullets, each crumble of white melting into his skin, a deadly sting. Beautiful, because: it was forgiving, in the manner it brimmed with a purifying aspect to the one who observed its essence with care.

    Eira coughed once, and the air designed itself with traces of his entrapped breaths. He regarded the brief formation of his cough condensing, then fading to vapor, with blank, fleeting perception.

    It was because he was alone, or because winter trapped sound, but his own cough was too bright a noise, even for him.

    Of dead things, were the nature surrounding him, or rather, the lack thereof. Enriched brown pillars of tree trunks stabbed at the gray clouds, with the blunt edges of their empty branches. Frozen in time, in the coat of winter, they ached for the sprouts of green and gathering of leaves. They stood barren, guarded against the gradual assassination the snowfall carried.

    Snowfall did what it knew best; fall. And it blanketed greatly. Covering, submerging, swallowing, covering. The great white sheet gathered its masses in hefty piles across the stretch of land. It covered without sound, and Eira found it disturbing, in spite of himself. The way you blinked once, by then, decaying bushes stolen of their brown, encompassed in layers of translucent flakes.

    Eira's sled traced parallel markings all across the stretch of his path, behind him, and continuing. It left the mark that said: he was here, and he was walking. He was moving, he was going. But every time Eira looked back, a part of his heart chilled when he saw that the snow had callously, stealthily erased the traces of his expedition, beyond, and beyond.

   He told himself, You're not really going anywhere. Just in circles, around and around. But that was just anxiety pushing an effort to intimidate him. Anxiety lied all the time. To rile him, break him. Strain his limits, and crumble what little trust he had in his sanity. Luckily, he was no stranger to its games. Here, in the desolate horizon of winter unleashing across the never-ending slopes of white--Eira would not rile himself.

   That would be foolish, and damaging. The thought of losing his mind in the middle of nowhere made Eira shudder once. Just once. But truly, he had to imagine, out of a morbid kind of curiosity. The worse that could happen was him finally succumbing to hypothermia.

    Eira shook his head side to side, fragile flakes tumbling off the tufts of chestnut hair, and the fuzzy flaps of his trapper hat. No, no to hypothermia. The leather watch strapped at his wrist frozen to the time he started his journey: 3 o'clock. If he were to assume, by way of the murky clouds, and his aching knees, it was reaching 4 o'clock by now. In perhaps half an hour more, he would reach his destination.

   Eira looked behind him again. It was not the first time, nor the last. Instinctual. He'd gotten into a habit of doing so ever since he started walking. It wasn't because he thought someone was behind him, or that he'd meet something. But he had to assure that he was going, and that winter wasn't greedily covering his traces and getting into all the crevices, paths, and marks.

    His sled jostled, on some hidden rocks encased underneath the snow, or otherwise. The mug too clinked in time, then settled on the sturdy planks of the sled. Eira wondered, with some evoked humor, as to why he thought his mug to be a necessity and not essentials. Essentials like: hot chocolate packets, water, a snack, and his fishing kit for his beloved under ice fishing routines. Today was a Saturday, and he always preferred to fish on Saturdays. And so did his mother, Eira's designated fishing companion.

    Eira didn't fathom how he managed to leave behind his fishing kit. It was no wonder his sled appeared to be increasingly bare, the more, and the longer he looked at it. It was a Saturday, and Saturday had a special routine. Wake up at 6, sweep the cabin, look out for thieving raccoons targeting their chicken coop, water the plants in the greenhouse, feed Able--the long-haired house cat, wait for his mother to write a letter to his father, and then the two of them spend the rest of the day fishing at a nearby lake tucked someplace behind their home.

    But this Saturday was not like the others. Eira didn't know why, but for this reason, he was going home. His mother would know, she would have the answers as she always had.

Move faster then, he told himself, truly miffed. It shouldn't take you this long to get home. You know the way, you always have. It's getting late, and-

    The sled jostled sharply, on some hidden rocks encased underneath the snow, or otherwise. The mug too clinked in time, then settled on the sturdy planks of the sled.

"No," Eira said, and his face hurt as he said it. The biting chill of the atmosphere had turned his flesh into a mere vessel that could move, but not feel. He wasn't feeling anything anymore, and this time, he wasn't moving either. Eira stopped, dropping the rope to his sled with a soft plop, and turned.

    "No," he breathed again, realizing that he was riling himself by talking, even if to himself. Still, it didn't make any sense. How many rocks lie buried in the entrapment of snow, for his sled to fumble over? This was the second time. Or was it the fifth?

    You're not really going anywhere, his mind whispered, betraying him once again.

    "No," Eira felt to say it aloud, because if he said it aloud, then it was true. "I'm almost home. I got lost somehow, but I'm almost there."

     Anxiety could not rile him, and he would make sure of it. Eira slowly stooped over, which in itself, was a scene that appeared as if slow motion. He was so cold, and overwhelmed by the freezing everywhere, that doing anything but walking seemed to suddenly require a substantial amount of energy. He grasped the rope to his sled in his hand, enclosing a grip around it, light, but tight.

    Just in circles. Around, and around, and around, and around.

    Eira was overcome with a disgraceful bout of dizziness, threatening to topple him over into the deep cushion of snow. A small part of him wanted to stumble over and disperse into a long, long sleep. But the dizziness began to rage into a terrible headache.

    "I'll sit down, I'll sit," Eira, at this point, was simply speaking to remind himself to function properly. He sank to his knees, seeking surety and stability in the wake of his limbs. He barely managed to keep from tipping over, both his hands propping him upright against the surface of the snow.

    There, Eira sat, catching his breath, in the middle of nowhere winter. He gazed at the mug perched on his sled, being filled to the brim and over, with tender snowflakes. The mug was painted a colorful red, but Eira knew he had no red mug. He would never forget his mother's colorless ceramic and the three interlaced rings hand-drawn daintily at the mug's center.

    His mother had said while painting her mug: A ring for you, a ring for me, and the last for Able, because he's family too.

     Their beautiful family mug was a cylinder, colorless thing, except for the painted black rings which were small enough for Eira to cover with his bare thumb. There was no red mug, but clearly, one sat to his attention at the back of his sled as if it belonged there.

   Eira picked up the mug and stared at it. He rotated the cup in his hand several times, feeling the familiar edges, dips, and curves. It was then he noticed that the red paint was being transferred onto his fingers, and off of the once porcelain mug.

    Not paint, Eira reminded himself, dread beating over his head. Blood, its blood.

    Eira tugged at the inner folds of his layered sleeves, pulling his sleeve cuffs over his fine wrists until they covered his hands. He clasped his fingers in a shaky attempt to hold up the fraying edges of his cuffs. With one hand, he rubbed a heavily clothed arm over the mug, flaking away the dried blood in each frantic motion.

    He heaved himself upright, stumbling into a standing position. Gathered clusters of snow tumbled off the folds of his clothing like dust motes parting into the air. Eira placed the mug in his hand onto the back of his sled, where it rightfully belonged. The newly crisp ivory of the mug was dull against the encompassing pale mass of land.

    "Come on, Eira," he said and lifted his foot in an attempt to carry onwards. The sight of his boots rising and plummeting into the sea of snow was comically lethargic. Eira felt sluggish. Like the threads of his soul were stretching, waning, and coming undone. Was his heart even beating anymore?

    Within the second or third step forward, his sled stumbled, and the mug fell. It was as if his only accompanying objects were trying to convey that his expedition was futile. He knew. He was going nowhere, but admitting it aloud meant he was going to die, in every metaphorical and literal sense possible.

    The mug dropped onto the razor edge of an exposed rock Eira hadn't noticed before. It was no longer snowing, but that too escaped his narrow line of perception. When the mug hit the peak of the rocky ground, it shattered. As quietly as it could, because the cushion of icy white masked the greater clamor of the sound. Eira's soul finally broke, along with it. His mother would be devastated that he'd damaged something so precious to her, their sole symbol representing their family.

    There was little time to dwell in bitterness for Eira, however. His subconscious obtained the sight of something darkened and brown, flurrying across the field from a nearby bush. Likely, startled by the mug breaking before.

    Eira's heart ground to a stuttering halt.

    It was a wolverine. Bloodied, tattered, and matted. Eira didn't have to be within its reach to identify the crimson leaking from its knife-like teeth.

    It killed Mother, his mind reminded. No, screamed. Eira stared at the creature, unbelieving, as it warily circled its way around him. Something inside him snapped, like an electric wire finally tearing at the core, fray by fray. Like the simmer of lava bursting to a surface for escape. Like the sound of a metal ball being slammed at your fragile glass wall, and your world crumbling to nonexistence.

    He knew then, why he was where he was. He had forgotten, somehow. He didn't understand why he'd forgotten. It was hours ago by now, but this had happened: that wolverine killed his mother. Rabid and diseased, it attacked her in some crazed state of onslaught impending. His mother had been arranging their fishing equipment back at the lake, as she told Eira to standby while she evaluated the reliability of the frozen surface.

    Eira hadn't seen the creature pacing towards her from behind, until it leaped and scuffled at her neck. He'd watched helplessly, as it tore and wrung her neck like some devilish king of the wilderness. Mother lay twitching, and red, red, red seeped everywhere. Across the lake, and at the forefront of the woods--Eira had stood in safety. The lake appeared stained from his point of view, consuming an eerie wine red, in light of his mother's fading body and soul. She'd told him to run, and nothing made him abandon his mother until the maniacal creature itself was made alert to his position.

    But here the wolverine was, and it had found him.

   Eira moved. It was calculated, instinctual. Mechanical, automatic. Tired.

    He slowly bent over and gripped a finely jagged piece of the broken mug in his hand. He would kill it with this, he would. He would pace wildly at the creature, then tackle it with his mass and strength. He would stab the jagged glass into it, over and over. It would die, and his mother's body back at the lake wouldn't be so cold anymore. His deed would let her go in peace.

    But the wolverine moved before Eira could put his fantasies into action. It did not sprint towards him, as he'd expected. Instead, it did this: gaze. The look the creature gave him paralyzed Eira, much against his will. It peered-- the congested gross pupils of pure murkiness peered at him.

    It's going to kill me, he told himself.

    The wolverine turned away.

    Come back. I can't let you go like this. Eira's own mouth was iced over, shut. It would pain him to speak, let alone scream. Was he like a statuesque glacier of a man? Chilled to the bone, and no way home?

    Finally, Eira's body gave in, and he fell over. So that was why the bastardly creature had let him alone. So that was why. Eira wouldn't put up a fight, or he couldn't. He was already dying, and you couldn't kill something that was already dead.

   The wolverine left, and Eira waited for snowfall to bury him. A painstaking wait. The snow fell no more, but there was plenty to blanket him, and hold him. Despite the state his withering body, it was warm. He couldn't cry, because even those matters of himself had long since curdled by the whim of winter.

   A tired boy trodded no more and his sled lingered beside. A splintered mug was the sled's sole companion. The boy, his sled, and his white mug. Their journey had met its end.

    Snow. What a distraction, a cruel and beautiful one. Cruel, because: like numbing pills, frosty flakes cascaded from the sky once more. Or perhaps they descended like silent bullets, each crumble of white melting into his skin, a caressing sting. Beautiful, because: it was the brightest, twinkling fractures of a prism as Eira's world invited the darkness.