The fire Papa built burned with the hope that we each held near to us, it warmed our faces and hands. It made it feel like it wasn’t far below freezing outside with an easy two feet or more of snow on the ground beneath our feet, keeping the soil frozen in time and space. 

Stories floated around the circle that we formed to keep ourselves warm in this frozen wasteland that the blizzard had brought in. Our parents told my siblings and me how they met for the thousandth time but we never complained, it was a nice reminder of the love that they still shared. My brother, Talon, told us of times I got hurt doing the dumbest of things. I reminded him of his own. My sister, Kelly, told tales from school, most of which I doubt were even true. It wouldn’t be the first time that she stretched the truth. 

Laughter echoed through the trees that surrounded our home. The frost that the snow wore shimmered in the fire’s warmth. I wished our bonfires could last forever. The best part of our wasteland that we got was those few nights around the fire. I always dreaded going back inside, there was no doubt in my mind that our small home would be just as frigid as it was out amongst the trees. 

Mama always promised that it wouldn’t be because she had soup simmering in the fireplace, but it never helped. The house had cracks in the windows and poor insulation. If it had any to begin with. The fire that cooked our supper may as well be the same as the one we sat at in our circle. I can’t fault Mama though, she tried, she always tried everything she could. It isn’t her fault that the home was broken and in dire need of a lot of fixing. Many of those fixes were far too expensive for us to be able to make.  

Inevitably though, the silences grew longer, the laughter died down to the occasional hushed chuckle, and the fire slowly fizzled out as we slowly stopped feeding it. I kicked the snow and covered the red-hot coals to cool down the last of the fire at its source as Papa ushered everyone inside to say grace. Now all alone in the freezing night air, I watched the snow that covered the embers melt and sizzle from the quickly dying heat that used to be our fire. The night was dead silent, it was like the whole world had been put into hibernation. And yet I felt like something bigger lingered in the darkness. It felt like something was watching, waiting for something. For any mistake however small, any opening to ruin the small amount of peace that we still held onto in our wasteland. 

I rushed back inside before my mind could run too far ahead of me. The scent of Mama’s cooking surrounded me as soon as I opened the door, as well as a very surprising amount of warmth. I was able to catch the tail end of grace as I joined my family at the table. It was Mama’s turn, her words were always beautiful. She just had a way with them that she didn’t seem to be able to pass on to the rest of us. The meal itself was relatively quiet, not that I would complain, all our stories had already been shared around the fire outside. 

Once the meal finished, Mama stayed in the living room to knit as the rest of us cleaned up and my siblings and I went to our room. Father stayed behind to “keep Mama company” we didn’t question it, no after how little we believed it.

As I lay in my bed that night, I watched the stars through the cracked window just above me on the wall. My mind wandered as the stars twinkled back at me, they seemed to know all the secrets of the universe that I couldn’t even think to ask about let alone dare to ask them. The secrets that they held weren’t meant to be shared, or at the very least, not with the likes of me. 

The wind howled against the old rickety house, forcing its way into the walls and windows and freezing the inside along with my family who was at the mercy of the fireplace and our heaviest blankets. I hoped that the wind wouldn’t bring another storm with it. 

My eyes grew heavy with sleep but the cold clung to my consciousness with its unforgiving grasp, it was almost like it wanted to cover me in a layer of frost and welcome me into its icy family and steal me away from my own. But surely enough sleep soon came to my exhausted body with an empty promise of peaceful rest.

I had always hated winter, that was something that I never tried to hide. It came around at the end of every year and turned our beautiful green forest into a frozen wasteland filled with white fluff. 

The house could never do much to keep out the cold, the only hope of actually making it through the winter that we had was being able to gather enough firewood. A responsibility that fell to me after Dad’s…accident. Most days I went out alone early in the morning before most of the family was even awake. Most days I’m not able to get enough firewood to even make it through an entire day without rationing what we had. Others, I could gather enough to carry over for those days. We may have lived in the forest but Mama refused to let us chop down many trees even if it meant we would be warm and well-fed. It annoyed me at times, many times, but I admired her for it. 

It was especially hard to get up that morning though, the blankets seemed warmer than normal, the world seemed just that little bit extra peaceful, and my eyes felt that much more heavy. But we needed fire to stay warm and I didn’t want my younger siblings to have to worry about my responsibilities. 

Not yet. If ever

Not ever.

Not if I was the one deciding

I forced myself up and used the small amount of light that I had from the early morning sun to get dressed warm enough to go out into the wasteland. The same one that held almost every resource that my family needed for survival. Grabbing the ax by my door, I left my room in a rush trying to make up for the lost time.

“Heading out so late Jack?” I quickly turned around to see my mom leaving her room rubbing the sleep from her eyes. I nodded sheepishly and went to kiss her cheek. 

“Yeah, I am Momma. I’m sorry” I looked at her, “I’ll probably be late back too, I’ll try to get a big tree this time to make up for it though.” I rushed to the door with newfound motivation and energy. I could feel her eyes watching me, burning a hole into my head and I looked back at her. “Don’t worry momma, I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t push yourself, we need you more than we need that wood,” She had her arms folded, I could tell that she was only trying to seem stern. She never did have a mean bone in her body. Maybe it would have saved Papa’s back if she did.

I nodded a little to her and went out without breakfast again. It had become a habit after we struggled to get enough food for everyone two winters ago when the hard freeze happened too early and killed most of our crops before we were able to get our winter storage. Just another reason to hate winter. It brings hunger, death, pain, and suffering. Life was hard enough the rest of the year without it, winter just made everything worse.

I walked up the mountain for two hours taking my time to get to a part of the forest where mom had approved for me to get our wood. I wanted to find one good enough for her, and my family. The section has been almost entirely chopped down but there are still a few good trees left, not counting the ones that we planted over the years, but none that would keep the family going for any longer than a day with everything that we need it for at this point. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to have at least some wood leftover just in case, right?

With that in the back of my mind, I went further up the mountain.

My breath escaped from my nose and my lips in small clouds as I hiked. My shoes were soaked with the melting snow that seeped its way into my socks and quickly afterward into my bones. God, I hated the cold. I hated winter. I hated the ice and everything that it brought with it. I hated that winter meant scarcity and my family going hungry. I hated the freezing temperatures and the howling winds that brought them into my family home. I hated everything about the season.

With every step I took, I strayed further from the home that I spent my entire life in. I strayed further into territory that I had only been with my siblings when we needed an escape. 

I studied each tree that I passed during the hike up. I was growing more and more desperate to find one good enough, but most weren’t any bigger than the ones that were in the circle that Mama approved. Some were much smaller and still needed years to grow. And would hopefully get those years and then some before I or anyone else would have to cut them down. 

It may have been an entire other hour of hiking before I found what I hoped was a big enough tree that would give us the extra wood for more campfires or for the repairs to the house we needed to do in the spring. Hope flowed through my chest and warmed my hands as I gripped my ax, the one that had grown heavy during the hike to the tree. It felt like fate, it took me into my first swing at the base of the tree. It followed each swing that I took even as wood flew away from the tree and towards me with each hit that I made cutting deeper and deeper into it. Determination carried me through the rest of the tree down to the moment that the tree fell. 

I smiled as I looked at how large the tree that I had been able to get was and I cleaned up the stump that the tree left behind in thanks to it for giving my family fuel for the winter. In spring we would replace it with one of the saplings that Kelly had grown last year.

I began to strap up the tree to prep it for the three-hour hike back home where my brother would be waiting for me to help strip it of its remaining branches and cut it up into smaller pieces for firewood. 

I heard the rumble before I felt the shaking and immediately dropped the straps that still weren’t wrapped around the trunk yet. I looked up the mountain already sure of what I was hearing, to see the barreling of snow chunks rushing down picking up more and more speed as it came closer to where I was. It wasn’t the first avalanche that I had seen, but it was certainly the largest one. And the closest.

Forcing my feet to move from their frozen positions in the already too-deep snow, I ran, sprinted, as fast as my conditions would allow. But the sea of slush was faster. So much faster.

It swept me off my feet, slamming my head against chunks of ice and everything that it picked up along the way down the mountain. I felt a flash of warmth explode from my head just before enormous amounts of pain bloomed from the warmth. My world went dark even though I tried everything that I could to stay conscious and as close to the surface as I could. But to no avail. Of course, Mother nature was too strong for me to fight against her. Soon I slipped into the sweet sense of ignorant bliss.