He is a child.

The snow is wondrous in its beauty and grace. It shines, glittering in the sun as the trees sing softly. The wind brushes against the frosted window, gazing in with gentle eyes as its light feet ghost across the shimmering shade of white.

The pines sway peacefully, paying him no mind as takes his axe from the cabin’s doorframe. It feels a little heavy in his hands, as if it’s his first time picking it up, even if it isn’t. The dry snow crumbles as he walks through it, the distance between him and the aged stump feeling infinitely longer as his mind wanders with the chilly breeze.

His hands take an old log from the pile, standing it up on the worn trunk. He taps the tip of his inherited axe on the top of the wood before carefully lifting it above his head, but when he swings down he shuts his eyes to brace himself, missing entirely. There is a crack, a shockingly bright and strange red spilled everywhere. Odd, he notes, but thinks nothing of it. He puts his axe back where it was as he goes back inside, not sure why he didn’t bother to try and cut the log a second time. He tosses it in the fireplace.

The home warms as it becomes harder for him to breathe. He doesn’t know why. His chest hurts as his eyes sting, black and red beginning to stain his vision. He doesn’t know why.

His body falls to the ground, and he blacks out.

He doesn’t know why.

He is an adolescent.

The snow is striking, so bright and so still. It glimmers, contrasting his own exhaustion as the forest hums around him. The song distracts him, staring out the window for a few moments with his shuddering hand pressed against the glass.

The cold motivates him to pull on his hand-me-down winter coat, feet a little numb as he steps out, shutting the door behind him. He pulls his old axe from the logs framing the cabin entrance. Absentmindedly, he makes his way through the blinding snow and over to the old tree stump, the rings mesmerizing him briefly, but then he remembers why he is here. He balances a log on the stump, lifting the axe before swinging down.

The sound of a bone snapping barely makes it through to him, his shoulders calm as he blinks. He stares at the axe sunk halfway into his lower leg as a vibrant red slips down and soaks into the snow. He pulls it out from his leg like he pulled it from the door frame, taking the whole log with him back inside. His footsteps are uneven and heavy, but he doesn’t know why.

He is careful as he places the log over the burnt and charred remains of its predecessors, forced to sit instead of kneel or crouch as he lights the fireplace. His hands feel almost as if they are burning despite being a respectable distance from the flames, and soon he finds himself becoming dizzy.

His head hits the metal around the fireplace. He falls still, and his eyes dim with the fire.

Even as his body freezes over, the pain lingers.

He is a young man.

The snow is sharp and difficult to look at with how the light bounces off it, but still he persists. Its purity is something he envies as he pulls on the oversized coat, slipping his arms into the sleeves. The fur lining the inside fills him with a sense of comfort, a wave of warmth flowing over his body as he glances out the window one last time.

There is no click of the door as he struggles slightly to pull the axe from the doorframe, almost reluctant to tread on through the thick white sand. It’s not as tall as he remembers, but is just as troublesome. The chopping tree is just where he remembers it, familiar, feeling as if he’s used it hundreds of times before and yet the marks from the axe have to be at least a decade old. His muscles whine as he snags a log from the stack, placing it on the stump and barely giving the swing a second thought.

His breath catches in his throat when pain shoots from his leg, blood spilling down, quickly forming a pool around his foot. He chokes on the pained shout, almost collapsing, but he wrenches the axe from his leg with a hiss.

He doesn’t look at the deep slash in his leg again as he weakly takes the log into his arms, gasping with each uneven step. He manages to make it back inside, barely able to close the door behind him before he crumples down to his knees in front of the fireplace, breathing shaky as he puts the whole log on top of old, old ashes and charcoal.

The fire he tries to start is slow to catch, slow to catch but once it begins to grow, it grows quickly. The heat is almost too much for him, but leaning against the stone wall helps with the heartbeat throbbing in his ears, the blurring of his vision.

He slides down as his body begins to fail, head slamming into the sharp metal of the bars holding the fire at bay.

He doesn’t have the will nor energy to cry nor scream. The warmth is almost sickening now, the last thing he feels as he slowly fades away.

So, so slowly.

He is an adult.

The snow is glaring, its anger and rage simmering despite the cold eating away at any and all life unfortunate enough for it to be passing by. The cabin is in a cathedral, pews full of frosted and swaying trees as they sang their hymn so softly. A once safe place has frosted over, the birds, rabbits and grass all covered by the snow until they were nothing more than a frozen corpse.

The sound of boots crunching through the snow like demon teeth crunching through fresh bones causes the forest slight disturbance, his footsteps heavy as he stares ahead, distant. His gaze is unfocused – there is nothing here he hasn’t seen a hundred times already, there is nothing to observe. It is the same.

It will always be the same.

His fingers are numb around the grip of the old axe as he stares at the old chopping block, both much older than himself. There is no good reason for him to use them, he could easily make a new one himself if he went looking for the materials. There is no use in that, he tells himself. He already knows what will happen. He knows, and yet he finds himself repeating the same thing he’s been doing for as long as his tortured memory will allow him to remember.

The way he places the log on the chopping block is practiced, a smooth movement without a single falter despite what he’s silently bracing himself for. He swings down, still trying to aim, even if he is entirely unsurprised by the pain searing his veins. It’s not the warmth he wants, not the warmth he’s been wanting for only the forest knows how long. The sticky red-hot iron melts through the snow as he bites his lip hard enough to draw only more blood.

There is no point in screaming if no one will hear him.

The feeling of the axe leaving his leg barely registers before he tosses it as far as his trembling hands will allow, grabbing the log and making his way back inside. He doesn’t bother closing the door – there’s no point. He watches the fire start, counting the seconds before he begins to fall.

Sharp metal stabs itself into the side of his head.

He’s still there to see the sun rise in the morning.

He is an elderly man.

The snow is unforgiving and harsh, devouring any living creature unfortunate and brainless enough to be outside. The trees hum ominously, drowning out any noise other than its own haunting choir, an aimless requiem with no rhythm sung by the cries and shrieks of dark, swaying silhouettes. They are weak, still screaming even after what felt like centuries after they were first rained upon by needles and arrows that snapped in their flesh, leaving splinters.

He barely thinks, not looking out the window as he sluggishly puts on his coat. He doesn’t care for the warmth it provides, but it gives him one final taste of comfort before he leaves that room, taking that rusted axe to his personal guillotine. A log from the pile is tossed on haphazardly and he barely bothers to aim with his blade.

His grey eyes are clear in comparison to his shaky movements, missing the log entirely. Red stains the snow, that teeth-white shade staining and slowly rotting until the gums and flesh they were bound to is all that remains. His gums, his flesh. He still curses under his breath, unceremoniously tearing the axe from his leg. The blood clinging to the steel seems to beg him for help, its bright red fingers reaching out to him absorbed by the old and worn metal. The blood clinging to the steel is eaten alive as its squeals, sobs and wails fall on deaf ears.

The ever-growing, ever-spreading rust it becomes seems to mock him.

He has no choice but to limp back through the stiff ocean of frozen crystals, the log only half landing in the fireplace as he collapses onto the floor. His exhaustion and pain slowly overwhelm him, crawling from his suddenly lucid fingertips and toes to his lungs and heart. The agony squirms through his veins and he chokes.

He watches the log roll back and forth with the wind blowing inside. Its movements are gentle, naive as it tries desperately to give him any comfort, his one and only friend in this decrepit asylum, this endless loop of suffering and pain. It is merely the limb of a screaming tree, and yet it looks alive. Much more alive than him.

The last brittle string of warmth in his eyes snaps, gone with the wind outside.

The forest breathes in, and the forest breathes out.

It’s just another day.