The cabin itself leaned slightly to the left, as if even it had grown tired of standing upright against the years. The porch creaked in protest with every shift of temperature, and the windows, though clean, always seemed to hold onto a faint haze, like breath that never fully cleared. Inside, it wasn’t much better. Tools lay where they had been set down weeks ago. A half-disassembled engine sat near the far wall, untouched long enough to collect a fine dusting of neglect. The couch bore the imprint of a man who had spent too many evenings sitting in the same spot, staring at nothing in particular.
That night, the storm had come in hard and fast, the way mountain storms tend to do, swallowing the road and wrapping the cabin in a relentless wind that howled like it had something to say. Caleb sat near the fireplace, though the fire itself had burned down to embers, holding a glass he hadn’t refilled yet but hadn’t set aside either. The television flickered silently in the background, its blue glow washing over the room in a way that made everything feel colder, not warmer.
He had been thinking, though not in a focused way. More like drifting through fragments—faces, mostly. A woman’s laugh. The echo of it, really. He hadn’t heard it in years, but memory had a way of preserving sound more faithfully than anything else. He didn’t need to say her name. It still lived somewhere beneath his ribs, in that quiet place he rarely allowed himself to visit.
He might have stayed like that for hours if the sound hadn’t come.
Three knocks.
Soft. Uneven. So faint they barely seemed real.
At first, he didn’t move. The storm was loud enough to play tricks, to make branches sound like footsteps, wind sound like voices. But then it came again—three more knocks, spaced just enough apart to feel deliberate.
Caleb’s hand tightened around the glass before he set it down slowly. Nobody came up here. Not in winter. Not at night. And certainly not in a storm like this.
He stood, his knees stiff from years of wear he never quite recovered from, and crossed the room in measured steps. Old habits returned without thinking—he reached for the heavy flashlight by the door, then for the crowbar leaning against the wall. He didn’t expect trouble, exactly, but he didn’t trust the world enough to assume otherwise.
When he opened the door, the wind pushed in like it had been waiting for the invitation, sharp and immediate, carrying snow that stung against his face. For a moment, there was nothing—just darkness, movement, the endless white swirl.
