The Place Between Worlds

The storm had passed, but it left weight behind.

Not just in snow, though the drifts still rose like pale walls around the village. Not just in broken beams and bowed shelters. But in the way people moved now — slower, heavier, like their bones remembered the wind.

Inside the central hut, breath hung visible in the air. No one spoke much. Not from fear anymore, but from exhaustion. The kind that settled in the chest, slow and deep, where no fire could reach.

Vince stirred the ashes of the half-dead fire. Sparks rose, few and tired. A child beside him coughed once, curled in Maela's arms. Eldan snored quietly from the corner. Branik slept sitting up, his back against the wall, one hand still on his axe.

The storm had not taken them. But it had left its mark.

And somehow, they were still here.

Outside, the snow had begun to shift, not melt — not yet — but sag. The sun had returned in a thin, reluctant ribbon. Vince stood in it, shoulders hunched, watching light bounce off the drifts like it didn't know where to land.

He turned when he heard movement.

Rhosyn was helping the girl — the one they'd pulled from the snow — walk again. Her steps were clumsy. She clung to Rhosyn's sleeve like a vine unsure of the tree. But she was warm, fed, alive.

Others emerged from the shelter slowly, blinking. Maela and Brik brought out damp furs to dry. Eldan began rebuilding the smaller fire pit, grumbling as he worked, but not stopping.

No one waited for orders.

No one complained.

They just... moved.

Did.

Endured.

Vince watched them. These people with no flag. No orders barked. No oaths sworn. And yet they'd held. Through cold. Through hunger. Through silence.

They had buried themselves in snow and risen again.

He'd seen soldiers crack faster.

And now—

A child giggled.

Soft. High. Short.

It came from the corner, where two small boys sat beside a lumpy snowman someone had dragged inside for a joke. One of them tapped its nose with a stick, and the other laughed again.

Vince turned toward the sound. He didn't smile.

But he didn't look away.

It was the first laugh in three days.

The air inside the shelter was still, thick with the breath of too many people and the aftertaste of fear. The fire at the center had dwindled to a muted glow, its warmth barely reaching the outer rings of the huddled bodies. Shadows moved in slow, uncertain gestures across the soot-dark walls, dancing not with joy but with survival.

Vince stood near the collapsed portion of the roof, where snow had pushed in like an invading tide. They'd managed to brace the main beams—just enough—but cracks still ran along the upper lashings, dark and silent as warnings.

Branik knelt in the snow-drift that had blown inside, his gloved hands already red from digging. Vince joined him, wordless. The child—Sera—had not been seen since the second collapse.

There had been no scream. No cry. Just absence.

Vince pressed a hand to the beam, then pointed. "Here?"

Branik nodded once. Then signed: "Small feet. Maybe here."

They worked together, clearing snow in slow, careful strokes. The flakes had compacted, hardened by the wind. It wasn't drift — it was weight, like a second roof fallen from the sky.

Behind them, Maela stood with a cloth wrapped around her arms, eyes scanning the rest of the shelter. She didn't speak. Just signed with sharp precision: "Smoke hole cracked. Wind inside."

Vince nodded. He didn't need to say more.

Every breath felt thinner now. Not because of the cold, but because of what might be buried here — beneath them, within arm's reach, or just too far to matter.

A few villagers came to help. Rhosyn carried a wooden bowl of coals, trying to keep the digging hands warm. Eldan moved the children back, out of the draft, quieting them with stories told in soft hums and patient gestures. No panic. Not now. There was no room left for panic.

Minutes passed. Then an hour. Then another. The snow refused to give easily.

Then Branik froze. His hand had hit something—soft, but resistant.

He scraped gently, fingers trembling slightly.

A sleeve. Wool. Thin.

He looked up, and Vince was already leaning down.

Together, they uncovered the child — curled tight, like something preserved in salt. Her eyes were closed. Lips cracked. One arm wrapped around a small satchel of dried moss and string, the sort children made into pretend dolls.

Maela knelt beside them, hands moving before her mouth could catch up.

"Alive?"

Vince pressed fingers to the girl's neck. Waited.

A beat.

Then another.

Faint. But there.

He exhaled, almost didn't notice it had been held.

"She breathe," he said, broken grammar and all.

Rhosyn brought the coals closer. Branik wrapped the girl in his own coat without hesitation, pressing her against his chest. No tears. Just urgency.

They moved her to the warmest spot near the fire, as close as possible without waking the youngest sleepers.

As Maela hovered, Vince caught her hand in his.

Her face turned. A flicker of tension. Of accusation.

But he only signed: "Together. We hold."

She stared at him a moment longer, then nodded. A brief, tight gesture — not of agreement, but of choice.

Outside, the storm had not slowed.

It raged as if it had never stopped.

But inside, for now, one life had not been lost.

And sometimes, in a winter like this, that was enough.

The wind returned near midnight — not in gusts, but in waves. Long, dragging pulses like something breathing beneath the skin of the world.

The shelter creaked. The roof sagged lower than it had that morning. Cold bit into bone.

The fire at the center had grown tired. It no longer danced — only glowed, low and flickering, like memory.

No one truly slept. They rested with eyes closed, breath shallow. Huddled. Listening.

Vince sat near the door again. The same post. The same posture. His eyes were open, but quiet. Alert in a way that didn't twitch or shift. Still as stone, but not numb.

Beside him, Branik kept watch too — the rescued child curled in his arms, wrapped in hide and cloth, her breath warm against his chest. She hadn't spoken once since they'd dug her out. Her hands twitched in sleep, caught between dream and cold.

Rhosyn stirred and placed more bark on the coals. The smoke rose slow, clinging to the roof before seeping through the patched seams. The warmth barely reached the edge.

Footsteps shifted. Maela moved from one side of the shelter to the other, checking the lashings, listening to the creak of reed and leather. She stopped near Vince and crouched beside him.

"You eat," she said, holding out a shallow bowl — steamed roots in thin broth.

He shook his head.

She frowned, then signed sharply:

"You lead. Must eat."

He looked at the others — hunched figures, slumped against the walls, limbs tangled, breath uneven.

Children curled into their mothers. Eldan dozed with his hand still on a blade.

Then Vince signed back, slow, firm:

"They first."

Maela didn't argue, but the bowl remained in her hands, her fingers white around the rim.

She glanced away, then back.

"You stubborn," she muttered.

He didn't smile. But his shoulders eased. Just slightly.

Outside, the wind shifted. It whistled low, then rose into a deep groan — like the earth remembering grief.

The shelter answered with its own noise: a single crack above the far wall.

Everyone tensed. Eyes lifted.

The beam. Again.

The same sag. The same dark line spreading.

Branik stood, careful not to wake the girl. He passed her to Maela, then crossed the room in four quiet steps. Pressed his shoulder beneath the sagging beam. Waited.

Vince rose slower.

He joined Branik. No orders. No words.

He pressed upward with the side of his arm, felt the ache shoot through his ribs. The cold made the wood sting to the touch.

Others joined. One by one. Maela. Eldan. Even Rhosyn. Holding the line with their backs, their arms, their weight.

No heroism. Just stubbornness.

Below them, the rest remained low. Silent. Watching.

The wind beat the wall again — harder this time.

A wave of snow slid from the roof and slammed into the ground outside. The whole frame shuddered.

The child in Maela's arms stirred and began to cry. Not loud. Just a small, breaking sound — like something inside her finally snapped.

Vince heard the others shift. Fear moved fast in tight spaces.

He spoke then. Just a few words. Barely above breath.

"Stay down. Shelter holds."

His voice didn't command.

It reminded.

They listened. Because they had no other shape to lean on.

Above them, the roof bent. Moaned. But didn't break.

Time passed — a long stretch of it — measured only by the sound of the storm and the slow tremble of breath.

Eventually, Branik spoke, quiet, shoulders still pressed to the beam.

"We live," he said.

Vince didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

He stepped back. The others did too. Slowly. Carefully.

The beam sagged — but held.

Around them, no one cheered. No one moved.

But something invisible — something taut — loosened.

Maela handed the bowl back to Vince. He took it this time.

Sat again near the door. The child had stopped crying. Her eyes stared at nothing.

The fire cracked once — a brittle sound, soft as ash.

Vince lifted the bowl. Blew on the broth.

He took one sip.

And then, as if by agreement, the rest followed.