Crystal Country is still buried beneath the snow.
It falls like slow magic in the evening light—soft, relentless, beautiful in a way that feels almost cruel. Each flake drifts downward in its own unhurried orbit, shimmering beneath the golden lights of the private terminal before settling on the frozen ground. The world is muffled, hushed, wrapped in a silence so complete it feels as though the earth itself is holding its breath.
I begin my descent down the private jet stairs.
The air hits me like a blade.
Sharp. Cold. Unforgiving.
It cuts through the thin fabric of my night clothes, finding every place I'm already hollow.
Snow touches my face, my hands, the exposed skin of my neck. It melts against the heat of my flushed body, trickling down my cheeks like tears I refuse to claim.
Guards rush forward, opening an umbrella above me, forming a small shield against the falling snow. But I feel it anyway—the cold, the silence, the weight of everything I've left behind.
