A thin light slipped through the frost-covered wooden window. Its warmth was faint, but enough to stir my eyelids. My breath was heavy, as if my lungs still weren't sure I was alive.
I opened my eyes.
A cracked wooden ceiling greeted my gaze. The scent of burning wood and herbal mixtures pierced my nose. For a moment, I was confused. Where was I?
My body felt hollow, both light and heavy at the same time. I tried to sit up, but a sudden chill seized me—not from the air, but from within. Frozen. Rigid. As my fingers gripped the coarse wool blanket that covered me, I felt as though I was no longer myself.
"H-Hiro?"
That voice… Charlotte?
I turned slowly. Charlotte stood at the doorway, Isabella beside her. Both of them froze for a moment, as if they couldn't believe I was truly awake. And then, in an instant, they rushed toward me.
"Hiro!" Charlotte cried, throwing her arms around me. Isabella followed, both of them breaking into tears against my chest, warm and full of relief.
"W-what… happened…?" I asked, my voice hoarse and unfamiliar.
They glanced at each other before Charlotte wiped her tears.
"You were asleep for three days, Hiro… You had a high fever. We… we thought you wouldn't wake up."
Three days?
Yesterday, on the second day.
Outside, near the quietly smoking furnace, Uncle sat leaning back in a wooden chair, wrapped in a thick fur coat. Beside him stood a pale-blond young man with round glasses—Dr. Albert, the man who saved my life.
"He's still not awake?" Uncle asked, eyes fixed on the gray sky above the forest.
"Not yet," Dr. Albert replied, adding wood to the furnace. "His body couldn't adjust to this extreme climate so quickly. A three-day fever in weather this cold… the boy is lucky if he ever wakes up."
Uncle nodded, though his face remained dark. "And Zeco? Still no word since last night?"
Albert was silent. "If he doesn't return within the next few hours… we need to prepare for the worst."
But before those words could fully sink in, the sound of snow crunching came from beyond the forest.
They turned at once.
A silhouette emerged from between the trees, stumbling, limping. Tattered cloth wrapped around wounds all over his body. His eyes—Zeco's eyes—were dim and distant, like someone who had walked back from the edge of death.
Charlotte and Isabella saw him from the window.
"Zeco!" Carla cried out.
Without thinking, they rushed outside to meet him. Zeco nearly collapsed as they reached him, but they caught him, embracing him like someone returned from another world.
Albert quickly opened the side door and guided them into a different recovery room than mine.
I… I didn't know. I was still unconscious, still lying there.
Now, on the third day.
When my awareness fully returned, when I could move without pain stabbing every inch of my body… I looked at Charlotte and Isabella. They were still by my side, their eyes swollen but now carrying a different light.
"Thank you… both of you…" I whispered.
They smiled, and for a moment the world felt warm, even in this frozen land.
But then, the question forced itself from my lips.
"…Where is Zeco?"