Can’t Win Me Back

Elias frowned deeply; his worry etched onto his face.

"We've been shouting Ms. Alyssa's name the whole way.

With so many of us calling out, she should've heard us by now if she were nearby!" In a deep voice, Jasper said, The wind is too strong, and then there's the heavy snowfall.

Our voices are being drowned out.

Lyse might not hear us at all." Lyse.

Her nickname slipped from his lips before he even realized it.

"I'm just afraid she's injured—or worse, fainted.

If she blacks out in this cold..." Elias trailed off, his voice heavy with dread.

"Ona day like this, she won't survive long.

She'll freeze to death." The group exchanged uneasy glances, the reality of his words tightening their chests.

It wasn't that Elias was being a doomsayer.

Rather, this was the cruel reality that might actually happen.

Crater Mountain claimed lives every year.

Danger lurked unpredictably in the woods on the mountain—anything could unfold.

"Let's split up," Jasper commanded, his eyes fixed on the shadowy forest.

His voice carried an edge of desperation.

“We're not leaving until we find her." Elias hesitated.

"But what if—" "If anything happens to her," Jasper cut him off, his voice trembling with fierce determination, "I'll make this place my grave.

I mean it." Before anyone could respond, Jasper turned and strode into the darkness, his figure quickly swallowed by the night.

disappear,

with fiery hearts." Jasper trudged through the snow, his mind

her a promise, all she

didn't mean just a

them to

he were Alyssa, where would he go? Jasper's heart raced as he strained

cave—the very place where he and Alyssa had once sought refuge during the

surged back —the harrowing brush with death, the suffocating fear,

will." That promise wasn't just words; it was carved into his

not forgotten

He had remembered it.

swirled

echoed as his strength gave

and weary, glistened with the weight

"Alyssa...

have to find you..." Clenching his fists, he clawed at the frozen ground, forcing himself

screamed in protest,

"I have to...

you!" In the midst of hopelessness, the

ruthless

into a tight ball, pressing herself against the

pure white snow blanketed her almost entirely, rendering her nearly invisible to

squeezed her eyes shut, her lips a chilling

clinging to awareness, her mind wavered in a haze of

body would be frozen stiff, and she would

trembled violently as she curled tighter into

fragments of heartwarming childhood memories flickered in her mind—a

from her senses, replaced by an

her late mother had appeared, her arms wide open,

"Lyse, my sweet girl.

Don't be afraid.

beautiful and

know that you've been through a