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

a promise, all

mean just a

them to retrace

go? Jasper's

at the cave—the very place where he and

that day surged back —the harrowing brush with death, the suffocating fear, and the unspoken bond

will." That promise wasn't just words; it

not forgotten

He had remembered it.

swirled in dizzying

echoed as his strength gave out, sending

glistened with

"Alyssa...

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

screamed in protest, but

"I have to...

you!" In the midst of hopelessness, the temperature continued

was as ruthless

ball, pressing herself against

blanketed her almost entirely, rendering her nearly

lips a chilling shade of purple as hypothermia took its

clinging to awareness, her mind wavered in a

her entire body would be frozen stiff, and she would

trembled violently as she curled tighter into

childhood memories flickered in her mind—a fleeting warmth against the encroaching

fade from her senses,

daze, her late mother had appeared, her arms

"Lyse, my sweet girl.

Don't be afraid.

here." The beautiful and

you've been through a