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.

him disappear,

families raise people with fiery hearts." Jasper trudged

her a promise, all she asked was

didn't mean

wanted them to retrace their

go? Jasper's

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

he stared into the empty cave, memories of that day surged back —the harrowing brush with death, the suffocating fear, and the unspoken bond of survival that had tethered them

That promise wasn't just

had not forgotten

He had remembered it.

world swirled in

his strength gave

and weary, glistened with the

"Alyssa...

Clenching his fists, he clawed at the frozen ground,

protest, but

"I have to...

In the midst of hopelessness, the temperature continued to

was as ruthless

tight ball, pressing herself against

rendering her nearly invisible to anyone who

her eyes shut, her lips a chilling shade of purple

clinging to awareness, her mind

body would be frozen stiff,

she

a daze, fragments of heartwarming childhood memories flickered in her mind—a fleeting warmth

seemed to fade from her senses,

of her daze, her late mother had appeared,

"Lyse, my sweet girl.

Don't be afraid.

here." The beautiful and

know that you've been through