The moment they brought us through the doors of Healing House, it felt less like arriving somewhere safe and more like being swallowed whole by something warm and bright and far too loud after the endless white silence of the mountain.
Hands were everywhere.
Voices too.
Healers shouting orders, boots striking stone, doors slamming open and shut as the remaining members of my group were half-walked, half-carried through the corridors like broken things that were still expected to function if someone just pushed them hard enough in the right direction. I could barely keep my own feet beneath me.
We were safe. Or at least, we were no longer outside in the cold.
But safety didn’t feel like relief. It felt like collapse.
My vision kept blurring at the edges, my teeth chattering so violent
