The cabin went quiet after we agreed to split up.
Not peaceful quiet. The heavy kind. The kind where everyone’s doing the math in their head. Who’s likely to die. Who won’t make it back. Who’ll be left to deal with whatever’s left behind.
I couldn’t sit there with it. So I went outside. The cold helped. It gave my body something else to think about.
This time it wasn’t Kenji who followed.
It was Elena.
She stood a few feet away, arms folded tight across her chest. Looking at the trees. Not at me.
“You should be inside,” I said. “With your mom.”
“She’s not going anywhere.” Her voice was flat. “The machine’s doing everything now.”
There wasn’t much to say to that.
We stood there.
After a while she spoke again.
“She opened her eyes earlier,” Elena said. “Not fully. But she looked a
