Night came. So did the cold. The usual light snow fell from the grey clouds. Fortunately, no storm approached.

Nathanael woke up in the middle of the night. It has been a few nights since the last time he dreamt of that odd recurring dream. The dream where he saw figures of people standing around him. Nothing changed, it was still the same. Though nothing changed in that dream, his thoughts switched to see the nightmares of the forest, of the crystal. Guess that is what woke him up. Before he would see those gruesome scenes again, he turned conscious.

He rubbed his eye and looked around. The fire was still alive, lighting everything it could touch. Lighting the broken walls, the ceiling, the ground. And lighting up only two souls within the reach of the flames.

“Etta?” Nathanael said once he noticed she wasn’t near him. She wasn’t close to the fire now as she was before when they fell asleep. “She wouldn’t go away from the fire, maybe I’m still tired.”

He stood up. Seth was still here, sleeping. No one took nightshifts. Nathanael walked into areas around the house the fire wouldn’t touch, but he didn’t find her anywhere. And once his tired eyes went fully awake, he suddenly realized.

“She’s not here…” Anxiety began to surface. He looked harder around the house. He checked behind the sleds, which were kept safe inside the house. He looked inside the obvious empty sleeping bag and even the bags on the sleds. She was nowhere to be seen. “Etta, where did you go?”

He urgently woke up Seth. The old man grumbled from his sleep and wondered why it was still night.

“Why did you…”

“Etta is gone!”

The sun wasn’t out, and there wasn’t a clue if there was a moon beyond the gray clouds, yet there was enough light outside to just barely see. They had torches in hand to search the darker areas of every house. They looked everywhere around the village, inside each and every building that could hold a total of around two hundred or three hundred people. Yet each one was empty.

“Etta! Please answer! Where are you! Where did you go!”

There was no sound from the little girl. She was nowhere to be seen. Light snowfall was falling at its steady pace, most likely already covering her tracks. There was no knowing when she left the camp, at what time she disappeared. The outside was cold, much colder as it was in the middle of the night, she couldn’t survive. Nathanael even took some time searching the outskirts of the village, to hopefully see a distant light of a torch that Etta could potentially hold, but he saw nothing. He didn’t even believe Etta would have a sudden motive for leaving them, especially in the danger of night.

They must have searched for close to an hour, they needed to retreat back to the campfire before they themselves would succumb to the embraceful cold. The cold in the forest isn’t as bad as the plains of snow, down there they could survive without a fire for perhaps an hour or more in the night. Though it’s not recommended in doing so.

“Nathanael, come back to the campfire, we’ve been out here for far too long.”

“But we haven’t found Etta yet!” Nathanael said, and continued to call for her. “Etta! Etta!”

The old man sighed, pulled Nathanael by his collar, and forcefully brought him back inside their little camp in the most usable house. Nathanael did little to struggle, he knew it was the right choice to go back, but it was too hard not to struggle a little bit when knowing they were only two.

“After seeing how she reacts normally to the cold, she wouldn’t be alive right now. Wherever she may have gone, the snow has already buried her.” There was little to no care in the old man’s eyes, he was too calm. Perhaps that was good, there was a need for someone to not panic like Nathanael. If both of them were in the same panic state, neither would be there to calm the other. And besides, it would be too uncharacteristic of Seth to be terrified or worried. Not once has Nathanael seen the man in fear or distress.

“I know we need to stay by the fire, but we can’t leave her out there!” Nathanael insisted, despite knowing it wasn’t the right call. He couldn’t leave the little girl to die. Not when he knew she had little to no resistance to the cold.

Where did you go? Why did you go? Nathanael thought. Why in the middle of the night? Don’t you think it’s too dangerous? I know you wouldn’t leave the campfire once it’s lit, especially at the time of night.

Etta was gone. No traces were left behind. Perhaps the snow truly made her disappear. The endless snow hid her within itself and accepted her as a gracious gift.

“Maybe she went back into the forest, perhaps she really wants to find her home. To find her people.”

“She would most likely not do that,” Seth said. “She is too scared of the snow alone, you being with her has helped her greatly, I have noticed it since leaving the house. She wouldn’t have gone out by herself.”

“Then… did someone kidnap her?” Nathanael hoped that wouldn’t be the case.

“And how would that have happened? And why would someone kidnap anyone out here? There were no traces of others, even though it has been snowing, there should be some traces of a group of people. And also, what would the kidnappers gain?”

He was right, Nathanael knew. Then she must have ventured out alone. Perhaps remnants of the toxic fog from the forest somehow made her walk away. Or she truly left them of her own volition.

I don’t believe it. No, that’s not right. To think she would go by herself? That would be too hard to understand except she herself told me why. Please just tell me, Etta. If you really left by yourself, then why in the middle of the night? Or why leave at all? Or were there strangers who grabbed you while you slept by my side? Were they the people who I saw the footprints of in the forest? Did you get infected by the toxic gas, just like what happened to me? No, that couldn’t have happened, how would it be in the plains of snow? There are no crystals alive here. So, Etta, tell me, why?

“…Nat.”

“Yeah, Seth, I know. But let’s try to find her tomorrow.” Nathanael looked over at the old man. “Wait, Nat?”

He turned towards where the shaken voice came from. There was no one. But then he looked further down. Etta was there, shivering and trembling due to the cold.

Were his eyes going nuts? Etta was right there. Were there really lingering traces of the hallucinations inside him? Would he start to see the horrific scenes again? Would it be worse this time?

“…Nat, why are you… …staring at me like that?”

It was a dream, it must be. How come she vanished in the night, and suddenly appeared once again? There was nowhere she could have hidden in this abandoned village, Nathanael and Seth searched the entire area. Yet this did feel real, no dream, he wasn’t seeing things.

“Etta?”

“…Mm?”

“Seth? Do you see her as well?”

“What? Of course, I can see her. I’m just trying to figure out how she got so damn close before I could notice her.”

“So, I’m not going crazy?”

“…Mm?”

“Eh?”

The suspense that built inside the village, and the tense fear Nathanael felt for nearly an hour, all faded away in a confusing instant. He wasn’t prepared for this at all. She was right there in view of his conscious eyes. There were no glowing crystals, he wasn’t asleep. This was real.

Nathanael carefully placed her hand on top of Etta’s head and began caressing her. Though he was only feeling the top of her warm hat, it sure felt like someone was there.

“…Mmngh-Nat… stop…”

“Etta, where did you go? I was… worried.”

“…Mmh-if you stop… I will tell you.”

It was a basement behind the house, that is where she said she was. Nathanael didn’t search behind it when looking for her, but he thought Seth went back there. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed it? Lights came down under, somehow Etta woke up and found it while trying to sleep again, she didn’t elaborate further on how she could have possibly found it when all she was doing was going to sleep. Nathanael couldn’t find answers on how she would find the light while there was an intact wall between their sleeping area and the basement entrance outside.

The hatch was open once Etta found it. Torches were lit, keeping the place warm. None of them were the ones who turned them on.

Nathanael thought the place to be a cellar, storage space for food, drinks, and others, were all over the place. But every shelf, rack, and even barrels were empty. Nothing was left behind. This place wasn’t that big, just a single room. There was nothing to explore further.

Etta explained she took a nap here before she left because it was warm. But she woke back up once feeling how uncomfortable the stone-tiled ground was.

“…There is nothing here… but I found this,” she said and handed over a piece of paper. It was rolled up, a tied string held it from unfolding. It looked old and untouched.

“What is this?”

As Nathanael held it in his hands and was already beginning to unfold its contents after removing the string, someone grabbed it from him and quickly crumbled it together. Seth said nothing as he buried it inside one of his pockets.

Stunned. Nathanael did nothing but stare at the old man.

“There’s nothing of value down here. Let’s go back up and sleep the rest of the night. And, kid, don’t wander off alone again.” Seth began leaving the cellar, his right hand inside his pocket.

“Seth. Do-” As he was about to say, Do you think I’m going to ignore that, Nathanael felt a disturbing feeling once Seth halted his next step. The air felt cold, even in this warm cellar. As if the old man’s eyes were staring right at him with an irritating gaze. The old man didn’t even need to look back to cause him to feel like he was going somewhere he shouldn’t.

They weren’t supposed to find that. That is what he thought. That harmless piece of paper had something in it Seth wouldn’t want to share.

Nathanael wasn’t going to try and pickpocket him in the night, he knew he shouldn’t. It would only lead to more dangers to himself.

Before he went back out, he tried searching around the cellar more thoroughly. But nothing was found. And the night went by with no more incidents. They found their way back to the house with no dangers following.