Page 109 of Wreckage

The sun had disappeared again,and the world around me merged into nothing but endless white. The trees loomed like silent, judging shadows.

My body felt like it wasn't mine anymore; I was just some shell moving through the ice, some machine that kept going even when everything inside was screaming to stop.

I slipped and then stumbled.

The second my foot hit a hidden patch of ice, my body jerked violently. My balance was gone, and the world tilted.

Then came the fall. Next came the pain.

The second my leg twisted beneath me, a sharp, excruciating bolt of fire shot through my knee, and I barely had time to suck in a breath before I hit the snow hard.

"FUCK!" The scream tore from my throat before I could stop it, my vision blurring with tears, my hands grasping at my leg as white-hot agony burned through it.

Not now.Not fucking now.

I clenched my teeth, trying to force myself to breathe and not lose it completely.

I pressed my fingers to the injured knee, testing it—another bolt of pain shot up my thigh, and I nearly blacked out.

But I didn't. I couldn't. I had to keep going. I had to.

Gritting my teeth, I forced my body upward, biting back another choked cry as my knee screamed in protest.

I swayed, my head spinning, nausea curling in my stomach. But I moved.

One step.

Then another.

Pain was just another thing to ignore, just like the cold, the hunger, the exhaustion.

I couldn't stop.

I didn't knowhow much time had passed since then. It could have been hours, minutes, or days.

I kept going, my mind in a fog, my body on autopilot, my thoughts looping, circling, dragging me deeper into the abyss.

Elena's voice.

Adrian's face.

The fire back at the wreckage, flickering in the dark, their bodies curled together, waiting for something that might never come.

A sound—a deep, throbbing pulse in the sky—made me pause. I froze completely, my heart lurching, my breath catching.

I knew that sound. I knew it deep in my bones.

A helicopter.

I whipped my head up, eyes darting wildly toward the sky, my breath coming in sharp, frantic bursts. I prayed I wasn't hallucinating.

Please let it be real. Fuck. PLEASE.

I could hear it. I could feel it vibrating in my chest.

But when I looked up?—

There was nothing—nothing but a gray, endless sky, snow falling in soft, cruel flakes, and trees silent and unmoving.

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