Elsbeth.
The snow didn't fall in this dream—it hovered, like breath caught mid-sigh, suspended in a world that had forgotten time.
I stood barefoot on the surface of a frozen lake. The ice beneath me was glass-smooth and black, stretched endless in every direction, unmarred by crack or ripple. It should've been cold. I should have shivered. But I didn't feel anything. Not even the weight of my own body. Only the faint, hollow hum beneath my feet. Like something breathing far, far below.
A moon hung low in the sky—too large, too red. It bled light across the white horizon in pulsing waves. Each throb of it sent a ripple through the ice, not enough to fracture it, just enough to remind me it wasn't solid. Not really. Just a skin stretched tight over something vast and old.
I turned, though I didn't remember choosing to. My limbs didn't feel like mine anymore. They moved like they remembered a rhythm I didn't.
Behind me stood a figure.
At first I thought it was me.
