The snow fell soft, almost gentle, but Elias knew better. Snow didn't bury the sound — it muffled it, bent it, made it lie.
They moved through a dead orchard now. Blackened branches stretched like broken fingers toward the ash-colored sky. Elias led from the front, his coat soaked through at the hem, rifle slung across his shoulder, breath steady. Behind him, the children followed in single file — eyes alert, mouths shut.
They had been warned not to speak here.
Not since the last patrol.
He remembered that night too clearly. The screaming had started before the fire — a boy they'd taken in, one of the newer ones. Elias hadn't even learned his name before it ended. He could still see the charred edge of the barn, the bones left inside. Just one wrong sound.
They didn't bury him. There was no time.
A cough broke the silence. Elias stopped. His hand instinctively went to his pistol, then slowly lowered. It was Ana — a girl barely seven, face pinched and blue from the cold. She looked up at him, eyes wide with guilt.
He didn't scold her. What was there left to say?
Instead, he turned back toward the road. The bridge was close now — a rusted metal skeleton over a half-frozen river. They had to cross it before dusk. Too many disappearances in this area. Too many half-frozen screams carried in the wind.
Midway across the bridge, Elias heard it: boots crunching behind them that didn't match their rhythm.
"Stop," he whispered.
The children froze. Elias turned slowly.
There was nothing. Only wind. Only snow.
Then he saw it — a figure, far off on the bank, still and watching. A coat too dark, too long. No face visible. No movement.
Elias didn't speak. He raised his rifle and held it steady, not aiming — just warning.
The figure didn't move. But it also didn't leave.
"Keep walking," Elias murmured. "Don't look back."
As they crossed, a lullaby began drifting through the static of the broken radio one of the children carried, tucked in a side pouch like a useless relic.
No one had touched the dial.
No station had worked for months.
The melody was slow, soft — too soft for this world. A song from a time when people danced barefoot in the kitchen, not with boots on corpses.
One of the children whispered, "Is it her again?"
Elias didn't answer.
By the time they reached the other side, the figure was gone. So was the lullaby.
But the cold felt heavier now — like it had listened.
And remembered.