The healer spoke of a root that grew near the northern ridge.

  Rare.

  Warm in nature.

  “Good for the lungs,” he had said.

  Expensive.

  His father did not ask the price again.

  That night, after the coughing grew worse, he made his decision without announcing it.

  Before dawn, he was already dressed.

  The sky was pale gray.

  The air bit the skin.

  “I’ll go to the ridge,” he said simply.

  His mother tried to sit up.

  “You don’t know the path.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  There was no argument.

  Because when poverty cornered a man, pride became irrelevant.

  Hope became currency.

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  He took a rope.

  A small knife.

  A sack.

  And left.

  The snow had begun in the night.

  Not heavy.

  Just enough to hide old footprints.

  The boy stood outside the hut long after his father disappeared into white.

  The cold crept into his sleeves.

  He did not move.

  Something inside him felt… unsettled.

  Not fear.

  Not yet.

  Just a tightening.

  The day passed slowly.

  The mother slept more than usual.

  Her breathing shallow.

  The cough quieter.

  Too quiet.

  By sunset, he had not returned.

  The villagers said nothing at first.

  Men sometimes stayed late in the mountains.

  Snow made paths slow.

  Night fell.

  The oil lamp burned low.

  The boy sat near the door.

  Listening.

  The wind howled once.

  Then silence.

  He did not sleep.

  They found him at dawn.

  Two men from the village had gone looking when he failed to return.

  The northern ridge was steep.

  The snow deeper there.

  He was sitting against a rock.

  Back straight.

  Head slightly bowed.

  As if resting.

  The sack was clutched tightly in his arms.

  Inside—

  The root.

  Intact.

  His fingers were frozen around it.

  He had found it.

  He had not made it back.

  The villagers carried him down carefully.

  Snow still clung to his clothes.

  Ice to his lashes.

  The boy watched from the doorway as they approached.

  He knew.

  Before anyone spoke.

  The world felt… hollow.

  They laid his father inside the hut.

  The mother tried to rise.

  She could not.

  When she saw him—

  There was no scream.

  Only a sound too small to describe.

  The boy stood still.

  His father’s hands were still wrapped around the sack.

  Even in death.

  Protecting it.

  As if hope must not be dropped.

  The boy knelt slowly.

  He touched the frozen fingers.

  They were harder than stone.

  Something inside his chest shifted.

  Not breaking.

  Not yet.

  Just moving.

  He did not cry.

  He did not speak.

  Outside, the snow continued to fall.

  Indifferent.