Until my last day I will never forget the final words my brother said to me. When I closed my eyes I could still see his face and the terrified look in his eyes as he stood at death’s door.

With a quick shake of my head I tried to push the memories back where they came from. It was the one thing that kept popping up in quiet moments like this one where my only company is the open road. It was hard not to shoulder the blame even now when he is truly gone.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning. My name is Jim O’Connell and as you may have guessed from my name, I come from a very Irish family. A matter of irony you would say especially if you saw my heavy, Mediterranean features like my coarse, black hair and olive skin. My father always took his fair share of jokes over that one, but he did like to remind all of us that his mother’s family came from Greece. Yet it was those features that shined through the strongest in spite of the last name.

My brother, Matt, did inherit those strong Irish genes, sporting a curly mass of auburn hair and a generous amount of freckles. If you told someone we were brothers it would always generate a suspicious grin. That is until they saw how we were practically united at the hip and how we could finish each other’s sentences. Any doubt was then swiftly erased.

Matt and I grew up just outside of Denver within sight of the majestic Rockies. Growing up, they so thoroughly dominated our world that I learned to do many outdoor activities from a young age such as skiing, snowboarding, and of course, sledding. Any time that we weren’t in school or sleeping, Matt and I were outside exploring our surroundings and generally having a blast doing it. Even though he was only a couple years younger than me, he remained my best friend throughout our schooling years.

A best friend would’ve tried harder to save me.

I shook my head again to get the rogue thought out of my mind. It wasn’t as bad now, a few weeks after his death, as it was during the entire ordeal and directly after he passed. Time was reducing the frequency but the intensity of the pain remained the same.

My story took a turn for the sour just three years ago. A routine doctor’s checkup for my brother started off on the right foot, until he mentioned the frequent fatigue he was feeling just from going about daily tasks. As he explained his symptoms, the doctor was alarmed enough to order blood testing. A family’s worst nightmare was confirmed a short while later—Matt had leukemia.

The disease was alarming in the way that it could strike otherwise healthy adolescents and young men. Matt was just such a case. His prognosis was a sixty-five percent survival rate and chemotherapy was to start right away. I felt truly helpless to do anything to help my best friend and brother. Thankfully at that time, Matt was still naive and steely enough to believe that he could beat this. His courage gave me the confidence that he was right.

Time would quickly show us for the fools we were.

We fought the cancer as best we could for the next year and a half. Matt was confined to the hospital to minimize the risk of infection. He quickly lost his auburn hair and I remembered giving him some grief about becoming a skinhead, something he took with a good-natured laugh. Matt soldiered on as best as he could and we supported him in every way we knew how.

It was toward the end of the second year when the problems really escalated. At first the chemo seemed to work out wonderfully and the cancer went away easily enough. I could even see Matt on the cusp of triumph as we got so close to beating it. We suffered quite the blow when the leukemia reemerged in a more resistant form. I think in that moment Matt truly began to lose hope. The spark, the very fight that was so present in his eyes, seemed to recede and then diminished completely. Whereas before he seemed to respond to his treatments with quiet confidence, he became more resigned to the possibility that the cancer might win.

I swerved quickly into the shoulder of the highway as a passing car nearly cut me off. Resisting the urge to make an obscene gesture, I scowled instead and shook my head. Looking over at the passenger seat, I noticed several of my groceries had spilled out of the plastic bag. I had a full week’s worth of groceries, enough to keep me sated for the retreat ahead.

Retreat. I hated to think of it as a retreat but in a way it truly was. I needed a break from life. Especially from my job and, sadly to say, my parents as well. Not that I didn’t appreciate them, but they served as a reminder of Matt and right now I needed an escape from that.

It was the entire reason why I had chosen to take a week off from work and head up to our family’s cabin in the mountains. It was incredibly remote, even to the point of having no cell service. Originally purchased when I was five, we had spent many nights tucked away in that quaint, little red-roofed cabin that so gently hugged the surrounding hillside. It was my quiet place, my serenity, and the one location where I knew I could find a measure of peace in light of recent events.

It also helped that so many memories of my brother seemed to be baked into the weathered logs of the cabin itself. We both learned to snowboard down the hill that it rested upon. I can still remember the time when Matt spotted a bear not far from the cabin when I was ten and we ran like devils back to the safety of enclosed walls and my father’s hunting rifle.

The truth was that I hoped my week in solitude would allow me the extra presence of mind to get closer to his memory. I wanted to forgive myself and move on. That was the hope at least.

About an hour from Boulder, I finally saw the black gravel road that led to the cabin. It wasn’t a moment too soon either as the weather looked to be starting to turn. Earlier this morning my mother warned me not to go with this fast moving storm making its way across the mountains and bound to dump a few feet of snow in the area. I smiled away her worries and made sure to take an extra shovel with me as well as some road salt. The truth was that the cabin was well equipped for all you could possibly want, even being snowed-in.

As I turned into the long driveway, the very first snowflake hit my windshield and quickly dissolved into a watery remnant. Before the second flake landed, I caught sight of the cabin itself and smiled at finally arriving.

The cabin wasn’t much to look at from the outside, and I wouldn’t have preferred it any other way. Surrounded on three sides by large limber pines with thick evergreen needles and brown cones, the cabin stood out on the lonely slope. While the roof had always been the same reddish color, the light brown wooden walls enclosed three, separate rooms inside—two bedrooms and one large common room with a corner bathroom and galley kitchen. The foundation was made entirely of stone and that same stonework shored up two windows apiece on either side of the cabin.

As more snowflakes began to fall, I made a beeline to get settled into the cabin before it got too nasty out. I grabbed as many of the groceries as I could carry and headed toward the front porch. Unlocking the front door, I took the first step into the cabin in almost two years.

A small smile filled my face. It was just how I remembered it. Entering into the great main room, my lungs breathed in the smell of pine that contained just a hint of mustiness. It had been a long time since anyone had been here. You could chalk that up to Matt’s illness as nobody really felt like going away while he was still suffering.

I set the groceries on the floor and explored each of the rooms like I’ve done a hundred times before. The main room was dominated by a stone fireplace on the eastern wall. Attached to the wall along the chimney was the television set, but our remote location ensured that you couldn’t expect much more than a few local news channels. Two large couches branched out from the fireplace, providing an easy place to enjoy the roaring flames. I noticed that the stack of wood near the fireplace contained just two pieces, and I made a mental note to restack it from outside.

Just to the left of the couches was the small galley kitchen with a table for four. I lowered my groceries on the table and set about getting everything that was cold into the refrigerator. Once I was finished, I looked into the two main bedrooms just beyond the kitchen.

The one on the left was the first that I entered even though it had traditionally been my parents room due to its size. The windows looked directly against the hillside and the parking lot out front. A white-framed queen bed dominated the majority of the room. Even though it was the master, I couldn’t permit myself to take the room. It just didn’t feel like my own.

Instead, I walked across the hall to the bedroom on the right. There were two small, twin beds against either side usually reserved for Matt and I. My memory flickered back to one night when Matt rolled off his bed and cracked his chin against the floor, requiring stitches to heal. I slouched down to the floor just to make sure the mark was still there, smiling when my fingers ran over the groove like they had many times before.

I set my bag down on the bed and after a deep breath, I made my way back out to the main room to begin my work. A glance out the window showed that the snow was now falling at a regular pace but it wasn’t exactly heavy just yet.

I spent the next few hours before dark in various ways. The very first thing I did was gather in firewood from the stack against the back of the cabin. Filling a small wheelbarrow, I made a few trips until the rack next to the fireplace was completely stacked.

After the firewood was piled to my liking, I went about getting a fire started inside. A relatively quick task, it wasn’t long until I had a small, but strong fire heating up the common room. After that I took my bag of salt and went back outside. I walked the entire length of the driveway while dumping a generous amount of salt into the gravel.

The last thing I did outside was check the two security cameras around the property. My dad installed those one year after some kids broke a window and they remained ever since. Not that I expected any brigands, but it was comforting to know I had a few sets of eyes on the property at all time. It was on my way back to the cabin that I noticed the flakes were getting bigger and a layer an inch thick already coated most of the ground. My teeth clattered as I shrugged the flakes off my jacket. The temperature was dropping.

Once I was back inside, I took off my heavy boots and brewed a small cup of decaf. It was just about dark now and the last vestiges of sunlight had finally disappeared over the western crest of the mountains. With my sturdy fire roaring, I did the only thing I wanted to do—I watched the snow pile up outside from the comfort of the couch.

It was quite the source of entertainment. Hearing nothing else but the small cackle from the fireplace, I watched as the first foot of snow covered the front porch. It wasn’t much more than an hour later when the second foot appeared, with the drop in temperature leaving a heavy frost against the window panes.

Shortly afterwards and well after dark, I decided to call it a night. I could no longer see much outside and even I had my limits of how much I could just watch the snowfall. As I slid under the covers, I took one last look over to my brother’s bed. I hoped for another night of dreamless sleep but lately that had been hard to come by. I was sleeping before I knew otherwise.

“Please, Jim. I need your help.”

I gazed into the pained eyes of my brother as his pale, weak hand grasped my wrist. In those moments I had no words, nothing to even begin to explain how I thought or felt. I knew Matt had it much worse so I didn’t even try.

“What can I do? Do you need the nurse? More medication? What can I do to help?”

Matt blinked before he answered. “I’m dying. I know I am. They won’t tell me when I ask them, but I know it.”

I averted my gaze. “Stop that. You know we can beat this one more time.”

Even staring at the floor, I could still feel his eyes against me. “I don’t want to die, Jim.”

It’s at this point that the room begins to spin and his words seem to echo across time and space. Those six words are all that I can hear, constantly getting louder and louder.

I awoke in a near panic and sat up to catch my breath. My shirt clung to my sweat-covered back. Ordinarily a nightmare like that would take away any hope of going back to sleep except for the fact that this was the third one this week. My brother’s pained pleading seemed to live only in my dreams.

Thankfully I could see that light was starting to pierce through the window. With a good stretch, I swung my feet to the floor and walked out into the main room. As I looked out the window to the front porch, I’m amazed to see snow drifts that raise clear past the window. A closer examination shows what I guess to be about four feet of snow piled high against the cabin.

I crossed over to the master bedroom and peered out to look for my truck. It was barely noticeable apart from a small hump, a raised portion of snow where I knew my vehicle to be. Looking out past the driveway showed nothing but a mix of tree bark and snow. I had wanted a place to be truly alone for the week and had duly received my wish. I wasn’t going anywhere soon.

Not like I wanted to anyway, I thought to myself. Some solitude was what I really needed right now. I just wanted to try all possible routes before I consigned myself to going crazy.

As I looked back out the window, something caught my attention. I couldn’t quite figure out why but something was catching the reflection of the early morning sun just off the side of the driveway. From the way the snow was piled around it, I knew that it wasn’t there last night. Something about what I saw gave me a funny feeling—a notion that it was something that needed investigated. And while I thought about doing it later on in the afternoon after it warmed up, something inside told me it needed my immediate attention.

That was all that it took. Within ten minutes, I was fully dressed to go brave the temperature outside. In the storage closet, I located a pair of old snowshoes that belonged to my dad. Even though they were just a size too small for my feet, I wiggled them on knowing they were my best bet to get around outside. I grabbed my shovel and slowly opened the door to outside. Immediately, a small drift of snow toppled over and covered most of the entryway. It was going to be a long way to investigate what was at the end of my driveway.

I had to find out what it was though. I started to shovel, tossing snow away from the entrance and away from the house. Eventually after a few minutes of work, I had managed to make a basic ramp that curved away from the entrance and toward my parked truck. That’s when I got a chance to test my snowshoes. Thankfully they worked just as designed, and I was able to get moving toward the driveway with careful footing.

Even with snowshoes, I had to be careful. I took my shovel along just in case I had to dig myself out of any nasty situations. With slow going I eventually found my way down the snowy path of my driveway where the glint of reflection kept beckoning me forward.

I was halfway down the driveway when I figured out what the reflection was. It was a car’s rooftop. Someone had pulled over into the driveway over the course of the evening and gotten stuck.

My first thought was where was the driver?

My second was are they hurt?

I kept moving toward the vehicle with careful steps. After what felt like agonizingly-long minutes, I arrived at the car where my feet were nearly level with the top of the roof. Most of it was completely buried to the point where I couldn’t even see the windows. With a gentle scrap of my shovel, I began to push the snow away from what looked like the passenger side window. It took me a few moments, but finally enough of the window was cleared that I could look inside. Kneeling down in the snow, I peered into the darkened car.

My heart rate jumped through my chest when I realized that someone was still in the car. From what I could see, it looked like a young woman hunched over the center console. A long mane of blonde hair was easily visible as it stuck out from her hood. I tapped my fingers against the glass to get her attention but she didn’t move.

“Hey! Can you hear me?” My fingers tapped harder on the window.

She still didn’t move an inch. Fearing the worst, I stood back up and began to dig faster. This woman was clearly in need of help and I couldn’t get to her fast enough. Minutes ticked by as I worked my shovel as fast as I could. I wasn’t sure if it was just the adrenaline or recent memories but I worked at a furious pace. I knew I couldn’t let someone else die on my watch.

Finally, I had enough space that the door was clear. Saying a silent prayer, my hand crept under the handle. It was unlocked.

As soon as I opened the door and stuck my head inside, I was greeted by air that was the same temperature as outside. She must’ve been here all night. I sat halfway on the passenger seat and my trembling fingers reached out toward the woman. I lifted her head gently and was dismayed at how lifeless it felt. I pushed her into an upright position so I could see her face and was greeted by very pale skin and almost bluish lips. My first thoughts were hypothermia. Leaning in close, I was amazed to find that she was still breathing. She was alive but just barely. I had to get her inside the cabin.

Not wanting to dig out the driver’s side just to get potentially easier access to her, I resolved to find every bit of inner strength and pull her out of the passenger door. It was as hard as it sounded, not helped by the fact that her boots kept getting caught between the steering wheel and the seat as I pulled her out. Thankfully there wasn’t much to her, and I guessed her weight to be only a little over a hundred pounds. That made it somewhat easier to get her removed.

Finally, I had her free of the car. I counted to three internally before hoisting her on my shoulder and making sure my balance was set. The last thing I wanted was to topple and drop her face-first into the snowbank. Now it was just a matter of getting her back to the cabin. With enough strength, I was able to grab what looked like a small bag of clothes from her passenger seat and sling it around my free shoulder.

I found myself caught between the desire to go slow and secure my footing versus getting back to the cabin as quickly as I could. I chose a somewhat middle ground, trying to retrace my steps since I knew the footing was good. The biggest obstacle was the careful descent down the ramp on the front porch to the door. I tossed my gloved hand against the wall to steady myself and made it down without slipping. Taking a huge sigh of relief as soon as I was inside, I set the woman down on the couch as the sweet warmth of the morning fire greeted me.

My muscles ached. Despite her relatively light weight, the exertion from freeing her had taken a lot out of me. I took a moment to catch my breath before resuming my attention back to her. In that moment it occurred to me I had no idea who this woman was in my cabin. I didn’t have a name or anything. I knew I could’ve rifled through her belongings looking for ID, but I decided that was going to wait until I was sure she was going to pull through.

Rummaging through the hall closest, I pulled out several thick, fleece blankets and brought them back to the main room to wrap her in warmth. When I got to her feet, I slipped her heavy boots off and set them by the coffee table. Underneath she wore hot pink socks which at the time I found adorable. I covered her colorful socks with another blanket as I wrapped her up tight. Being so close to her, it was the first time that I noticed the smell of her perfume—a sweet aroma that I found very pleasing.

Her clothing, despite being cold, wasn’t wet, so I figured it would warm up with enough time. Once I had her securely wrapped, I scooted the couch closer to the fire to take full advantage of the warmth. At this point, there wasn’t much else I could do. We were too remote for cell coverage and the several feet of snow ensured no one was coming or going anytime soon. The only hope she had in the world was me. It wasn’t something that I took lightly.

When I was finally convinced I couldn’t do anything else but wait, I collapsed onto the other couch. I wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline finally subsiding or perhaps the extra exertion, but I found my eyelids getting heavy, and before I knew it, I had dozed off once more.

I woke up several hours later in what was by now late morning. The very first thing I did upon awakening was look over at the woman from earlier. She was still motionless right where I left her, but I was pleased to see she didn’t look nearly as pale as she did earlier in the car. Her lips seemed to have lost that bluish color as well. Perhaps there was still hope for her yet.

I walked over to the kitchen and started the coffee maker. While I just wanted a cup for myself, I thought there was a chance the smell of a fresh brew might serve to awaken her. I sat down with a full cup and turned the television on, but turned the volume down low. The last thing I wanted to do was startle her. I could only grab three local stations so I turned on the news and waited for the weather report. It wasn’t a great report.

There wasn’t much snow forecasted but the temperature was going to continue to drop. Right now, the thermometer on the front door only registered sixteen degrees Fahrenheit. By tomorrow evening it would only be in the low single digits. This snow wasn’t going anywhere soon.

So much for my week in solitude, I thought to myself.

I grimaced at the thought and turned my eyes toward her. It wasn’t her fault that she was here and got in the way of my quiet trip. Sure, it was an awkward situation being snowed in with a stranger, but if her coloring was any indication, she looked to be getting better. After a while, I just shrugged and resolved to make the best of it.

I kept busy in a few different ways throughout the day. I had brought several books with me to do some reading to pass the time, and I jumped wholeheartedly into a new thriller with great ratings. Also, despite wanting to get away from real life, I did bring my work laptop with me to the cabin. I didn’t have an internet connection, but I did have access to my spreadsheets and I was able to get caught up on some projects that I had been lagging in.

Lastly, I just enjoyed looking into the open flames in the fireplace. There was something calming about a warm fire and watching the flames dance against the wood seemed to soothe my nerves.

It was early evening by the time that I finally shut my laptop from my work space at the kitchen table. As I neared the fire to put on another piece of wood, I noticed that the woman was no longer completely covered in blankets. She had moved!

I sat down on the opposite couch just to observe her for a quick moment. All of the paleness to her skin had since left, and she looked quite colorful now. It was at this moment that I noticed how beautiful she was. Quite honestly, she was stunning to me.

Her tumble of golden-blonde hair cascaded down just past her shoulders and delicately framed her face. She had adorably fair features but it was the coloring in her cheeks that I liked the most. She had a cute, little button nose and a small mouth. Her lips, now a full pink in color, looked quite soft and inviting. I just couldn’t see her eyes but I wanted to see more.

I mentally chastised myself for ogling a woman who just until recently had been in so much distress. The last thing she needed was someone drooling over her looks, and I couldn’t even help myself. I averted my eyes and tried to stare outside into the snow for several minutes, but I caught my eyes returning to her often. There was just something about her that I found so beautiful.

I wondered most of all who she was—what her name was and what she did in life. Whether her family was missing her or even knew that she was in trouble. Were they searching for her or were the police now involved? Or perhaps was her boyfriend deeply worried for her? Or a husband?

My eyes drifted down to her ring finger and once I saw that it was empty, I felt my lips split into a smile. I had no idea why since I didn’t have any idea who she was, but the fact that she wasn’t married made me just the tiniest bit happier for some reason. The human mind works in mysterious ways.

My eyes swept up to her face and my brow scrunched when I noticed something shiny that seemed to be wrapped around her neck. Upon closer look, it appeared to be a necklace. I could see part of the chain around her turtleneck but something was definitely odd about it. It had been tucked inside the turtleneck completely, not visible from the outside.

My guess was that during the shuffle to get her inside, it had dislodged and pulled out from her clothing. My fingers drifted along the length of the chain until it came across the pendant. I gently tugged until it fell out completely so I could get a better look. It appeared to be a sideways figure eight pendant, or as I guessed, an infinity symbol. Made of eye-catching gold, it was a beautiful pendant and I realized right then that it suited its owner perfectly.

I wasn’t sure why it had been hidden away from view, but I carefully laid it against her neck from the outside. Something like that deserved to be viewed in my simple opinion. After setting the pendant, my eyes naturally gazed down from her neck toward her impressive bust line. Even laying down, her breasts stood up proudly and hinted at voluptuous handfuls underneath. There was something about this woman that was quite striking, and I found myself thankful to be sharing this time with her.

I shuffled back from her after that, not realizing how close I had been to a complete stranger, and touching her no less. I felt a little awkward in that moment for giving into my more base instincts and decided to put some distance between us. I decided to heat up a small meal for dinner and then take it to my room to eat.

As I sat there eating a simple dinner of scrambled eggs and toast, my mind drifted back to the woman on the couch. I hoped she would wake up soon. Part of me wondered if she did, what on earth were we going to do until the snow melted? Surely she would want to leave immediately and get back to her family or possibly a loved one as soon as possible. At very least she’d want to find a way to get word to them that she was alright. I pictured having to shovel out her car just so she could make the thirty or so feet back to the road and my back already started to ache just in anticipation.

After I finished my late dinner, I took the opportunity to read a few more chapters of my book with the new thriller finally pulling me in about midway through the story. Even the story couldn’t keep me awake forever and after several yawns, I put it down and prepared for bed. Before I turned out the light, I checked on the woman one more time. Her subtle movements had managed to leave most of her main blanket on the floor. I tucked her in once more, threw another log on the fire, and promptly went to bed.

The next morning turned out to be quite eventful. It started off slowly enough when I woke up to a crick in my neck from sleeping on my pillow awkwardly. I shuffled out to the kitchen to begin my pot of coffee, my slippers making an audible shush-shush sound along the wooden floors. After the coffee was ready, I made my customary check-in on my new friend and she was still out, or so it appeared.

In hindsight, I’m sure anyone would’ve been freaked out if they found some stranger hovering over them and examining them like a sick patient. Yet, as I looked over her for signs that she might wake soon, she did the very thing I didn’t expect. Emerald-green eyes fluttered open and blinked at me twice.

Then she screamed.

An ear-piercing scream that echoed through the wooden walls of the cabin. In a flash, she was up, bounding off the couch while clutching one of the blankets in an effort to put distance between me and her. She wasn’t the only one startled. Her reaction made me topple my coffee, and I spilled a good portion on my hand while the rest landed on the floor. The burn from the coffee was but a secondary concern to the screaming woman in my living room.

I set the coffee mug on the table and then put both hands up in front of me. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe now.”

She backed herself into a corner and grabbed the nearest thing to her, which happened to be a broomstick. Clutching it in white-knuckle hands, it would’ve been a comical sight if not for the gravity of the situation.

“I’m not here to hurt you. I promise,” I said again.

Finally she spoke. “Who are you! Where am I?”

“I’m Jim. I found you outside in the—”