A man wakes in the dark, huddled and shivering in a cobbled, ruinous cot. The fire in the stove has burned down to flickering embers, leaving the air in his hovel frigid and dry. Pale blue light streams into the dwelling through an ice-caked window. The man sighs as he sits up. The wet, hot air from his lungs billows out in front of his face in a vast white cloud. He does not wish to get up, but he must. He places his feet on the cold stone floor and winces. The man goes to the stove and kneels down, opening the blackened metal door and checking the remains of the fire. He considers the piles of ash and errant embers, wondering silently if it’s worth feeding them anew. He thinks better of it. The man picks up an old broken trowel and picks through the ash. He shifts smoldering embers into a pile at one end of the stove before piling ash atop them. He doesn’t have time for another fire.

  The man finishes with the stove and starts to get dressed. The clothes he wore were mismatched and ugly. He kept what fit well enough and offered him warmth, caring little for fashion. He donned a long coat and cinched it with a loose leather belt. The man went to his tools where he had left them to dry and began gathering them into his hand cart. He carried only what he knew he would need to finish his work. A hatchet, a spade, a shovel, and a lantern. He lifted the lantern, opened the door, and reached inside with his open hand. The man ran a finger over the wick and whispered.

  “I know what you need. I can feel your heat,” He cajoled. The wick grew hot against his finger, and in the next moment, the flame was alight. He closed the hatch and went outside, pulling the cart with one hand and holding the lantern in the other. The man looked up into the starless sky at the pale blue moon. The light that beamed from above seemed to condense and focus on a small mountain in the distance. A massive set of ivory double doors stood atop that mountain and bathed in the blue light. The doors were attached to nothing and stood closed and radiant on the snow-covered mount overlooking a deserted town. A stone road came from those strange doors, snaking down the mountain and through the town.

  The man turned his eyes back to the town and set about his work. He walked down an empty street, his feet crunching lightly in soft snow. There was a muffled silence all around him. The only sound came from his shifting cart, his tools therein, and his own steady breathing. The noise died quickly in the blanket of snow around him. He traveled for a time before reaching his destination, a quaint home at the end of a row. Oddly, the street stretched further, but no more houses remained in the row. The other dwellings looked to have been burned down to the foundations.

  The man pulled his cart to the side and brought his lantern as he entered the home. The door was unfastened and slightly ajar. He pressed his free hand into the door and swung it inward before walking inside. He scanned around the dark with his lantern. He found a set of cabinets and searched them, producing a few candles. He took a few minutes to get them lit and placed around to spread more light. The man finished with the candles and walked to the far corner of the home, where he had seen the edge of a bed frame.

  The bed was tucked away behind a slatted screen for the privacy of its occupant. The man held up his lantern and drew back the blankets. A body lay there, frozen and desiccated. From the slight frame and the remains of a dress the body still bore, he surmised that this had been a little girl in life. He set the lantern aside and wrapped the body in the blankets from the bed. He picked up the bundle carefully when he had finished wrapping her up. He carried her like a bride, bringing the body out into the cold open air and placing it beside his cart. The man returned to the home and began to pick over the things inside. He found a sack of dry beans and a glass jar with a dark, viscous liquid inside. He sampled it, finding it sweet and not unpleasant. He brought what little sundries he found back to the cart and made a few more passes over the home to look for more.

  His vigilance was unrewarded. The home had nothing else he cared to take, at least nothing he aimed to carry back in his cart. He pulled all his things and the body away from the home to what he felt was a safe distance. He finally walked back into the house, standing just inside the door. He looked at each of the flickering candles before he spoke.

  “You are hungry. Feed,” He said. The flames of the candles grew impossibly large and began to jump to whatever they could reach around them. The man walked away from the house and sat down beside the body. In mere moments, the entire building had caught aflame. The pyre became a great beast, roaring, cracking, spitting, and hissing. The man smiled and leaned into the warmth of the burning house. It reminded him of feeling unburdened. It reminded him of his chains. The feeling was like all things; a canvas painted with bliss and suffering in equal measure.

  The man watched as the house burned. He cared little for the cold or the time it took. All he had was time to see his work done. The house groaned like a dying animal as it collapsed under its weight. Wooden beams splintered and snapped as the roof caved in. Embers flew into the air like a hive of bugs set alight. The flames lashed skyward in jubilant praise. The once triumphant flames waned as time passed, and the home was reduced to blackened and smoldering ash. What had been bright and beautiful fell to decay.

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  The man stood and took up his spade and shovel in hand. He walked around the husk of the home to a piece of flat land nestled beside it. He used the spade to test the ground, drawing closer to the burned home until it was soft enough to his liking. He started a small hole, going as deep as the thawed ground would allow. When he hit frozen earth, he stopped. The man took his shovel and gathered the smoldering wood and coals from the house. He filled the hole with coals and covered the surrounding ground. The man knelt down and held out a hand to the coals. They glowed wild and hot in response. The process continued until the man had a hole fitting his needs.

  The man carried the body of the little girl, still swaddled in her blankets. He brought her to the hole and made it her grave. He was careful when he placed her, tender even. She had suffered enough already in his mind. His body screamed at him to stop and take a rest. He picked up the shovel and buried her instead. When the grave was covered, the man got down on his knees beside it. He placed one hand on his chest above his heart and the other on the ground.

  “Rest well. I will carry your burdens instead,” The man whispered solemnly. He stayed there in silent reverence for a moment more before rising to his feet. He set about gathering his things and placing them in the cart. He looked up the deserted street to the next home in the line. After some food and rest, it was work to start. He continued back up the path, carrying his lantern and pulling his cart.

  The man reached his hovel, opening the door absently. He trudged inside and began to put down his things before a woman’s voice startled him.

  “You’ve been quite busy,” Said the woman. She was sitting on the man’s poor excuse for a bed. She looked out of place in his squalid home. She wore a pristine gray dress and a hooded shawl that obscured her features in shadow.

  “I told you to stop showing up here unannounced,” The man said, too tired to sound like he meant it.

  “I’m sorry. It didn’t feel right to disturb your work.” She said.

  “Look. I’m tired and hungry. I don’t have the heart for this right now. I need to rest and get back to work,” he explained, putting away his tools. He removed his coat and walked to the stove to start a new fire.

  “I need your help,” the woman said, desperate and pleading.

  “No. No. I have told you no,” he said. “I won’t have this argument again.”

  “I don’t know how much more he can take,” she said, clasping her hands together. “If we don’t do something soon…”

  “It’s over. It has been over for longer than I care to remember. Look around. I have nothing left. Nothing left to take. Nothing left to give. What else could you possibly want from me?!” The man shouted. His booming voice shook the walls around them.

  “I know it isn’t fair of me to ask you for this,” she said.

  “Then don’t ask. Please. I can’t. I can’t! I can’t!” He screamed, fist crashing into the iron stove. “Why do you even want me?! I’m not strong enough!”

  “You are! You always have been! You just have to be there!” she implored.

  “Be there? BE THERE?!” He roared in disbelief as he turned to her. “I was there! I was there for you!”

  “Not me. For him. For you!” She countered.

  The rage blinded him. It welled in his soul, caustic and hot. Before realizing it, he had ripped the stove from the floor, tearing down the metal flue and heaving the object into the nearby wall. It exploded in ash, broken pieces, and glowing embers. He was screaming, and he couldn’t stop. He had to get the noise out. If he left it inside, it would kill him. He fell to the floor, broken and spent. More than anything, he wanted to be stricken of all sense at that moment. Anything but this feeling.

  The woman knelt beside him and lifted him into her lap, cradling his head and shoulders.

  “Isbrand, please,” she said. “I know you can help him.”

  “But what if I can’t?” He asked. “I can’t lose everything all over again, Vila.”

  “You won’t.” She assured him.

  “You can’t know that,” he resisted.

  “I do. I do because it’s you. You’ll never lose again,” she said, leaning down and kissing his forehead. “You have to go to the door now. It will open soon, and you will only have one chance to get through.”

  “Just a little longer. Stay with me,” he said.

  “You know I can’t. Now get up. Elias needs you.” She said, laying him down on the floor and standing up. She walked to the hovel’s door and opened it, stepping out into the pale blue night.

  The man lay on the ground, still feeling the warmth of her lips against his head. He felt heat and wetness begin to well around his eyes. He scoffed and sat up, running his arm across his face. He didn’t have time for this. He reached out and took up the handle of his shovel, using it to get to his feet. The man looked at the open door and started as fast as possible. He ran through the empty street, away from his home. His eyes were fixed on the door on the mountain in the distance. His lungs burned, and his legs ached, but he ran. The man slipped and stumbled along the way. Each time he fell, he rose back to his feet.

  He passed by rows of burned houses. All the little graves he had made flew past his blurred vision. He felt the steep and sudden incline as he approached the mountain’s bottom. He was tired and broken. He still had farther to go. The door loomed above, barely peaking over the rise of the mountain. He couldn’t stop.

  As he climbed toward the summit, snow began to fall. The crystal white flakes caught the moon’s blue light, shimmering like sapphires in the sky. The man came to the end of the path. He stood before the door on the summit. He looked back to the town. In the distance, he could see a fire where his hovel used to stand.

  The doors sounded like a key being turned in a lock and began to shift open. Orange and warm light poured out from between them.

  The man shielded his eyes with one hand and walked into the light.