'The Comfort of Cold' by Jane Roberts

Imprinted in the snow, memories of ski-hopping birds of prey lead up to ruby crystalline evidence of a recent kill. Here, things live or die with a rapidity lacking in the human world, snow temporarily recording all interactions.

Standing still, snowflakes flurry onto me.

I could brush them away. I could.

There’s a hospital bed – waiting to be remade for some other Hopeless. The whiteboard on the bed frame wiped – the ghost of a name remaining. My name.

But the snow is better. Far cleaner – to don a shroud of void and then to melt into a new dimension.