「Boo!」
"Ack!" Nevermind.
「Si Hon!!! I thought you would die again!」 the floating window announced cheerfully above his head.
"Yeah, unfortunately I'm alive. Now shoo, I'm gonna take a look at this." The window didn't reappear this time. "Good."
He looked the bag over and noticed it sat heavier in his hands than a normal pack had any right to, brow lifting slightly at the weight.
He unzipped it, the sound loud in the cave from the echo alone, and found blankets folded rough but clean enough, two lighters— one cracked, one intact —cotton, bandages, a half-used roll of tape, a soot-bottomed metal cup, dried food wrapped carefully in oilcloth, shriveled but preserved, and more he couldn't quite make out in the dim light.
"Wow," Si Hon muttered.
Behind him the girl peeked over his shoulder, eyes wide. "They had a lot," she said.
"They were smart," he replied quietly.
He reached deeper, and his fingers didn't hit the bottom.
They kept going.
He paused, then slowly, deliberately, pushed his whole arm further inside— the opening didn't stretch, the bag itself didn't deform, but the space inside it clearly did, his arm vanishing up to the elbow like the bag had simply decided depth was optional.
"Hah," he exhaled, a tired smile tugging at his mouth.
He pulled his arm back out and looked inside again, and the interior was wrong in a way that was hard to name— not dark, just deep, like staring into a well that refused to reflect light properly, the edges of the opening staying normal while everything beyond them held way too much room.
Si Hon leaned back on his heels. "Of course," he said. "A spatial bag."
The girl blinked. "Is that good?"
He glanced back at her, nodded once. "Yeah. That's… very good. Super duper good."
He looked down at the bag again, something like relief settling into his shoulders for the first time since he'd woken up in this cave.
"Lucky," he added softly, and the cave itself seemed to agree.
He stood, swung the bag onto his back, and the weight redistributed instantly, settling in a way that didn't strain his spine at all.
"Well," he muttered, adjusting the strap. "Whoever you were… thanks." He didn't bow, didn't pray, just gave the skeleton a quiet nod of acknowledgment before turning back to the girl.
"Alright," he said, voice steady again.
"New rules." She straightened instantly. "Rule one, you stay close."
"I always does," she replied, and nodded anyway like the rule needed confirming twice.
"Rule two, if I fall again…" he hesitated, sighed, "you must not drag me alone. We'll look for help. Or miracles. In that order."
She frowned. "Help? To what… and what's a miracle?"
He smiled faintly. "I'll let you know when we find one." He reached into the bag and pulled out a blanket, draping it around her shoulders before she could protest.
She froze. "For me?"
"Don't get used to it," he said. "I'm still freezing."
She clutched it anyway, tight, like it might be taken back.
Outside, the gray light grew a little stronger, morning coming slow and reluctant and thin.
Then Si Hon scoffed suddenly, the sound barely carrying.
His gaze drifted toward the darker end of the cave, where shadows pressed together thicker than they should have.
"The rat bitch," he muttered under his breath, the memory surfacing uninvited— its ugly bulk, the way it had burst from the snow like the mountain itself had spat it out, hunted down out of desperation, anger and plain hunger.
Food couldn't be wasted here.
Not in this weird world called Snowfall Mountain.
He turned without another word, and the girl noticed immediately. "Where are you going, Dad?"
"Back," he said. "Don't move."
She nodded, clutching the blanket tighter as he slipped away into the dark.
His steps stayed careful, barely disturbing the stone as he retraced his path deeper into the cave, hand brushing the hilt of the katana on his back purely because it felt right, cool, appropriately dramatic for a man walking toward a corpse.
His senses stayed sharp, but the rat lay exactly where he saw it, stiff and grotesque, half-frozen, tunneling claws still caked with old snow and blood.
"Thank god that little girl dragged you here," he muttered.
He crouched, grabbed it by the neck, opened the backpack, and the mouth of the spatial bag accepted the creature without resistance— no smell, no blood spill, no struggle.
He zipped it shut and exhaled. "Good."
He returned to the cave entrance, where the gray light had strengthened just a fraction more, enough to confirm time was still moving, that the world hadn't frozen out of pure spite.
The girl looked up the second she saw him. "Did you forget something, Dad?"
He extended his hand instead of answering, and she stared at him for half a second before taking it immediately, her fingers cold, smaller than they should've been, light in his grip.
"Let's go," he said, gaze lifting toward the distant horizon. "Back to the tower."
They stepped out together, snow crunching under their feet as they began the long descent along the mountain, the tower still far off, impossibly far, but no longer hidden from view.
As they walked, Si Hon bent occasionally to scoop up fallen branches hardened by frost, flat stones, anything with weight, anything with purpose— everything remotely useful got claimed without hesitation, and somehow every single time he spotted something worth grabbing off the ground, a small, satisfied smile crept onto his face like Christmas had come early.
Even though he hates Christmas.
The girl watched him quietly, learning without needing to ask.
Then a sound reached him— a faint rush cutting under the wind.
He stopped. "Wait." They approached the edge of a shallow slope, and there it was.
A river.
"THE RIVER!" It cut through the snow like a vein, surface glazed with ice but still moving underneath, slow and persistent and unmistakably alive.
Si Hon stared at it for longer than strictly necessary.
"Wow," he murmured. "I genuinely miss this river."
She tilted her head. "Isn't this where we meet the weird looking fur monster, and got attacked by them too?"
"Something like that." He slipped the backpack off his shoulders, opened it again, eyes scanning the dark, impossible depth inside.
"Come on," he muttered. "There has to be—"
His fingers brushed glass, then plastic.
He froze.
Pulled out one bottle. Then another. Then a third.
"Aigooo." He stared at them for a second, shaking his head in disbelief. "Of course."
He knelt at the river's edge, cracked the ice with a nearby stone, and carefully dipped each bottle beneath the surface, water painfully cold and numbing his fingers instantly, but clear.
Clean.
He sealed them and packed them away. "YEY, we're so lucky right now."
Then— Crack.
The sound came sharp, too deliberate to be anything natural, not ice, not wind, a branch snapping under actual weight.
Si Hon froze.
Someone, or something, had stepped on it.
He stood and straightened slow, breath going shallow, hand already finding the hilt at his back, and raised the katana toward the bushes, blade steady, eyes locked on the rustling shadow.