|Nieves|
It was a memory blurred by time, yet no less vivid.
Faint as it may seem now, I could still recall every detail with perfect clarity—the hush of the snow beneath my boots, the way the moonlight shimmered across the frozen lake like glass. I had been on my way back to the village, taking the familiar path home, pausing as I always did to admire the stillness of the lake under the night sky. Even in its frozen state, it held a kind of haunting beauty that never failed to quiet my mind.
But that night, something was different.
I noticed it just beyond the edge of the path—a streak of red against the pristine snow. Bright, jarring, and unmistakable. At first, I assumed it was from a wounded animal. A deer, maybe. Injuries weren’t uncommon during winter, and predators lurked even
