"We do not rember days, we rember monts."
— Cesare Pavese
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[First Person POV]
I was eleven years old.
It was winter, and my village was buried under a deep blanket of snow.
We were farrs, but that year the rain had been too much, drowning the fields before they could yield. Our crop failed. What little we pulled from the fields had rotted before it ever reached the table, and the small amount of food we had stored would never last the cold season.
The roads to town were frozen shut. All we had were the potatoes in our cellar, and even that wasn't enough for a family of seven—my mother, father, my four sisters, and , the only son. My sisters were all younger, the youngest barely two months old, crying in the night for milk my mother could no longer give. My parents worked themselves to the bone, fighting for us to survive
We told ourselves
Just survive this winter, and it will all be alright.
My father had been tracking a wolf. For days, he'd seen its prints circling our land. A hungry wolf was dangerous—it could kill our livestock, or worse. Today he finally found it.
I carried my rifle—a battered old Mosin–Nagant, the stock almost too long for my shoulder. My father had one too, slung over his shoulder.
We found it. The wolf.
"Take the shot, Eli! Take it!" my father's voice roared through the cold.
"Take the shot, NOW!"
But the wolf wasn't alone. The tracks had lied. It had a pack. Around us, four other wolves lay dead, their bodies steaming in the cold, all killed by my father's hand. But the last one was on him, knocking him flat on his back, its jaws snapping, its claws tearing. He held it off with his empty rifle, using it as a shield.
My breath froze in the air. My hands trembled.
I raised the rifle.My legs shook. I tried to aim, but the sight wavered. Fear clawed my chest.
If I miss, Father dies. If I miss, I die. If I miss…
"No, no, no…" I whispered, teeth chattering, eyes burning with tears.
"Shoot!" he barked again, but I froze. My finger refused to pull.
I hesitated. Too long.
The wolf snarled, pushing harder—but then, steel flashed. My father drew a knife from his side pocket and stabbed the wolf's throat again and again, five, six, seven tis until its hot blood sprayed across his face and the animal went limp, collapsing on top of him.
He shoved it aside, panting, soaked in red, and staggered to his feet. His eyes burned with the sa fire I always saw on winter's harshest nights. Without a word, he took the rifle from my frozen hands, aid, and shot down the last crawling wolf before it could rise. The crack of the shot echoed across the white silence.
Then he placed the weapon back into my arms.
I stared at the snow. Tears blurred my eyes. I hugged my rifle to my chest like it was the only thing keeping alive.
"I'm sorry, Father…" I whispered.
A heavy, bloodstained hand rested gently on my head. His voice, tired but warm
"It's alright, Eli-boy. You did great. You stood your ground, and that's enough."
He turned, his steps crunching in the snow… then collapsed face-first.
The bite marks on his side were deep. Too deep. The bite I hadn't noticed before.
"No! Father!"
I slung him over my back and carried him six miles through the snow. My body scread, his weight crushing, my lungs burning, but I didn't stop. My sisters needed him. Mother needed him.
You'll survive, Father. You have to. Please. please…
We tried everything when we reached ho. My mother's prayers, herbs, old redies. My sisters huddled in silence, too afraid to cry.
But after twenty-one days of watching him wither, Father left us. Gone.
He left my mother, my four sisters and — the only son who couldn't pull a trigger when it mattered the most.
That winter, I swore sothing.
If I was ever faced with death again, if soone I loved was about to be taken, I would not hesitate. Not ever.
I would not fail again.
The world around shifted and the snow dissolved.
I blinked—and suddenly, I found myself standing in a garden. A garden stretched before , endless, alive. Grass brushed against my fingertips as the air filled with the perfu of flowers. For a mont, I forgot the hunger, the winter, the wolves, the blood, the corpse of my father.
"What… what is this place?" I whispered.
A voice made turn.
A woman stood there, her hair black as midnight, her eyes an endless green. She smiled, her arms opening as though she had been waiting centuries just for .
"My baby boy," she whispered, pulling into her embrace. "Look how much you've grown."
Her warmth seeped into , lting everything I carried.
I didn't even notice when the tears began to fall. They just ca, sliding hot down my cheeks as I clung to her.
But then her voice shifted, softer, almost fading.
"You have to wake up. It's not your ti here. Not yet."
The garden dissolved. The warmth slipped through my fingers no matter how tightly I tried to hold it..
I was dragged into darkness.
And then—
"Hey. You're finally awake," soone said.
My eyes opened. The river, the hut, the world of shinobi.
I gasped. It was a dream… my old world. The rifle, the snow, my father's blood, they were gone.
My na here is Otis
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