PART I — The Last Word
Winter had smothered the village in silence. A bone-deep kind of quiet, the kind that wraps itself around the soul and squeezes. The lake—frozen, lifeless—stretched like a glassy wound across the landscape.
A woman stood near its edge.
Tall. Pale. Wrapped in a coat as black as midnight. Wind tugged at her sleeves like cold fingers urging her back. But she didn’t move.
In her arms was a boy. No more than six. His lips were trembling. Not from the cold—he was used to that—but from something else.
From knowing.
“You were never mine,” the woman hissed through clenched teeth. “Not flesh, not blood. Just a burden that never knew its place.”
The boy didn’t argue. He simply clutched a small wooden rabbit, worn smooth by love and time—a gift from the mother he barely remembered. The only thing he had left of her.
The woman stepped closer to the jagged hole in the ice.
“Say thank you,” she said with cruel finality.
The boy looked up. No tears. No screams. Just a quiet, unnerving certainty in his voice.
“You’ll never be a mother,” he whispered.
And then, she let go.
He disappeared beneath the ice without a splash. Not a sound. Just a ripple, soft and eerie, as if the lake had swallowed a secret.
The woman turned and walked away. She didn’t hear the crack of shifting ice behind her.
She didn’t hear the voice that drifted across the frozen wind.
“You… will never… be… mother…”
PART II — Something Beneath
Three days passed. No body. No search party dared step too close. The lake, slick and sealed, held its breath.
But the house? The house didn’t stay quiet.
At night, footsteps wandered the halls.
The bedroom door creaked open on its own.
And then, one morning—the rabbit. Damp. Waiting on her pillow.
She screamed. Burned it. Buried it. Broke it.
But every dawn, it returned. Wetter than before.
Then came the whispers.
Then, the cold.
Her hands grew pale. Her veins blackened beneath the skin. She wore every regret like frostbite, spreading inch by inch.
He came next.
At first, a shadow just beyond the corner of her eye. Then, breath on her neck. And finally—standing in the doorway.
Older. Colder. Not a boy anymore, but a presence. The rabbit in his hand. The void in his eyes.
“I warned you,” he whispered.
“Mother said if evil touched me, I would return.”
The woman begged, her voice cracking like brittle leaves.
But the ice didn’t care.
The lake opened its mouth again, and this time, it wanted more.
She was never seen again—except, perhaps, by the mist.
By morning, only a glove remained.
And the rabbit.
PART III — The Forgotten Guest
The house stood abandoned, left to the creeping vines and whispering winds.
Until, one day, a mother and her little girl came.
“I just want quiet,” she said. “A place where Ana can grow up safe.”
At first, it was peaceful.
Ana laughed. Drew pictures. Talked to invisible friends—as children often do.
Until she asked, “Mom, when will the boy come back to play?”
“What boy, sweetheart?”
“The one from the lake. He says he remembers drowning.”
That night, the drawings changed.
A boy. Always next to Ana. Always holding the rabbit.
The mother began to worry.
Then to fear.
Then, one night, Ana spoke in a voice too deep for her small body. A voice older than time.
“He’s not cruel. He’s just cold. She made him that way.”
“Who, Ana? Who’s he talking about?”
Ana looked out the window, her eyes wide and distant.
“She’s coming back. But the ice will remember.”
PART IV — The Reckoning
The basement door opened.
No one had touched it in years.
Out of the dark stepped something that resembled the stepmother—but not quite.
Her eyes wild. Her limbs wrong. Frost clung to her breath.
“You promised,” she wheezed. “You said it would end.”
The boy stood between her and Ana. Silent.
“The lake remembers everything,” he said. “Even what should’ve stayed buried.”
Then, to Ana and her mother: “Run.”
They did. As the walls split, and wind colder than death howled through the house, the last thing they saw was the boy—standing in the collapsing doorway, holding the rabbit one final time.
By morning, nothing was left but ruins.
And mist.
PART V — The Lake Still Waits
Years passed.
People whispered. Some dared to visit the lake, but none stayed long.
They say when spring arrives, laughter echoes across the reeds.
A child’s laugh.
They say a boy named Timur disappeared after walking too close on a dare.
Only the rabbit came back.
And Ana—now older, living far away—wakes each winter to a wet handprint on her window.
The voice returns each time.
Soft. Sad. Cold.
“Will you… be… my mother?”