The Snow Outside Never Stopped

Elias Rowe hated winter, not because of the cold, but because winter remembered things he tried to forget.

His cabin sat deep in the northern woods, isolated by design. No neighbors. No roads once the snow piled high enough. Just trees, silence, and the slow ticking of time inside his head.

He had come here to escape the city.

To escape noise.

To escape himself.

The snow began falling three days earlier and never stopped.

By the fourth night, the world outside his window had vanished into white nothingness. The trees stood frozen, bent under the weight of ice. The wind whispered endlessly, like breath against a throat.

Elias sat by the fireplace, staring at the door.

He didn’t know why.

He just felt watched.

At exactly 2:17 a.m., he heard it.

Crunch.

A slow, deliberate sound.

Footsteps.

Outside.

His heart slammed violently against his ribs. He stood, breath shallow, and moved toward the window. The snow near the porch was smooth, untouched.

No tracks.

No sign of anyone.

Still, the sound came again.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Closer.

His skin prickled. He whispered, “Hello?”

The footsteps stopped.

Then came the knock.

Soft.

Polite.

Three taps.

Elias froze.

No one could reach the cabin in this storm. The road was buried. The forest paths were gone. He knew that.

He had made sure of it.

The knock came again.

“Elias,” a voice called from the other side of the door.

His blood turned to ice.

The voice sounded like his own.

“You know me,” it said gently. “Let me in. It’s freezing.”

Elias staggered back.

“No,” he whispered. “You’re not real.”

Silence followed.

Then the footsteps returned — not walking away, but circling the cabin. Slow. Patient. Endless.

He didn’t sleep that night.

Or the next.

Each night at 2:17 a.m., the same ritual began.

Footsteps.

Knock.

Voice.

Always calm.

Always familiar.

“You left me out here,” the voice said on the third night.

“You promised you wouldn’t.”

Elias pressed his hands over his ears, but the sound came from inside his skull.

Memories surfaced — unwanted, sharp.

A winter road.

Headlights slicing through falling snow.

A scream that never finished.

He collapsed to the floor.

“No,” he sobbed. “I didn’t mean to—”

The voice interrupted softly.

“You drove away.”

The fire in the fireplace flickered wildly, shadows stretching across the walls, twisting into shapes that looked like reaching hands.

“You watched me disappear in the mirror.”

Elias screamed.

By the fifth night, the knocking stopped.

Instead, the door began to open.

Not physically.

Mentally.

He dreamed of snow filling his lungs. Of hands grabbing his ankles, dragging him backward into the white. Of standing outside his own cabin, begging himself to open the door.

When he woke, frost coated the inside of the windows.

That was impossible.

The temperature inside the cabin had dropped.

At 2:17 a.m., the voice no longer knocked.

It spoke from behind him.

“You’re ready now.”

Elias turned slowly.

He saw himself standing there — soaked in snow, skin pale, eyes hollow. A thin red line ran across the reflection’s forehead.

The wound Elias never reported.

“I stayed,” the reflection whispered.

“You ran.”

The cabin lights flickered.

The snow outside pressed harder against the walls, as if listening.

“What do you want?” Elias cried.

The reflection smiled.

“Balance.”

The next morning, the storm ended.

Rescue teams arrived days later after noticing the cabin’s smoke had stopped.

They found the door open.

No footprints leading away.

Only one set of tracks in the snow — circling the cabin endlessly.

Inside, the fireplace was cold.

And Elias Rowe sat frozen in a chair by the window, eyes wide open, staring outward.

His face peaceful.

Almost relieved.

Outside, the snow had finally stopped falling.

But the footsteps remained.