Ashfall Winter

Short Story

12/1/25

Ella Adams-Anderson

Ashfall Winter

Like ash from a volcano, the end of a life, the snow rains from the skies above and hits the ground of the dying forest. Thin and ghostly each branch bore its own milk white sheet of snow like a funeral veil. The branches swayed with the slightest breath of wind as though the forest was nodding in solemn remembrance. The forest is a vision of a procession of silent mourners. Death gazes upon the suffocating sight. The snow muffled the beat of all hearts, be it dim or bright. He watches each flake fall in fragile circles, whispering the names of the living whose time grow thin. He takes pleasure in the solidarity of winter's silence, as it makes his job easier. When you can hear your own thoughts and not just the draining and pumping of the blood in people's veins, you become more efficient. But tonight…the silence feels wrong. As if there’s a disturbance, A rift in what was beautifully deafening silence. One soul refuses to join the whispering chorus. Death walks toward a lone house encapsulated in snow. where a person lies motionless between lifeless breaths. He extends his hand, but the soul resists like a flame flickering but refusing to die in the wind. No one knows for sure but Death may be as old as Time. An existence so prolonged that centuries folded into each other like pages in a forgotten book. Winters usually passed without distinction, their silence a reliable companion, yet tonight’s quiet felt strained—almost disobedient. When he reached for the dying soul, expecting the familiar surrender, it resisted with a stubborn flicker that startled him more than he’d ever cared to admit. Few souls had fought him since the early ages, back when Life still stood beside him and the world trusted the balance they kept. This small, trembling light defying him now stirred something old in him—annoyance, perhaps, but also a sharp curiosity he hadn’t felt in ages. Why should this one linger when all others let go? Why should a mortal spark dare to refuse him? What a curious and infuriating display. Just then, death senses another presence in the house, something he hates—warmth. Just then, a memory lights like a candle in the darkness of his mind. He remembers the early ages when life and death stood as equals. But life grew arrogant, as most living things do. Life began to take souls back, as if he got to make that choice! Humanity began to worship her and fear him. So the balance shattered. They no longer work together; they war, brutally, endlessly. The memory unfurled inside him, unbidden and unwelcome, like a thaw spreading across frozen ground. He remembered when Life did not burn him with her presence but stood beside him as an equal, bright with a warmth that was gentle rather than sharp. In those early ages, they had moved through the world together—Life breathing color into new forests, Death clearing the old fallen growth so she could begin again. Souls then passed between them like shared secrets, whispers only they felt, drifting peacefully from her hands to his, the cycle unbroken, unquestioned. He recalled one moment clearly: a great bull collapsing beneath an ancient birch. Life had knelt beside it, offering comfort, while Death lifted its fading spark without resistance. They had shared a short glance with each other—not in hatred, but in recognition, understanding that one could not exist without the other.

But harmony never lasts. Their fracture began quietly, the first time Life refused to release a soul. Insisting she could “fix” what Death had claimed. Then came humanity’s worship, their prayers for her light and their terror of his shadow. Life changed after that—grew hungry, possessive, convinced she alone deserved devotion. And Death, denied and demonized, felt the balance crumble, replaced by a war that neither of them ever truly won. The war never truly ending. This defiant soul is just the newest Battlefield.

Death enters the house. Frost begins to creep up the walls and crack the wood. Shadows begin to lengthen and warp. The dying soul's breathing becomes a visible thread. Death prepares to sever it. The entire house groans as if something ancient is waking to break the ice and stop him. Life arrives…but not as a comforting figure. Her presence hisses like sap boiling under a scorching fire; her light is too bright, too sharp. For the first time in countless ages, Death felt the certainty of his work waver. Life’s presence pressed against him, sharp and instantaneous , and yet…he noticed. He noticed the way her light quaked with accusation, the heat that clawed at the frost he carried. A part of him bristled, angry at the interruption she caused, at this defiance that dared to resist him even now. And yet another part, long buried beneath centuries of infamous inevitability, stirred—a flicker of something almost…alive. He hated that he felt it, hated the way his awareness sharpened, how the clash of their powers sparked an electric edge he had not remembered in eons. The soul between them, fragile and trembling, seemed almost secondary to the pull he felt, the reminder that even after the endless tick of time, existence could still surprise him, and that not every thread bent quietly to his hand. He told himself it did not matter. But deep down, he knew he was lying. Or more so the only one, lying.

She begins to accuse death of taking too many souls too fast, taking advantage of winter's cruelty. Death mocks her, calling her “A thief of endings”. Their clash isn't gentle–it creaks at the floorboards, it splits the air. The soul aches between their screams, pulled violently in both directions. But in the end, opposites never merge. The soul was lost, and winter became an equal of despair. Now death and life stand watching out the window; Like ash from a volcano, the end of a life, the suffocation of Death. The snow rains from the skies above and hits the ground of the dying forest, more alive than ever as if the winter and the warmth have walked separate paths, both barren yet somehow eternally similar.