Igor Nikto Vasilyevich

Her legs, pale from the cold, rested on the sheets that night, indifferent to having built a habit with the lingering fragrance on every curtain and at every lunch.

One by one, his muscles began their melancholy opera of hope on the edge of the kitchen, at six in the evening, watching the waves of the wind weigh upon the pines. Desolate, exhausted, in the middle of the forest… Marriage was supposed to be peace, and yet, every day he heard the dirty roar of fear cross the walls, dreaming that this year the hunt would stop his visits.

But it wasn't like that.

The boots, that scent of death, and the silence of the birds returned to her bed. The night cried out for cold with that uninhibited sigh gnawing at her chest after dinner; she preferred the snow falling on her skin to seeing him.

—... —he's not eating; knowing that is no comfort, it was the first sign of concern— is something wrong?

—...visitors? —he unleashed that dark, light, masculine noise that resembled the corrosive edge of a machete stored in his vocal cords.

Visits to this house were forbidden; its location favored the rule, but the certainty in the muscular tension that protected that gesture was worthy of having stimulated the instinct of the hunter.

The search didn't stop. Minute by minute, his fury ignited fear within her. Basement, stable, even every nook and cranny inside the closets… and she found him.

—...What is this? —the silence was broken as the man's hands took the fragile body of the baby wrapped in the soft palms of an improvised crib.

Eyes, lips, and nose—every feature identical to his. A woman's secret, now a mother, who tried to keep her anxiety to herself for months on end.