Blackened brick and stone stood out against the lifeless white snow that suffocated the meadows and muffled all sound save for his harsh, staggered breaths. A quick glance behind confirmed his worst fears - the snowfall had already covered his footprints and erased all traces of the trail he'd hoped to leave for his family to follow him to safety.
If they should find his trail, if they should follow where he led, if by some blessed chance they were reunited it could very well be at his grave - at all of their graves if the house before him wasn't as empty as it currently seemed. It looked almost convincingly abandoned and were he any newer to the world he might have wandered right inside, away from the cold.
There were too many ill signs around to for him to ignore. Too many pale planks of wood that had somehow escaped the fire that left the rooftop still smouldering slightly in the cold. Too many unseen eyes watching and too many hushed whispers for the wind and snow to fully silence.
He heard every word they were trying to hide and within minutes of his arrival he knew he was in the midst of a nest the likes of which he'd only ever heard rumours of as a child. His next actions would have to be both deliberate and careful, callous but not careless, ignorant and cunning.
Movement near the attic window unwillingly drew his eyes as a charred hand slowly opened the window and retreated, pretending as if it had never been there to begin with. As much as he would have liked to have forgotten what he just saw, their whispers picked up soon after and he quickly found that they knew they had been seen.
The snow was falling too hard for him to retreat now. Somehow he had to leave a message for his family, to warn them about the nest. He was already a dead man - the least he could do with his final minutes was use them to finish what the last man had started and burn the nest to the ground, leave them as exposed to the brutal cold as him and his kin had been for months.
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