Yuki's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Yuki woke to someone knocking on the cabin door. She sat up, her breath forming clouds in the morning air. The fire had died to embers overnight. She crossed the room and opened the door to find a stranger standing there, holding something wrapped in cloth. The stranger explained he'd been hiking and found something strange near the mineral springs up the ridge. He unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a chunk of ice the size of a dinner plate, blue-green and clouded with minerals. Suspended inside were fish—orange and white koi, perfectly preserved, their fins frozen mid-movement. Yuki's chest tightened. She was sixteen again, kneeling by her parents' pond, holding a frozen frog in her mittened hands. The stranger asked if she knew anything about frozen animals surviving, said he'd heard she was some kind of scientist. She touched the ice with bare fingers, feeling its cold burn against her skin. These fish had been frozen fast in mineral-rich water, the kind of preservation she'd only dreamed about as a teenager. She told him to bring the ice inside, near the hearth but not too close. If they thawed slowly, if the cell damage wasn't too severe, there might be a chance. The stranger watched her work, asking questions about ice crystals and cellular preservation, actually listening to her answers instead of glazing over. For the first time since arriving at Whitehaven, someone wanted to understand what she understood. By afternoon, one of the smaller koi twitched. Then another. The stranger laughed with delight, and Yuki felt something in her chest begin to thaw alongside the fish—the possibility that someone might see both her brilliant mind and the wonder underneath it.