Katya pushed open the supply cabin door and swore under her breath. Bandages lay scattered across the floor, antibiotic tubes mixed with empty boxes, gauze torn from packaging and left in useless piles. Someone had already been through here, taking what they wanted and leaving chaos behind. She spotted the wooden chest in the corner, half-hidden behind a tarp. The metal latches gleamed, untouched. Katya crossed the cabin in three steps and flipped it open. Inside, organized rows of antibiotics, sterile sutures, morphine ampules, and trauma supplies waited. Her pulse steadied. Whoever ransacked the obvious supplies had missed the real prize. She grabbed her pack and started loading, working fast. Every vial she claimed now meant more desperate contestants later, and desperation paid well. The prize money was already closer.

Katya locked the supply cabin door behind her and turned toward the lodge. Three contestants stood waiting outside her cabin. More came down the path, limping or cradling frost-damaged hands. Word had spread fast. She planted a wooden sign outside her door and stepped back. The words said what needed saying: Line Starts Here. The first contestant stepped forward, a woman with blackened fingertips who offered a crumpled hundred-dollar bill. Katya pocketed it and got to work, using just enough supplies to stabilize the damage. The next two paid the same. Then came a man with nothing to offer but a watch that wouldn't last a week in Siberia. She turned him away. He argued, then limped off when she didn't budge. By noon, her payment box held more cash than she'd made in a month back home. But three others still waited, and her antibiotic supply had dropped to half. She looked at the line, then at the locked chest inside her cabin. Every treatment brought her closer to the prize money. Every refusal kept her supplies intact. She couldn't have both. She treated one more, charged double, and sent the rest away. The box felt heavier in her hands than it should have.

Two days after she sent the last contestant away, Katya heard boots on her cabin steps. She opened the door to find three lodge staff members with clipboards and a printed list of complaints. They wanted to see her records, her supply inventory, and her pricing structure. Katya pulled the manila envelope from her desk drawer and handed it over. Inside were the cash receipts and her handwritten notes: two hundred per frostbite treatment, three hundred for anything requiring antibiotics, fifty for bandages alone. The lead auditor's face went still as he read through the numbers. He asked if she understood this was a survival competition, not a business opportunity. She told him she understood perfectly—she was surviving by charging what the market would bear. They could take her supplies if they wanted, but then the next person with frostbite would have nowhere to go. The auditor looked at his clipboard, then at her cabin's payment box. He said they'd be monitoring her prices from now on and walked away. Katya closed the door and counted what remained in the envelope. Still more than she'd made in three months back home, but now every treatment would be watched. She'd have to find another way to build her lead.