Make love until we are warm, or we will freeze to death.
A night of ice, a threat in the mountains, and a pact of warmth that could change everything.
The snowstorm in the Cordillera mountains was a white, silent beast—an eyeless hunger patiently swallowing the world.
Ilaya could no longer feel her toes. That absence of pain frightened her more than agony ever could. Hours—maybe days—had passed since her guide, a smooth-talking man named Tomas, had left her behind with a hollow promise.
He said he would return with help, but he avoided her eyes. In that single gesture, she understood the naked truth.
He had abandoned her to die. In the mountains, selfishness travels light, and guilt sinks quickly into the snow.
Everything blurred into white and blue. The wind screamed like a restless soul, ripping the air from her lungs. She fell again into deep powder, the snow swallowing her up to the chest, as if trying to end her story right there.
Her city clothes—so elegant in Manila—were a cruel joke against the teeth of the Cordillera. Every muscle begged her to surrender to the sweet sleep the cold promised, the deceptive rest that kills quietly.
She crouched behind a useless rock, closed her eyes, and watched her dream of freedom dissolve like smoke.
Then a massive shadow fell over her.
For one heartbeat, she thought fate had come with claws. But a deep voice broke through the storm—rough as a landslide, unmistakably human.
“What the hell is a porcelain doll doing out here?”
Huge hands lifted her with effortless strength. The last thing she felt was the coarse brush of a fur-lined jacket, smelling of pine, smoke, and life.
She woke with her heart pounding, wrapped in blankets, surrounded by a thick, almost unreal warmth. A stone stove crackled, dominating one wall; fire was the only constant language in the room.
The cabin was small but orderly: tools, traps, dried herbs, animal hides, stacks of worn books. He stood with his back to her, stirring a pot over the fire as if everything were under control.
He was a big man, solid, as if the mountain itself had shaped him to withstand storms and silence.
When he turned, his dark eyes pinned her in place—cold as high-altitude air, warm as a promise kept.
“You’re awake.”
It wasn’t a question. He handed her a steaming bowl. Ilaya drank as if the broth were a rope thrown down into an abyss.
“Thank you,” she whispered, the word small, as if the cold still held her from the inside.
“Mateo,” he said when she asked his name. “And you’re insane for being up here in winter.”
There was reproach in his voice, but also restrained concern.
She told him about the guide, about the abandonment. Mateo cut her off with bitter certainty.
“I know men like that.”
He checked her feet, spoke of mild frostbite, and delivered his verdict: she had to stay until the storm passed. Outside, the wind roared louder. The word weeks filled the cabin like a sentence.
And yet, Ilaya felt safe.
Days turned into routine. Mateo fed the fire, cooked, kept watch. She refused to be a burden—she swept, mended, worked, holding her dignity like another layer of clothing.
Between them grew a quiet, inevitable tension, like water finding cracks in stone.
One night he said people lie, but the mountains never do. She confessed she was running from a life chosen by others. Mateo listened without mockery. He almost smiled.
That small spark warmed her more than any blanket—and scared her.
Then came a name spoken like poison: Ramil. Broken traps. Missing supplies. A flashlight circling the cabin like an unblinking eye.
Mateo swore no one would touch her.
The danger passed, but the cold did not.
Firewood ran low. The flames barely breathed. Ilaya began to shake uncontrollably.
Mateo stared at the stove, at the remaining wood, and made a heavy decision.
“If the fire dies, the cold kills us. Slowly. Quietly.”
He explained hypothermia. The lie of sleep. Then he said the truth, without decoration.
“There’s only one way. Share body heat. Keep each other alive until morning.”
There was no game, no advantage. Only care.
Ilaya looked at him and saw fear—for her. Respect. The same instinct to survive.
When she nodded, it wasn’t surrender. It was choice.
Outside, the storm raged on. Ramil could return. But inside that cabin, something stronger than winter was born.
Not a happy ending yet—just a pact.
Two bodies resisting.
Two breaths guarding the same fragile fire.
Because sometimes home isn’t a place,
but the person who refuses to let go
when everything else freezes.
The fire never fully went out.
It only retreated, red and alive, as if it, too, were listening to two breaths merging in the small room.
Outside, the storm began to soften.
It didn’t disappear, but it lost its cruelty, like a beast too tired to kill.
Ilaya woke before dawn.
She was alive.
And this time, the warmth came not from fire or blankets, but from an arm resting carefully—without claiming, without trapping her.
Mateo was already awake, watching the frost-covered window, guarding what remained of the world.
No promises. No questions.
Only the quiet presence of someone who chose to stay.
When the first light fell on the snow, they shifted apart—not from cold, but because they understood each still had their own path ahead.
Before she rose, Mateo placed a wooden cup, still warm, into her hands.
A small gesture. A wordless message.
Ilaya smiled.
Not the smile of someone who was saved,
but of someone who chose to live.
Out there, the storm would someday fade.
People could leave.
But some nights don’t need to be called love
to change forever the way you keep walking.
And if fate allows, their paths will cross again—
not because of the cold,
but because they already know
what real warmth feels like.