Chapter 1: The Ghosts of Point-74

The wind howled through the narrow crevices of Point-74, a remote outpost isolated amidst a thousand miles of snow-capped mountains. Here, the cold didn’t just freeze flesh; it froze time.

Elias sat with his back against a pockmarked concrete wall, his hands gripping a rifle that had grown ice-cold. Beside him, Julian was shivering, his blue eyes staring blankly into the opaque white-out of the blizzard. They were the last two survivors of Bravo Unit after a bloody ambush three days prior.

“Elias… we’re not going to make it, are we?” Julian whispered, his voice cracking like breaking ice.

Elias turned, his gaze sharp yet flickering with a strange, protective warmth. He struck Julian firmly on the shoulder: “Shut up and eat. You have a woman named Sarah waiting for you at home. Don’t let her marry some random guy just because you gave up in this godforsaken hole.”

Elias took out the last piece of dry ration, snapped it in half, and handed it to Julian. It was the ultimate act of survival shared between two soldiers who had sworn to live or die together. Elias was the realist—the rock—the anchor that kept Julian, a young dreamer, from sinking into the madness of the battlefield.

Chapter 2: Sarah and the Unsent Letters

As night fell, a thick darkness swallowed the outpost. Julian pulled a stack of crumpled papers from his breast pocket. They were letters he had written to Sarah, his girlfriend back home with the sun-drenched smile.

“What did you write in there?” Elias asked, his eyes never leaving the thermal binoculars.

“Everything. About taking her on trips, about us starting a farm…” Julian smiled bitterly. “You know, Elias, Sarah always mentions you in her letters. She says thank you for looking out for me.”

Elias remained silent for a long time. A flicker of sorrow crossed his gaunt face. “Sarah is a good girl. Don’t let her cry. Listen, if they swarm us tonight, you run toward the Western valley. There’s a relay point there. Just activate it, and the rescue birds will find you.”

“What about you?” Julian asked, panicked.

Elias pointed to his makeshift bandage, where blood had soaked through the fabric, turning black. “I’ll stay behind to cover you. If one runs, he lives. If both run, we both die. Don’t argue with me!”

Chapter 3: The Purge in the Blizzard

The gunfire erupted at 4:00 AM. The enemy surged from the Northern cliffs like grey phantoms. Muzzle flashes illuminated Elias’s determined face.

“Run, Julian! Run now!” Elias screamed, shoving Julian toward the rear exit of the outpost.

Julian looked back one last time. He saw Elias standing tall amidst a hail of bullets, his rifle spitting fire relentlessly. A grenade exploded right at the doorway, soot and black smoke blinding the view. Julian screamed his comrade’s name, but the roar of the storm swallowed everything. He turned and sprinted blindly into the white void, carrying hope and the crushing guilt of a deserter.

He ran like a madman, over jagged cliffs, his lungs screaming in the thin air. Behind him, the sounds of explosions grew distant, then went silent. Julian collapsed in the valley, his hands trembling as he keyed the radio.

“Mayday! Mayday! This is Julian from Bravo Unit. I’m the only one left… Elias sacrificed himself for me… Please save me!”

Chapter 4: Shock at the Rescue Station

Three hours later, a Black Hawk helicopter touched down at a safe zone. Julian was hauled onto a stretcher, wrapped tightly in heat blankets. As the military surgeon, Captain Miller, approached to check his pupils, Julian grabbed his arm, sobbing.

“Please… go back to Point-74. Elias is still there. He died for me. He protected me for the last three months…”

Miller froze. He looked at the file in his hand, then at his assistant with a strange, haunting look. He placed a hand on Julian’s shoulder, his voice dropping an octave: “Julian, calm down. Are you talking about Elias Vance?”

“Yes! Elias Vance! My comrade! He just stayed behind to hold them off a few hours ago!”

Miller sighed—a long, heavy sigh of tragedy. He handed Julian a folder with a photo pinned to it. In the photo was Elias Vance, but stamped across the image in bold red ink was: K.I.A (Killed in Action) – 90 Days Ago.

Julian went numb. “No… that’s impossible. We just ate rations together. He scolded me just last night…”

“Julian,” Miller said slowly. “Bravo Unit was wiped out in the initial ambush back in September. Elias Vance was the first to fall while protecting you. You have been at that outpost completely alone for three months. There was no enemy surrounding you. All those bullet marks on the walls… you fired those yourself into the void.”

Chapter 5: The Edge of Sanity

Julian felt the world around him fracture. He lunged forward, frantically searching his ragged backpack for the letters to Sarah.

“Here! Look! These are the letters I wrote to Sarah! Elias read them!”

Miller took the papers. He opened them. They were entirely blank. Pure white pages, not a single line of ink. Julian looked down at his hands in horror. The callouses, the scars… he realized he was no longer the dreaming Julian. He was wearing a jacket with the name “Vance” stitched into it.

The final twist hit like a tidal wave. Miller handed him a small wallet recovered from Julian’s pocket. Inside was a photo of a woman: Sarah. But on the back, it read: “To my beloved husband, Elias. Come home to me and our son soon.”

“Julian doesn’t exist,” Miller whispered. “Julian was a young recruit who died in your arms on that fateful day. You couldn’t save him, Elias. You suffered such severe PTSD that your mind erased your own identity. You lived as him—the person you believed deserved to live more than you did.”

Chapter 6: The Last Frequency

Elias—now flooded with his true memories—stared into the cracked mirror in the medical bay. He saw his own face, aged and hollowed by agony. He wasn’t the one who was saved. He was the one cursed to survive.

He remembered it all. He was the one who had accidentally ordered Julian to scout forward on the day of the ambush. He was the one who watched that young boy get torn apart by mortar fire. His mind had created the “Elias phantom” to be a father, a brother, and a protector to the “Julian persona,” so that he could endure the weight of his guilt.

Elias slumped to the floor of the helicopter. The rotors continued to spin, but in his head, the howling wind of Point-74 would never cease. He muttered a name, not his own, and not his wife’s.

“Run, Julian… Sarah is waiting for you…”

Outside, the snow continued to fall, burying the ruined outpost where a soldier had died twice, seeking a forgiveness that would never come.