Commission drawn by Milenskii over on deviantart : https://www.deviantart.com/milenskii

It had been a long while since Hikari had gotten to spend time with her husband, they used to serve together in the same regiment, though Hikari couldn't handle the stress and horror of real war, asking to be demoted to an instructor for the time being.

His scheduled leave was coming up, he'd be back for at least a few weeks this time and she couldn't contain her excitement, she went a bit mad in her preparations, getting some nice new clothes and buying far too much luxury food for the two of them.

The day finally came, she hurried off to the train station to wait for him, fully intending to just tackle him to the ground in a hug, she couldn't keep still at the thought.

But he wasn't on the train.

The village they lived in was very far north, and in almost constant snowfall. Hikari figured that maybe a blizzard stopped him from making his ride, she waited for the last train just in case, but he wasn't on any of them, some other soldiers got off, but that didn't mean anything, they could have been from different companies.

She went to wait for him the next day, and the next. He wasn't there. He must have gotten snowed in, she hoped the army would allow him some more days off to make up for the delay.

On the fourth day, she was getting ready to head off to the station once again, she drank her morning coffee and quickly looked through the post, two bills, and a letter with the army's insignia.

Hikari wrenched it open and read the first paragraph... and then, blank. She didn't understand what she just read, why would someone write that? The colour of the room around her slowly faded into a black void, she felt herself collapse into a heap on the floor.

Then all that was left, was her screams.