When Anna regained consciousness, her breath came out in clouds of mist. The cold bit into her skin, her fingers were stiff, her lips blue. She realized she wouldn’t last long. But deep inside, beneath the fear and pain, one thought kept her alive — she had to save her baby.

She clenched her teeth, pressed her hands against her belly, and tried to crawl.
“Help! Somebody!” she screamed, her voice hoarse and cracking.

Seconds stretched into eternity. And then — a thought. Her phone! She had left it in her purse, right outside the refrigerator door. So close… and yet unreachable.

Tears froze on her cheeks as she pounded on the steel door with bleeding fists.
“I don’t want to die! Not like this!”

Then she noticed a broken wooden shelf on the floor. With trembling hands, she grabbed a piece and jammed it into the door’s latch. Her fingers were raw, her knuckles blue, but suddenly — a click.
The door swung open.

Anna collapsed onto the cold kitchen floor, gasping for air. She crawled toward her bag, pulled out her phone, and dialed emergency services. Then everything went black.

When she opened her eyes again, everything was white — the ceiling, the lights, the sheets.
“You’re safe,” said a gentle nurse. “You and your baby are both alive. It’s a miracle.”

Anna burst into tears. Her body trembled as if the cold still hadn’t left her bones. But then a man in uniform stepped into the room.
“Mrs. Novak,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, but we need to talk about your husband. He’s… gone.”

Anna stared at him, pale and speechless.
“His car was found in the river,” the officer continued. “He made one last call before it happened — to you.”

She looked at her phone. One missed call. From that night.

“There was also a letter,” the officer said. “He wrote: I wanted to get rid of the problem, but I destroyed myself instead.”

Anna closed her eyes. The tears came again — but this time, they weren’t just from grief. There was something else inside her now — peace.
He locked me in the cold… and the cold took him in the end.

Years later…

Anna no longer worked in fancy restaurants. She opened a small café on the edge of town. Every morning it smelled of fresh bread and vanilla. On the wall hung a photo — her and a little boy with bright eyes and a wide smile.

Customers often asked,
“Is that your son?”
She would smile and say,
“Yes. The child who survived the impossible.”

At night, when the café was closed and the city fell silent, Anna would light a candle by the window. She’d look into the dark and whisper,
“Thank you… for letting us live.”

Sometimes, she dreamed of that freezer — the silence, the darkness, the suffocating cold. But in every dream, there was now a light. And from that light, a small voice whispered,
“Mom, I’m here.”

And she’d wake up with her hand over her heart, smiling softly.
Because she knew:
Even in the coldest darkness, love can keep you alive.