The blizzard was a white wall. Elias had been hiking for days when the weather turned, and now, lost in the mountain range, he was freezing to death. His phone was dead, his compass useless, and his legs were buckling. He slumped against a cold slab of rock, ready to give up.
Then, through the swirling snow, he saw it: a tiny, steady beam of yellow light.
It was a lantern, held aloft by a man in a thick, old-fashioned oilskin coat. The man didn't speak, but simply turned and began walking slowly along the precarious cliff edge, beckoning Elias to follow. Driven by a desperate hope, Elias staggered after the warm glow.
After what felt like hours, the light led him down the mountain slope and out of the raging storm, right to the back door of a small, unlocked cabin. As Elias stumbled over the threshold and collapsed onto a pile of dry blankets, he looked back. The man with the lantern was gone.
The next morning, a local rescue team found him. "You're lucky to be alive, son," the lead officer said, pulling him into the truck. "No one survives a night exposed out there. Especially not on the old Sailor's Trail."
Elias pointed toward the cliff. "I was saved by a man with a lantern. He guided me right to this cabin."
The rescue officer’s smile faded. "That's impossible. This cabin hasn't been used in fifty years. And the only person who ever walked that trail in a storm was the old lighthouse keeper, Silas. He died in a blizzard trying to guide a shipwrecked fishing vessel... they say he still walks his final watch, looking for anyone who needs to be brought home."
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