Stranded by a dead battery and hunted by Viktor's helicopter, Mathis and Léna must cohabit in the van's confined space. While Anca offers them an escape route, Mathis sacrifices his obsessive pursuit of the lynx to protect a woman he barely knows. But outside, in the frozen night, something is watching—and it may not be what they fear most.
Frost traces crystalline ferns across the van's windows. Inside, the air smells of cold metal, bitter coffee, and that particular odor of spaces inhabited too long by a single person—a mixture of solitude and worn leather.
Mathis has spread his tools on a greasy cloth with the precision of a surgeon preparing an autopsy. The battery rests between them like a mechanical corpse. His hands move with an economy of motion that betrays years of repeated gestures in this confined space.
The van's walls are papered with unpinned, frameless photographs—a ghostly bestiary of creatures captured in their wild intimacy. A red fox frozen mid-leap. A great horned owl whose orange eyes seem to follow movements in the room. Tracks in the snow, catalogued with handwritten annotations.
Léna can't help but fill the silence. Words burst from her like water from a cracked dam.
"So that photo there, is that a deer? No wait, a moose? God, I can't even tell the difference... Where did you take it? And this one, with the trees forming these gothic cathedral shapes, that's exactly the kind of organic architecture I was talking about in my thesis..."
Mathis doesn't look up. His hands continue their methodical work.
"Advanced sulfation. Corroded plates."
His fingers brush a particular photo—a landscape of bare interwoven branches forming a natural vault. The notebook sits on the highest shelf, wedged between a mammal identification guide and a box of photographic filters. She notices it because it stands out—everything else in the van is new or carefully maintained, but this notebook is worn to the bone, its leather cover cracked like skin exposed too long to the elements.
She takes it before thinking. Opens it.
Day 847. Nothing. Day 848. Nothing. Day 849. Nothing.
Hundreds of pages. Thousands of "nothing" aligned with hypnotic regularity.
"'Day 847. Nothing. Day 848. Nothing.' Mathis, what is... Oh my God, there are hundreds! You write this every day? How long have you..."
Mathis's movement is so abrupt she startles. He snatches the notebook from her hands—not violently, but with a contained urgency that resembles panic.
"Don't touch anything."
Their eyes meet. For the first time since she climbed into this van, she sees something in his eyes beyond annoyance: a raw, almost painful vulnerability.
"Hey! I... sorry, I didn't know it was... Fuck, Mathis, I didn't mean to..."
The crack comes from inside the battery, sinister and final. Mathis freezes. His shoulders sag imperceptibly.
"Irreparable. Three days minimum."
He sets down his tools with deliberate slowness. Returns each piece to its exact place. All these gestures to delay the moment when he must pronounce the verdict.
"You don't have a choice."
Léna feels the ground give way beneath her. Three days. The van that was supposed to be temporary refuge becomes a cage.
"Three days? No, no no no, I can't stay three days! Viktor will... I need to move, to keep going, I can't just sit here like a sitting duck!"
The light has changed. Grayer, denser, as if the sky itself were closing over the clearing. Léna has curled up on the back bench, knees pulled against her chest.
The phone appears in her hand like a shameful object. The screen illuminates, casting a bluish glow on her face. A single bar of signal, fragile, intermittent. The battery reads 12%.
"Fifteen... fifteen missed calls. All from the same... Shit."
Mathis observes the phone with silent disgust. After a long silence, he asks:
"Who are you running from?"
"Nobody. Just... a misunderstanding. Like, work stuff, you know? Clients who..."
He waits, impassive. The silence weighs until she cracks.
"OK, OK! It's... it's my fiancé. Ex-fiancé. Viktor Sokolov. And before you ask, no, it's not just a bad breakup."
Mathis shrugs.
"Rich people don't like mountains."
But Léna shakes her head, shows him a photo on her phone—an impeccably blond man, glacial smile, standing in front of a private helicopter.
"Rich people don't like mountains? You don't know Viktor. He doesn't accept being told no. Ever. He thinks that... that I belong to him. You see? That's his helicopter. One of three he owns. He has resources, Mathis. People who work for him. People who will find me."
Mathis stares at the photo for a long time. Something in his expression changes—a recognition, perhaps. He says nothing but locks his photographic equipment in a metal case. Defensive gesture.
The phone vibrates. New message. She doesn't open it but reads the preview:
"I know where you are."
"'I know where you are.' How? How can he know? I paid cash for the bus, I turned off location services..."
She shuts off the phone with an abrupt gesture. Too late—Mathis saw the message.
"We leave on foot. Now."
Before they can gather their things, a battered 4x4 arrives in the clearing. Anca Popescu gets out, accompanied by two shepherd dogs that stay near the vehicle at a simple gesture.
"Mathis! I need your artist's eye for something that's not artistic at all."
She immediately notices Léna, assesses the situation with a practiced glance.
"New recruit?"
"Mmh."
Anca enters the van without invitation, inspects the dead battery, shakes her head.
"Three days minimum for a replacement part. Maybe four with the weather coming."
She observes Léna standing back, nervous.
"You don't look equipped for the mountains. Those shoes won't last two kilometers on my trails."
"Equipped? Well, I wasn't planning to stay long. I'm more of a city person anyway, so..."
Anca cuts her off:
"I know a fugitive when I see one. I've sheltered enough. The question isn't why you're running, but whether you know where you're going."
She turns to Mathis, crossing her arms.
"She can stay in my cabin. Safer than your rolling coffin, and I need someone to watch my equipment while I track this pack."
Mathis hesitates. Accepting would mean admitting he cares about Léna's safety. Refusing would mean keeping her close.
Anca reads his dilemma and smiles with affectionate cruelty.
"You're pathetic, Mathis. You spend your life framing the world through your lens, but you refuse to see what's happening right in front of you."
She pulls a hand-drawn map from her pocket and hands it to Léna.
"If you want refuge, come. No questions asked. But I have rules: you help with chores, you respect my schedule, and you don't endanger my animals."
Then to Mathis:
"The wolves are five kilometers northeast. Something disturbed them—probably that helicopter that's been flying over my zones for three days. If you want to document their abnormal behavior for my report, it's now."
She leaves as abruptly as she came. Mathis and Léna find themselves alone. Léna holds the map. Mathis checks his photographic equipment. Neither speaks.
But Léna doesn't leave. And Mathis doesn't tell her to leave.
Night falls. Mathis sets up a small backup generator that powers a single lamp and the camp stove.
"One lamp only. Save the battery."
Léna draws compulsively in a notebook found among Mathis's things—frantic architectural plans, impossible structures.
"These lines... they go nowhere. Like mazes with no exit. That's fucked up, right? My hands draw prisons."
Mathis observes her hands that never stop moving.
"You can't stop."
It's not a question.
"If I stop, I think. If I think, I panic. And if I panic... well, you saw what happens when I panic."
Mathis understands—it's exactly why he photographs. They are two sides of the same flight. Long shared silence.
Then Mathis takes out a second blanket, hands it to Léna.
"You sleep here. I sleep outside."
"Outside? Mathis, you'll freeze! It's fifteen below, and you're not a fucking polar bear!"
"I'm used to it."
But he doesn't move. He stays seated, back against the van's wall, looking at the pinned photographs. Léna follows his gaze, stops on one particular image—a lynx, almost invisible in the snow, looking directly at the lens.
"Is that him? The one you've been waiting for since... since all those pages of 'nothing'?"
Mathis nods.
"Yesterday, when you saw him... you could have taken the photo. Fifteen months and you were there, with your camera. But you didn't."
Mathis doesn't answer immediately. Then, so softly she has to strain to hear:
"Because you were there."
It's not a reproach. It's a statement that terrifies them both.
Léna sets down her notebook.
"I can leave tomorrow. Go to Anca's. She said no questions, safe refuge. That's what I need, right? Safety?"
"You can."
But neither moves. Outside, the wind howls. Inside, the silence is deafening.
Mathis finally stands, goes out into the night. Léna remains alone, surrounded by photos of wild animals watching her.
Léna wakes with a start. A deep, rhythmic sound, getting closer.
"What... what is that sound? Mathis?"
Mathis is already up, tense as a bowstring. He kills the lamp with a sharp gesture.
"Don't move."
The sound amplifies—helicopter rotors. A searchlight beam sweeps the forest, passes over the van, continues. Mathis and Léna are pressed against the wall, holding their breath.
The searchlight returns, stops on the clearing. The helicopter descends, close, too close. Then rises, moves away. The sound gradually decreases.
Silence.
"It's him. It's Viktor. I knew he would... Oh God, he's really looking for me. With a fucking helicopter! Who does that?"
Mathis doesn't answer but his gaze is hard. He takes out his satellite phone—the one he only uses for emergencies.
"Oskar. I need the battery. Tomorrow. Not in three days. Tomorrow."
He listens to the response, grunts.
"I'll owe you."
He hangs up. Turns to Léna.
"Tomorrow night, we leave. You go wherever you want. But not here."
Léna nods, too shaken to argue. Then, in a whisper:
"Why are you helping me?"
Mathis looks at her for a long time. His face is unreadable in the darkness.
"Because I know what it's like to run from something you can't face."
He doesn't specify what he's running from. He doesn't need to. Léna understands they're bound now—two different fugitives, same interior desert.
Outside, in the distance, the helicopter sound still echoes faintly. Then disappears completely.
But they both know it will return.
In the forest, invisible, patient, the lynx watches the lit van. Mathis doesn't see it. He's not looking out the window.
For the first time in fifteen years, he's looking at someone other than an animal.
