EMBER — a small glowing ember with a cracked charcoal shell and a molten orange heart, resting in a dark ash bed beneath a starry night sky.
A Last Light Pictures Animated Short · Coming 2026

EMBER

One small light against the whole cold night.

The last ember of a dying campfire has until dawn to relight the fire before the frost reaches the family sleeping beside it.

Animated short 2:50 Score Martin Landh
The story

The last light, refusing to go out

A family falls asleep around their campfire on the last camping night of autumn. The fire dies. All that's left is one small ember in the ash — a cracked charcoal shell around a stubborn orange heart — and out past the ring of stones, the frost starts crawling toward a child's blanket.

He has no flame, no legs, no voice, no face. He has one night, a plain of cold ash to cross, a pile of kindling six inches away that might as well be six miles — and, when his glow runs lowest, a frost-dusted moth who remembers who warmed her first.

He doesn't relight the fire. He becomes it.

Inside the stone fire ring at night: charred logs looming like monuments, and beyond the stones a family asleep by a tent under drifting autumn leaves, lit by one tiny glow.
His whole world: the ring, the ash plain, the kindling — and the people he's doing it for.
Creeping white frost advancing in crystalline fingers, catching a faint orange glow in its ice.
The villain. It never hurries. It doesn't have to.
The score came first

Written on "Guna"

Like every Last Light picture, the music was found before a single frame was drawn — and the film is cut to its exact shape. The track's quiet second collapse, right after its biggest blaze, is where the story found its ending.

Guna
Martin Landh · Epidemic Sound · 2:50 · the complete score
0:00

A single spark drifts down through the night air and lands in a dead fire ring. Our hero wakes.

0:32

He sees the frost line creeping toward the child's blanket. The race begins.

1:06

His glow nearly out. The cold at its boldest. A frost-dusted moth lands beside him — and he spends warmth he can't spare to thaw her wings.

1:18

The crossing of the ash plain. When he can't roll another inch, her wingbeats become his bellows.

1:42

The kindling catches. Light floods the campsite.

2:06

Inside the new fire, his own shell goes dark. He gave it everything he had.

2:10

Morning. The frost retreats. The family wakes warm, and never knows.

2:42

From the young fire, one new spark rises — and floats up into the dawn.

The cast

Small parts. Enormous stakes.

The Ember — a cracked charcoal shell glowing orange from within, sparks lifting off him like breath.
The hero
The Ember

Born in the evening's first match-strike, he spent the whole night at the bottom of the fire doing the unglamorous work — holding heat while the flames above him got all the attention. Now the flames are gone, the family is asleep, and the only one left on duty is the smallest coal in the ring. No face, no voice, no flame. All heart, and every bit of it visible through the cracks.

The Moth — a small pale moth with frost-dusted wings, big gentle eyes and a tiny knitted scarf, perched on a charred log above an ember's glow.
The friend
The Moth

She spent her whole short life chasing porch lights and lanterns — always warmth that belonged to someone else. Caught by the first frost of the season, she crash-lands in the ash beside a dying ember, and he spends glow he cannot spare to thaw her wings. She doesn't leave. And when his light runs lowest on the crossing, her wingbeats become his bellows.

The Frost — crystalline white fingers of ice creeping toward a sleeping child's blanket.
The villain
The Frost

It isn't cruel. It's just early — the season's first hard frost, arriving hours ahead of schedule on the one night a family stayed out to catch the last of autumn. It never hurries, never doubts, and has ended every fire it ever met. It reaches the edge of the child's blanket at the exact moment the film's music goes quiet.

The Family — asleep under blankets beside their tent, beyond the fire ring stones.
The reason
The Family

Two parents, two kids, one tent, and the decision to stay for one more night of leaf-fall. They built the fire, told the stories, and drifted off certain it would hold till morning. They sleep through the entire film — through the race, the crossing, the blaze, the sacrifice — and wake warm, never knowing. That's what makes it a gift.