When Ilyas woke up the following day he was surprised to feel the rise and fall of Qwin's chest, and even more surprised to find that they had slept through the blizzard, survived, and lived through to the evening of the next day. The boulder had shielded their faces from the snow, and allowed air flow, but they were buried under the snow, ice and somehow alive with just a blanket. Thought the blizzard still carried on.
Qwin was asleep, both very sick and weak, but alive
Ilyas unburies them, even more shocked to find a dying moose had also taken shelter next to this boulder. It was also weak, and didn't seem to care about their existence.
Qwin wakes up around this time, and Ilyas tells him that he will get them back. Qwin doesn't believe him, he knew he had the beginning stages of hypothermia and he knew there was no way Ilyas didn't either. Qwin asks how they survived, telling Ilyas that they should be dead and that this is probably the afterlife. Ilyas tells him that he wasn't sure how they were alive, or how they could still move their limbs. He ignores the comment about the afterlife, too frightened to consider it.
He wraps Qwin's arm around his shoulders, and begins to trudge through the ice and snow, as the moose takes its last breath.