Post by Shinku on Aug 31, 2015 12:29:53 GMT -5
It was cold, very cold. He could see his breath in front of him, forming faint misty clouds with each exhalation. Inhaling through the nose was difficult. It was both stuffy and running at the same time and probably bright red from the cold, but breathing in from the mouth would cool him down too fast. The nose would warm the inhaled air, reducing the shock that the difference of temperature would cause to the body, making it bearable, or almost so. Here and there he sucked in the air through his mouth when the feeling of not getting enough air through his runny nose was too strong, but it stung painfully in his throat and even down in his lungs and fearing hypothermia as a result he tried to avoid that as beast as he could. The frosty winter air had made his eyes water and tears had run down his cheeks, leaving icy paths on their way. His face had hurt at first, but now he could hardly feel it anymore.
He took a step and then another, one at a time he slowly moving his feet forward. They felt so heavy, as if someone had filled them with lead. Without any gloves to protect his hands from the cold his fingers felt frozen. With a stiff grip he tried his best to hold the sleeves of his gray winter coat together, to have at least some sort of protection from the cold for the fingers, but his feet slipped on the snow-covered ground and Kyou had to use a hand to support himself, lest he’d slide down the hill he had spent time climbing up. With an absentminded gesture he shook off the snow clinging to his hand and sleeve and went on.
He had to hurry, time was slowly running out…
Snow crunching underfoot he struggled forward. The trees covering the hill looked barren, forlorn and bleak but their roots gave him secure footing where they poked out of the hard frozen ground. They weren’t always visible however and from time to time he tripped over a root that was hidden in the snow.
The blanket of snow was a few inches deep and often covered with fir needles around the trees. Brown earthy spots indicated the places where animals had pushed aside the snow in their search for food. Along his way Kyou noticed the tracks of an animal, two long marks parallel to each other followed by two smaller prints in a horizontally line – a rabbit. Their traces were distinctive and easy to recognize even by less experienced wanderers.
Somewhere in the forest a cry could be heard. Or so he thought for a moment. But it was just a spawn of his imagination. There had been nothing, nothing at all. His mind was playing tricks with him, letting him hear sounds that weren’t there, reproaching him for his lack of action and his uselessness.
Thing could have been so much easier if he only had reacted that time. If he only had taken it serious! But in hindsight, the right path was always more visible than it was in the situation itself and going down the IF road would not change anything at all. He had not reacted, and now the sound of crying was haunting him.
Another step and then one more, but suddenly his foot lost its grip, the rotting leaves beneath too slippery for him to keep his balance. Snow, leaves and man slid down, the slope too steep to slow them down once they were in motion. About fifteen feet down, the ground flattened out a bit and with the help of a hazel bush growing in his way Kyou came to a stop. It took him a moment to free himself from the branches of the plant, its twigs entangled in his coat, but with a ripping sound that indicated that there would be a large hole under his armpits, he finally got loose.
Tired he wiped away the bangs from his forehead, revealing pale green eyes – icy like the snow surrounding them - and a juvenescent face with too many scratches than the hazel bush could possibly account for. The hair was dark pink, dirty and so messy that he would need a pair of scissors to deal with them for a simple comb was unlikely to help. Like almost everything on him it was half-frozen and rigid, a strange sensation to his touch.
With some hesitation Kyou pulled out the bokken from his belt. The wooden sword was made out of a rare material, its wood actually containing metal, giving the sword an extra hardness and a metallic luster. It was way too good to be used as a simple walking-stick.
Or maybe it wasn’t. What he needed right now was something to hold him steady and support his weight so he wouldn’t slide down the hill again and for that the sword was perfect. Whether it was their intended purpose or not, wasn’t being useful what swords were about?
A lot more assured about his actions Kyou returned to climbing up the hill. With the bokken as a cane it was much easier and he made good progress. With a heart-felt sigh he finally reached the top. How many hours had he been walking through the snow now? Having lost his sense of time during the walk, Kyou wasn’t sure. The exertion had made the time stretch out long, made minutes seem like hours and hours like eternity and yet he was sure that at least a few hours must have passed for the shadows were growing longer.
The wind increased in strength and picked up a handful of snowflakes, spraying them into his face. The young man covered his eyes with an arm and took shelter behind an old tree. Even through the clothes the bark felt rough against his back and yet it was oddly comforting. The thick trunk radiated a sense of steadiness. “I’ll always be here, no matter what happens.” It seemed to say.
Peering out behind the tree, Kyou had a good view of the landscape that extended below him. There were far less trees in the dale below though there was the occasional patch of dark green visible under the layer of snow. A river, eye-catching in the otherwise uniform scenery, wound its way through the land and vanished behind another hill.
For a moment he thought that he had caught the sight of a few gray shapes down in the valley, but they were too far away and gone before he could be sure. Whatever it was it had moved too fast to be what he was looking for anyway.
It was starting to snow, light soft flakes of white fell from the sky and settled on Kyou’s head and shoulders, making him frown with concern. The clouds looked almost threatening, a high-piled accumulation of different shades of grey, harbinger of worse news.
The locals had warned him that the weather would not keep. Lyneel was having the coldest winter since many years. The thermometer had been sub-zero for days and the air was heavy with the snow that was yet to come. A storm was coming, they had told him, and the question was not if it really would, but when…
He had to move on, there was no time to lose. The light was already starting to fade, turning his surroundings into a world of shadows and ghosts. And the dusk would not stay for long. Soon the night would be upon him and how would he find his way then? His goal still seemed so much out of his reach that he wasn’t sure if he could make it. Everything had seemed so much easier when he had studied the map, but hills were mere lines on the paper and walking over them was much more exhausting than it looked. It should have been the shorter way too, crossing the land rather than sailing along the island’s shore seemed a much more direct route to take, but ships were sailing a lot smoother and faster than he could walk.
If only there had been someone to take him. The antisocial man had even made an effort to ask, but everyone had refused him. The fishermen had especially sailed to the harbor of the biggest city in the vicinity because it offered a safer place for their boats and ships than the little bays and coves they normally used. They wanted to protect their means of income from the dangers of the sea and Kyou could not fault them for that. In fact, most of them had been generous enough. A friendly mailman had offered to take Kyou with him, when the young man had gotten lost near his home village. And a group of fishermen from another village had taken a group of refugees with them so that they could find shelter against the storm in the city where there was enough room to take the lots them in and where the storm wouldn’t be coming directly from the sea but would have to pass through the inland before, losing on strength in the process. Kyou himself had been heading for the capital, (if his sister was likely to be on this island, then she was likely to be there in one of the fancy restaurants), before he had lost orientation and landed way off the target with his little boat. The ride with the mailman had been too good an offer to refuse.
And now he was heading back to that very same village by foot.
If only he had known.
There it was again, the cry. A soft wailing cry that spoke of hunger and pain, defenseless against the winter’s cold the tiny frail voice seemed to plead for help. But it could not be here. It was just too unlikely that they had made it so far.
Unsure he raised his head, even though the wind was blowing painfully cold into his face, and looked around. It would not do to miss them again. But even when he looked around with keen eyes and perked up ears, there was nothing to see and the cry didn’t sound again. It had been his imagination, just as he thought. Slowly but surely the guilt was driving him mad it seemed.
After the long climb, the way down the hill was almost enjoyable easy. Half walking half sliding down the hill it only took Kyou a few minutes to reach the dale he had seen from above. If his memory served him well, then he would have to follow the river until it made two nearly circular bends and then turn right, crossing at the foot of two big hills to enter the long valley that leaded to the place where the little villages were located. There, somewhere there they had to be. There were a lot of small villages around that part of the country, so if you missed all of them, you would undoubtedly enter the vale.
Maybe he was here for nothing? Maybe the two had found one of the little villages and found shelter? But none of the fishermen arriving in the capital, has known anything about a mother and a child arriving in their neighborhood. Considering how friendly the people here were to lost strangers that would have created a big fuss which was unlikely to be missed by anyone living there. The most likely explanation was that they were still somewhere outside, cold and lost as he was…
Well, he was cold, but he wasn’t lost at least. There was even a map in his brown leather bag, though he didn’t dare to take it out just now. Not with the wind blowing so strongly. And anyway, how hard could it be to follow a river?
A river he had first had to find. From above it had been easy to locate the water, but now that the sun was setting, there wasn’t any shimmering water surface to be seen. But he knew that it had to be somewhere on his right side and if he listened closely he should be able to hear the water purling.
And really, in a few minutes of exerted walking through the snow he found it. A thin sheet of ice was covering the water along the bank but most of the river was ice free. Running water took longer to freeze over than still waters like lakes or ponds. It reminded Kyou how thirsty he was. But the thermos flask in his bag was empty and the river waters much too dangerous to try.
For a moment he stood there, longing and yet knowing that he couldn’t allow himself to be so foolish. Being here was already foolish enough. Everyone had warned him. The locals knew the land and its dangers and had outright declared his undertaking to be suicidal and pointless, trying their best to stop the foolish boy from his attempt. But the cry had already started to haunt him until Kyou thought that he would go mad if he didn’t try at least to do something.
Regretting his decision would not get him anywhere though. He had to go or he would freeze to death. He was already freezing to death.
Keeping a few meters between himself and the river, Kyou walked along the guiding stream. Walking seemed even more tiring now, as if his legs had already gone to sleep. The muscles in his body had probably cooled down again and he needed more determination to get them to move again. Determination that got harder and harder to gather with his whole body being lethargic and his mind yearning for sleep. And yet he moved on, one step a time until he didn’t have to think about it anymore. Since the land was flat and trees were rarer here, he didn’t have to pay attention to each step, though he still needed to watch where he put his feet, lest he fall into one of the little holes that poked out of the landscape here and there. They were easy to avoid though and his body finally switched to autopilot, letting Kyou’s mind sink into a sort of energy conserving state of half-sleep.
Kyou wasn’t sure how long he had walked like that, eyes on the ground in front of him yet hardly realizing what they saw, when a fleeing deer startled him and snapped him out of the state of mind he had been in. The animal had come to the river to drink some water and was probably just as frightened to meet the human as Kyou was by the sudden and unexpected movement of the deer dashing away.
A bit confused the pink-haired boy looked around. Why hadn’t he reached the turning point yet? Shouldn’t it be about time? Or had he walked past it without even noticing?! Maybe he really should take out the map and check?
But by now it was so dark that it would be impossible to make out anything and Kyou hadn’t thought of bringing a light. What a big mistake that was. His preparations had been done poorly and in a rush that was very uncharacteristic for the careful young man. In the end it would cost him more time than it had saved.
Frowning he looked back to where he had come from, but in the darkness he couldn’t see the curves and bends of the river. Should he double back and check out if he missed the turning point? No, that would take too much time and strength. Both things of which he hadn’t enough left to spare. Better to move on and hope for the best. Maybe he could recognize a part of the landscape to find out where he was.
But for that he had to move on. Right, he had to move. It took quite some effort to get himself going again that he considered his next stop to be his last. Better to keep himself moving until it was harder to stop than to go on.
The river crossed a little forest and the world around him seemed to become even darker. It was harder to follow the river now, since he had to make detours in places where the bank of the river was too overgrown to walk through. The area was full with tall but spindly fir trees which stood close to each other, their little branches interwoven with the limbs of the next tree, making it hard to pass them without ducking low or breaking off a branch here and there, making his pace become even slower. Again and again he forced his way through a narrow space, ducked low here and there or had to take the way around when there was no way to squeeze through. His head touched a low hanging branch and a load of snow dropped down on his head. Too tired to even curse, Kyou just brushed it off and walked on. Yet the snow stuck annoyingly to his face, especially to his eyelashes and his sleeve was covered in snow as well, so each attempt to get rid of it, only smeared more snow into his face. With clammy hands he tried it anyway, for the snow crystals obscured his view and blurred his sight, making the light dance around in front of his eyes.
Wait! Light?!
The moment’s realization struck him hard. There was a light, somewhere over there in the forest! And light meant people. And warmth.
As much as he normally disliked to rely on others, this time he had no other choice. The young man was at his limit and knew that he couldn’t go on much further right now. And so after a moment of pulling himself together, he left the river bank and headed for the light. Drawn to it like a moth to the flame.
The little house wasn’t far away, but the path to it was riddled with obstacles and the biggest of them was called a garden fence. It wasn’t even that high, maybe one meter at most, hardly enough to provide protection for this lonely cottage in the middle of nowhere and yet the frozen-through and tired Kyou could not see himself jumping over it, like he would have done on a normal day.
Instead he walked alongside it in the hope to find a gate that he could use. But he reached the first corner without any hint of an entrance and had to round the corner and walk another length of fencing, his hand keeping touch of the wood all along, as if he was afraid to lose his way.
“Who’s there? Don’t move! I have a shotgun and I know how to use it!” a female voice shouted out in the night, right behind him.
Kyou froze on the spot and nearly toppled over from the abrupt stop. Should he raise his hands or better not do any sort of gesture that might be misunderstood? Ending up as Swiss cheese after all he’s gone through, would be quite a sad ending, even for him. He decided to leave the hands down unless he got another order, but slowly turned his head to watch the shotgun caring person approach. The build was undoubtedly that of a woman and Kyou estimated that they were about nearly the same high. She wasn’t pointing the gun at him, but carried it in a way that suggested that she was ready to change that in a second, should the need arrive.
“Oh! So you’re not a bear after all. I was wondering who might be sneaking around my house.”
A bear? Was she serious? And why would she bother to shout a warning if she expected a bear and not a human. Wasn’t alerting a bear the worst thing one could do? If only he would care to ask.
The question must have shown on his face for she went on, though completely unaware of what he really wondered about.
“The cold has come suddenly and early this year so not all bears are asleep yet for they haven’t eaten enough to store the needed fat in their body. They still lurk around the houses at times, hoping to find some food. You’d probably be a good snack for them. Better be careful.” She told him almost cheerfully but at least the woman was relaxed now. Obviously she didn’t see him as a thread anymore.
“Well, let’s go inside. I hate talking in the cold!”
Without waiting to see if he followed, she made her way to her house, only to stop midway and turn around to face him again.
“I’m Linda, by the way. You can call me Linds. Nice to meet you kid.”
The woman was young, hardly a few years older than him. Her hair was brown, chestnut brown maybe? Kyou had no clue how chestnut brown was supposed to look like, nor how any of the different colors of brown hair color were called, but apparently there was a difference between them, or so he had heard.
Kyou shook his head absentmindedly. Why was he thinking about stuff like that? Did his brain freeze completely? But his brain didn’t seem to be the only one that wasn’t thinking straight.
With a big smile she had invited him to come in. Did she not feel uncomfortable about the stranger at her doorstep? She was so friendly obliging it seemed almost stupid to him. How could she not mistrust his intention?
He was tempted to warn her, but of course that would have been stupid. A stranger warning her against random strangers? That would be ridiculous and on top of that it would work against his own interests.
And so he kept quiet and followed her in.
It was warm inside, of course it was. Any inhabited house would have a heater going during winter. His nose at once started to run even worse than it had before, dripping snot over his chin and on his clothes. Awkwardly he tried to sniff it back up, but nearly choked himself doing so. The ears, frozen from the cold and pale, started to turn bright red as the blood started to flow through them again. There was no doubt that he wasn’t making a very good impression on his host, who stood there with her hands on her hips, looking almost cocksure of herself and yet still radiating an air of gentleness.
“What did you say your name was?” she asked him, even though she must know that he hadn’t told her his name yet.
“…ince.” He mumbled. It was hard to get the word out while his teeth were chattering so badly. His numb, tired out brain only realized what he had said when the woman repeated it to him.
“Vince?” she wondered, having heard only part of the name and connected it with something she knew.
That was close enough and so he nodded slightly.
“Is that short for Vincent?”
Kyou nodded again. It really wasn’t, but Vincent would do. Probably better that way. After the long time in the cold, the heat made him drowsy and he could feel that his mind wasn’t working properly. He had to be careful. But how was one to be careful if the thinking organ that was supposed to do the job didn’t really do it? Whatever… seems like he had luck this time.
The tea was probably only lukewarm, she had served him the drink from a teapot that had already been standing on the table when he had entered the living room and there was no steam to indicate that it was still hot. And yet it still burned inside him, as well as the finger holding the cup. With his sore throat, each new gulp cost him quite an effort, but one he had to make to get better.
His fingers were the first thing to start burning, when they started to thaw. The whole body followed and Kyou started to shake so much that he had to put the tea down, least he’d spill it. Tears formed up in his eyes and could not be suppressed, breathing became even more difficult and Kyou nearly started to panic under the heavy feeling of not getting enough air. His breathing became rapid and deeper as he tried to suck in as much air as he could get. His chest hurt. It was like having a thousand needles poked in your lungs. Blood rushed in his ears and Kyou could feel his heart throbbing painfully loud in his chest.
“I’m hyperventilating.” He realized. “I need to stop panicking and start breathing slower. There’s enough air in my lungs, this is all just a feeling. I don’t need to breath that fast, I’m fine.”
It was hard to listen to his own advice when the feelings were so much stronger than the logic, especially since he was starting to feel dizzy on top of it all. By pressing a hand against his mouth Kyou tried to prevent himself from gasping for air.
For a moment he wanted nothing more than to run out into the cold, just to make the pains stop, but he knew that would be foolishness.
Shaking and painful he stayed where he was and waited for the pain to pass. This wasn’t the first time he was close to having hypothermia, but it never felt that bad before. Eyes closed he counted the seconds between each breath, making sure that there was an interval between each of them. Finally he managed to calm down. After a last slow exhalation, one he tried to prolong as much as possible, Kyou let his hand sag to his knees. It was still painful, but the pain was bearable now.
His host had made various trips to the kitchen and other places in the house after that and now Kyou was wrapped tightly in blankets with a freshly filled teacup as well as a plate full of cookies and fruits to eat from. The woman had informed him that there was some more appropriate food cooking in the kitchen, but that it would take a while to be ready and that he could use that time to tell her his story, for surely there had to be one.
Not seeing any harm in it Kyou had told her, told her about the refugees, about the mother with her child and about his search. The woman meanwhile listened closely.
“They just let her go alone? Why didn’t they all go together?” his host sounded honestly outraged.
“I guess they thought they could hold out in that cave they’ve been hiding in. The mother couldn’t, the baby was feverish so she couldn’t wait any longer.”
That’s what the refugees had told him anyway, with eyes that wouldn’t meet his gaze, faces plainly showing how ashamed they were, and yet not one of them had decided to search for their missing companions.
“Why do you care so much about them that you’re willing to risk your life? They aren’t related to you at all from what I gathered.” She wanted to know.
“I passed them.” He admitted. Back when he had been lost himself and was looking for a village, he had heard the cry without realizing what it was. And he hadn’t cared to check. Trouble was something he liked to avoid. How was he to know that it wasn’t some local out on their business but a mother who was looking for help for her sick child?! That all had only become clear when he met the other refugees in the capital. If only they hadn’t let her go alone, then none of this would have happened. But that wasn’t the time to shift the blame, was it? Had he taken one minute to check things out, he would have found the woman and her daughter and could have led them to the right direction. It wasn’t his fault that they were lost, but he could have helped anyway. If only his caution against other humans hadn’t gotten in the way.
“And now you feel responsible for them?”
Surprised Kyou looked up, directly into the woman’s eyes, trying to decide if she was serious.
“No. I don’t.” he said. “I just can’t get that little cry out of my head and I don’t wish it to haunt me for the rest of my life.” he finally answered her truthfully
The woman, Linda, snorted, as if he had said something funny, but didn’t explain herself. And Kyou didn’t ask. It didn’t matter what she thought of him anyway.
“Please excuse my frankness, but even a local tracker would not be able to find the two in this kind of weather and you don’t look like you know anything about tracking. How are you going to find them?” she inquired. It didn’t seem like a question she expected an answer on, it was more to point out how futile his action was.
“I’ll find them.” He told her with a dark conviction. For a change he really felt it. “They are trouble, you see.” A mother with her baby child getting lost in the middle of nowhere, just when the land was suffering under the worst cold in years and with a snowstorm coming, what else would they be than trouble?
“And I always find trouble. Whether I want or not.” That at least was true and so he hoped it would work. The only hole in his logic was that he normally ran away from trouble rather than to look for it. Would he find it even when he tried, or would this be the only time he failed to do so?
“I’ll find them for sure.” He repeated.
Beside he had to go, or that sound would follow him forever. That little almost unhearable sound of someone crying. If only he hadn’t ignored it. If only he had gone to look! Lots of trouble could have been avoided if he had reacted back then. But he hadn’t and going down the IF path would not change his failure. All he could do was go forward and correct his mistake. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too late for that.
“Can I really not say anything to make you change your mind and stay? Going now would just be plain suicide. At least wait until the morning, when the storm has passed and there’s light to see. We could organize a search party then that would be more sensible.”
Kyou shook his head and they both felt silent. The silence dragged out, the woman just leaning against the table, hands behind her to keep her stabile, eyes on the stranger who insisted on his foolishness. Then she went back to the kitchen to do whatever she had been doing before he had come along. Sometimes later she came back, crossed her arms and stared silently at her visitor. After some long moments she spoke again.
“Still here? Did you change your mind?”
Kyou looked up from his teacup, looking surprised.
“I’m going.” He told her with his hoarse voice. “But I’d like to warm up completely before I set out again. If that’s all right with you.” It would take quite some time before he was ready, but in the long run he’d probably save time. He would be able to move faster once he got his strength back, not to mention that he was less likely to die that way.
After the warmth of the house’s fireplace, the cold air outside was almost welcome. He had needed that warming up very badly, but after a while the air in the house seemed stuffy and suffocating hot. The lamp he had nicked on his way out was shining in a warm light, swinging back and forth as he moved, turning shadows into solid outlines where the sphere of light could reach. It was an old model and the young man was surprised that they still used it in this place, but the lamp was very sturdy and efficient so maybe there was a good reason for this old thing to be still relied on.
Kyou took a deep breath, bracing himself against what was yet to come and went out of the garden gate into the night.
If the world had been quiet before, only alive and inhabited by the faint rustling of the leaves or the layers of snow that fell from the branches of the trees, it was now roaring at full force. The strong winds were creating such a noise that they swallowed all other sounds. It was even impossible to hear his own footsteps and Kyou started to worry again. Was he really able to find the missing parent and child? It was hard to see while having snow blown into your face and if it turned out impossible to hear then his chances were slim. The best he could hope for was to run into them by accident and while the valley he was heading to was indeed a small one, his sight was limited to a radius of a few meters, not nearly enough comb through the whole place in one go. But maybe his light would be enough to show his position and have the mother approach him instead. If she had any sense and still enough strength (the part that was most likely the crux of everything) she would do just that.
While following the river, Kyou had indeed missed his turning point, but after consulting his map it turned out that there was a path just next to the lonely cottage that would lead him straight to the valley. It was maybe not exactly “straight” but there were no bypasses to mislead him and it was by far more easily to follow than taking a random route through the densely wooded forest. Indeed he managed to walk at a faster pace even though the snow was starting to pile up.
Practically no time seemed to have passed when Kyou finally entered the valley. The light wasn’t strong enough to enlighten the mountains that stood at both sides, but the boy imagined that he could feel their enormous weight. It was eerie and reassuring at the same time. The wind blew through this place as well, but the snake like entrance sheltered the valley from the worst of it and while the snow was definitely thick layered here as well, it didn’t seem to be as bad as before.
As if the little cottage had marked a turning point in his journey, everything started to look better now. But the mother and her child were still nowhere to be found.
Slower as to not miss them now that he was so close, or at least he hoped that he was, Kyou made his way forward through the valley, holding the lamp up high to make its light reach as far as possible. Unless they had walked in a very awkward circle, this was the only place they could have arrived at after missing all those villages on the way. And with the baby on her arms it was unlikely that the mother had already passed this point of the island. So they had to be here somewhere for sure.
He had walked like that for a while when a noise was hearable from behind and Kyou spun around with one hand still holding the lamp while the left hand had reached for the wooden sword on his belt.
Just before it vanished in one of the bushes, Kyou’s eyes caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure of distinctive shape.
A dog, no … a wolf.
From farther to the left a twig snapped in two and alerted Kyou of the presence of another wolf. Was it a whole pack? If so that would be bad for him. The woman – Linds – had warned him of bears, but the wolves were just as likely starved and willing to go to extreme measures to catch some food. With drawn sword he tried to keep track of them. Their footsteps were mostly silent but even so they could not move completely without sound at all yet it was still hard to locate them all. Were they trying to circle him?
No, that didn’t seem to be the case. The wolves had already given away their presence and yet they weren’t attacking him. Wary they kept an eye on him just as he kept his eyes on them. Careful they tried to keep their distance while staying close, it was a strange behavior and being no expert on the animals Kyou wasn’t sure what it meant.
He was glad enough that they weren’t attacking him however and decided to just circle around them. At first they followed him at some distance but then they let him go and Kyou breathe a sigh of relief. Being hunted by wolves was the last thing he needed now, but since that was avoided he went on with a much lighter heart. In the end the wolves weren’t that desperate after all or maybe they had found easier pray. That would probably be it. Maybe a deer or something like that. It was unlikely to be just a rabbit for the prey had to be big enough to feed at least part of the pack. Whatever the poor soul was, it was good that it wasn’t him.
Feeling happy about his luck Kyou started to hum a little melody, when the sound suddenly suffocated in his throat.
Easier prey…. Oh damit!
Kyou turned around on the spot and ran, silently but fervently cursing as he tried to drive himself over the limit of his speed. But no matter how fast he’d run, he was likely to be too late by now. If the prey was… if the pray was really them… there was just no way they had escaped a pack of wolves…
The animals hadn’t hunted anymore they had protected their catch. It was too late, far too late to save them now…
But at least he had to make sure. The accursing wail was sounding loudly in his mind. If he’d only listen to it the first time! Then none of this would have happened. If he had checked out… but he hadn’t and now he dreaded what he would find. After encountering the wolves, their cold dead bodies would look… No, he didn’t want to think of it and yet the picture was already vivid in his mind.
Running in the cold brought out the tears again and with both hands occupied by lamp and sword, he couldn’t even wipe them off.
The animals had left him alone when he had only passed them by, but now that he was running at them with full speed, the wolves felt threatened and attacked.
Kyou sidestepped the first of them and ducked low under the one that had tried to jump at his throat. The lamp hit the ground and the glass rattled in the metal frame but didn’t break nor did the light go out. Shaking violently under the constant spin and change of rotation that the boy used to dodge the attacks of the wild ancestors of dogs, the lamp still stayed true, never failing to cast its light even once. Things made in the old days sure held better than the modern junk.
In seconds he was past the guarding wolves. Dodging didn’t take as much time as counterattacking would have taken and fighting the wolves was not his goal. All he needed was to see the remains. To know for sure that he had failed so he could just go home again and leave those cursed woods and snowfields behind. Maybe go back to the cottage and seek shelter until the storm was past and then go to the city to look for his sister which was the main reason he had come to this island after all.
The scout wolves hadn’t been too far away from the main pack and Kyou jerked to a halt when he faced the whole group all of a sudden.
A quick count reviled about four individuals, sitting or strolling around a big tree. Even with the two wolves following him from behind, that was far less than what he had feared.
And there were no bodies at all, neither human nor animal. His fear had been wrong then, so why was he still hearing this cursed accusing crying?
Wait…
The wolves had all bared their teeth and sprung an attack on him that Kyou barely had the time to realize that the whimpering sound wasn’t coming from the inside of his mind this time.
Avoiding was a lot harder too since he was fending off more than two individuals and the space to dodge was equally smaller and filled with rows of sharp teeth but this time there would be no running. Not after finding what he had come all the way for.
The first attacker was lucky because Kyou chose to jump over him. The second got the full weight of the young man landing on his back and with a nauseating sound of breaking bones the animal crashed to the ground. It did took the wolves a second to adjust to a new direction, for the third had already passed him by as it had been heading to the place he had stood before his jump, but like a whip they turned around, flashing their teeth at him, drooling heavily out of their mouth. Kyou got one of them with a strong strike of his sword, but the other animal managed to bit into his sleeve, nearly tugging him out of balance and sending him to the ground where he would have less chance to defend himself. The sword arm seized by the wolf, Kyou had no other option than to bring down the lamp on the animal’s head. The wolf howled and threw back its head, making Kyou lose the grip on the lamp and sending the light flying in a big circle.
With a soft little thud, the light landed in the snow, where it kept on shining brightly as if nothing had happened.
Almost without thinking the young man grabbed the next wolf as it jumped at him and used the animal’s movement to send it flying. He had aimed the body at the two scout wolves that had been following him, but of course he managed to hit only one.
“Better than nothing.” He thought, when all of a sudden, the fourth wolf jumped at him from behind. Nearly twice as big as the other wolves and still moving faster than the lot of them, it was without a doubt the leading wolf. Kyou had only enough time to spin around and raise his sword, though luckily he had the presence of mind to use it as a shield rather than a weapon. The weight and acceleration of the wolf still send him flying backwards, but with the swords in both hands, one at each end, he managed to keep away the teeth from his throat. The wooden sword still inside the alpha’s mouth, they both hit the ground with the wolf on top and Kyou’s own teeth involuntarily slammed shut from the landing impact.
For some reason the wolf started to howl as if in great pain and a very nasty taste spread in Kyou’s mouth. Coughing and spitting the pink-haired man got to his feet, ribs aching some maybe even broken, while the wolf was holding a pawn to its nose, moving erratically as if out of its senses, before it turned around and vanished into the woods.
With their alpha male running off like a whipped dog the other wolves, with one dead exception, scattered as fast as they could. Kyou put the sword back into the belt, took the few tired steps and picked up his light, the lamp was still burning brightly, and lifted it to get a good look at the huddling miserable bunch clinging to the tree trunk in order to not slip off the icy limb.
There was no joy of finally having found them, instead his inside felt empty. They were still alive, having managed to evade the wolves by climbing up a tree and that was good, but Kyou was just too tried to even feel relieved. Now that he found them, his legs nearly gave in, no longer kept upright by the determination to find them. But it was much too early for this, they weren’t safe yet. Not while the cold reached out for them with its deadly fingers of ice and snow.
“Can you climb down by yourself?” Kyou asked the woman who gave him a worried look. There was no doubt that she was glad of his presence, but both her and the child had spent a longer time out in the cold than Kyou and without having the fortune of warming up in some lonely cottage so they were probably at their limit already. Even something like climbing down a few meters was probably a big hurdle for her and she had all reason to be worried. Tree climbing with a child in your arms was hardly a hazard-free action and the cold and the snow made it even worse.
“Just hand over the baby to me before you try to climb down.”
She wasn’t too high up for this to be impossible or anything and yet the woman’s reflex answer was to squeeze the child closer to herself. The baby’s soft whimpering turned to a strong wail and the mother loosened her grip, though it was visible that it took her a lot of effort.
Finally she nodded.
Carefully, as if she was passing him the world’s biggest treasure, which on a second thought from her point of view she kind of was, the woman handed him the baby.
“So small!” Kyou couldn’t remember ever holding a baby before and its fragility surprised him. Of course he had already known that babies were light and small, but knowing something and feeling it with your own hands was a complete different thing.
With the greatest care he rested the baby against his shoulder and chest, the little face was hardly visible, wrapped in multiple layers of cloth as it was and reached up with his other hand to help the mother on her way down. And not a second too late for the woman had leaned down quite dangerously as to reduce the risk for her baby, but now that the weight was out of her hands she lost the balance she had managed to keep before. Having one hand occupied with holding the baby, Kyou could not fully catch the woman and both of them dropped into the blanket of snow.
“Ow-”
The snow absorbed most of the impact of landing on his back, but since he had shielded the little child from getting harmed, there was no way to protect himself against the woman dropping on him. Her elbow painfully slammed into his belly and knocked the air out of his lungs. Meanwhile the baby was wailing right into his ear with a volume that shouldn’t be possible for such a small being.
For a moment he just stayed where he was and gasped for breath. Snow was getting into his collar, sending spikes of cold down his back and her weight was keeping him from getting up. Finally she struggled to her feet and Kyou managed to sit up.
The baby was snatched out of his hands eagerly before he was even half up.
“Thank you.” She muttered, looking down into the snow rather than into his eyes. “And sorry for that.”
And with “that” she probably meant falling down on him Kyou guessed but didn’t see a reason to comment on it.
“Thank you so much for saving us.” The woman whispered softly before she collapsed right into his arms.
It took Kyou quite a few slaps to get her conscious again. As heartless as it seemed, he just didn’t have the strength to carry both her and the child back to the cottage. It hadn’t seemed like a long way from there to here, but that was only in comparison to the first part of the journey he had made. Easy as it had seemed to him, it was probably a few long miles from here to the cottage or one of the villages at the other end of the valley. He would never make it with the woman on his back. Not with the wind picking up strength.
It had been bad before, but now he feared that every step would take double the strength from before and something small like the baby might even get blown away if the mother weren’t holding the girl so tight.
“Do you think you can walk?” he asked her and his voice sounded hoarse even worse than usually.
The woman only shook her head.
They would have to try and find a different solution.
But first things first. With stiff fingers Kyou dug around in his bag until he found it. Wordlessly he handed the pills to the mother together with the refilled thermos flask full of now lukewarm tea.
“Are those…?” There was hope in the mother’s voice and for the first time Kyou noticed how young she really was; probably in her early twenties if not younger.
He nodded.
The reason the mother had made the attempt to reach the village before any of the others got convinced of the necessity, had been the fever of her child. Since that was the case it would have been stupid to go without any medicine that could help, so Kyou had supplied himself with some that were suitable for small children.
“Stay here, I have to take a look around.”
Hopefully the wolves had gone for good. Kyou wasn’t comfortable in leaving them behind, but his search would go a lot faster without them slowing him down.
Yet he hesitated, for there was a very difficult problem – they only had one light.
Before his mind could get caught in a loop of thinking whether the light should go with him since he needed it for his search or stay with the women since they were more vulnerable, his brain nudged him into the right direction and the young man went to one of the fir trees and broke off a slim limb from one of them. Carefully as to not disturb the only fire they had, he opened the glass of the lamp, making sure that his body was protecting the flame from the raging wind, and held the twig into it until it caught fire.
Such equipped he went deeper into the woods.
It didn’t take him long to find a fitting place. The snow had piled up against the gently rising slope of the mountain and Kyou judged it deep enough to build a bivouac into it. The mountainside was a bit worrisome but all in all it wasn’t the most steeply one and the thick forest would do well to protect them against both wind and avalanches. It was a sheltered position as good as he was likely to find.
A lot more confident the young man made his way back, letting himself be leaded by the sound of the soft crying voice.
In the end it had taken him almost a full hour to prepare the shelter, but now was ready. His finger were almost frozen blue at this point and it was hard to move them at all, though the pink-haired man felt very attached to them and tried his best to keep them nimble in the hope that they wouldn’t just fall off. He was trembling from cold and cursed himself for his wet sleeves for he should have remembered to roll them up. Too late for that now.
The baby had continued to cry during the whole time and Kyou wondered where it got the strength from while he watched the parent and child as they sat in the wind shadow of a tree, huddled in the blanket which he hadn’t stolen from the women at the cottage but gotten from her as an item of loan.
“Bring that back.” The chestnut haired woman had asked of him and Kyou intended to do so.
They were trying to warm themselves at the little fire he had miraculously managed to ignite by using the already burning fire of the lamp, but most of its warmth was likely lost, blown away by the raging wind.
“Let’s move inside.” Kyou’s teeth were chattering but the mother looked a whole lot better, now that she had rested a bit and eaten most of the fruits and cookies Kyou had nicked without asking, though he doubted that it mattered to the friendly girl from the cottage. Yet the tiredness was nagging on her and the wind was a constant hassle even in the most sheltered place, making the cold feel even colder. Hopefully that would be better inside the bivouac.
The inside of the dug up bivouac was narrow and the twigs and branches he had outlaid the ground with were hardly comfortable but they were necessary to provide insulating against the cold of the snowy ground.
For a last time Kyou checked that the air hole would not get blocked by the heavily falling snow and then he too dropped on the camp and felt asleep almost immediately, for once he allowed himself to relax a bit, the full weight of his tiredness was just too much to fight against.
It was the silence that woke him the next morning. The constant howling of the storm he had gotten so used to had completely vanished and yet nature was lying low. There were no sounds of birds or other animals and the wind was so calm that one couldn’t even hear the rustling of the leaves. It was as if a big omnipresent monster had appeared and eaten up all sounds without touching anything else.
For a moment he just stayed lying down as he was and let the calmness wash over him, let it enter his mind while his eyes were riveted on the woman next to him. Her sleeping face was peaceful, but he could see yesterday’s hardships deeply engraved on it. One night’s rest in an uncomfortable igloo was hardly going to make her feel better.
A branch was poking his back very uncomfortably and Kyou shifted his body in order to find a more agreeable position. But his movement caused the mother to stir and in less than a minute the loud wails of the baby drove away the silence for good.
With the calmness gone, there was nothing to keep him from getting up and so the boy fled the bivouac while the woman tried to calm down her girl.
It wasn’t snowing anymore, but that didn’t mean that there was a lack of the cold white stuff. Despite the protected location of the valley, the snow had piled up over a full meter in some places. Where the trees were standing closer to each other the snow layer was thinner because part of it was still hanging up on the trees. Kyou squinted at first for the sun was shining brightly and the light got reflected on the cover of snow which was sparkling as if it was filled with diamonds.
After his eyes adjusted to the light, Kyou could finally take in his surroundings. Late and dark as it had been during the night, he had hardly seen much, though he had seen the forest surrounding them. The forest was still there of course, but the ground was littered with broken tree branches and one tree had been completely uprooted and fallen just next to his bivouac. Only a few feet to the left and they would have been squashed to death in their sleep.
“Is there still some tea, Mr. Vincent?” the mother asked him as she climbed awkwardly out of the bivouac. Yesterday she had asked him for his name and Kyou has stuck to the name that the cottage woman had misheard. The less people knew who he was, the better.
“No. There isn’t.”
The thermos flask was all he had had.
“Let’s move on and find a village, there we’ll get some food and drink.”
Yet moving forward didn’t prove as easy as he thought it would. When he had gotten up, Kyou had felt so refreshed, but once they started to move again, the tiredness was back almost immediately and while it was easier to find their way in the shining daylight, the thick blanket of snow prevented them from moving fast. Even when they stuck to routes that were closer to trees and therefore not as heavily laden with snow, each step was still a big effort for their exhausted bodies.
Trying to lessen the burden on the mother who just wouldn’t let him carry her crying daughter, Kyou walked in front and stamped down the snow as best as he could so the woman would have it easier to follow. This sort of movement however, took more energy and the pink-haired man knew that his strength wouldn’t last forever. And the cold was still there as well. The storm might have passed over but it was still bitterly cold.
“Mr. Vincent.”
“…”
“Mr. Vincent.” Her voice sounded again and Kyou turned around. The woman was a lot farther behind than he had thought she was. The part of her face that was looking out under the many layers of cloth was pale and her body was shaking.
“I don’t think I can walk anymore.” Her voice was trembling and a single tear, either from the cold or from the desperation, ran over her cheek.
“You have to.” Kyou’s usually hoarse voice was almost gentle, but he spoke matter of fact.
“We’re almost out of the valley and the next village isn’t far from there.” He tried to sound both convincing and encouraging at the same time for he knew that he wouldn’t have the strength to carry her.
And yet he went back and took her free arm into a strong link, not outright caring her but giving her the support that she desperately seemed to need.
“…”
They had walked like that for the good part of an hour, or so was Kyou’s estimation, though his feeling for time had already forsaken him again by then.
“Stay here. I… have to check something out.”
Without the woman slowing him down he was a lot faster and in the matter of a few minutes he reached the exit of the valley. Or at least the point where the exit should have been…
An avalanche, undoubtedly caused by the storm, was blocking their path. The pink-haired boy almost felt like sinking to his knees, but he knew that standing up again would take out much of his dwindling reserves of resolve. After a few deep and painfully cold breaths to calm him down, Kyou let his eyes wander over the landscape in front of him, looking for a way to pass the hurdle. If there only was a way past it, they would nearly be safe!
But there wasn’t. No matter how hard he looked, there was no way over the wall of ice and debris. Not even for him alone and even less for a mother with a suckling in her arms.
“We have to go back the other way.” He told her while grinding his teeth.
If only he had chosen to head for the little cottage rather than to the villages on this side! But they HAD been closer and a rural conglomeration was still easier to find than a single house, so it had been the logical decision. Only that this time his logical decision would kill them.
“I hate this, it isn’t fair!” he thought like some stupid little boy. As if life had ever been fair to anyone. It made him so angry. Angry at himself and at the other refugees that should not have let the mother go all by herself, especially not if they were going to change their mind later on, angry at the landslide that stopped them so close before their goal, angry at the whole world and it’s ways, but mostly angry at himself and his stupidity. Had he only reacted when he first heard the girl cry, then none of this would have happened.
Some of his anger must have shown on his face, for the mother took a step away from him and pressed her whimpering baby against her chest, looking almost frightened. Kyou tried to calm his emotions by force, and while his inner turmoil didn’t stop he at least managed to relax his face.
“I’m sorry, but this path is blocked. We’ll have to try the other end and hope we can get out there.”
“If we even get that far.”, he thought but held back from voicing it out loud.
And so they walked and walked some more, until they passed the place where they had stayed the night. By them Kyou was back to taking one step at a time, his mind numb he had to force each one of them.
“Just one more and I can rest.” He told himself. “Just one more step.”
The valley was too small to really get lost so all he had to do was go forward. And forward.
“She isn’t crying anymore.”
Numb from the cold as he was, it took Kyou a moment to understand what the mother had been saying and then he realized that the whining he had been hearing all this time was not coming from the baby but its mother.
It nearly broke him.
“Useless wimpy idiot. Stupid pathetic asshole. You should have just died back then.” He told himself with contempt.
But he didn’t have the time to be broken yet. There was nothing he could do for the baby, but the mother wasn’t dead yet.
He half pulled half carried her forward, while she would repeat the same sentence all over and over again. She wasn’t crying though, the cold had dried up all the tears.
Snow clung to his shoes and his legs were feeling heavier and heavier, but her lamenting was weighting him down even more.
“Can’t do anything right. Dammit! Can’t even get one single thing right! This is so pathetic.”
For a moment his ears closed almost completely, letting only muted sounds pass as if someone had pushed cotton into his ears and his sense of balance turned upside-down, nearly toppling him. With a feeling of nausea he held on to a tree until the moment passed and his senses returned to normal.
“Is this how it feels like to die?” he wondered, but was only mildly concerned. Somehow death seemed inevitable.
Kyou stumbled on but the woman on his side dropped to her knees and he couldn’t get her to rise again. The boy wasn’t even sure if she heard his words. All she did was talk to the little bundle on her arms and she seemed completely unaware of her surroundings.
Tired as he was, he slumped down next to her. His breath was going heavily and his vision seemed to blur.
“It’s all right.” He told her softly and took her in his arms. The embrace wouldn’t be enough to protect her from the cold, but somehow it felt right.
“So that’s it. End of the road. No more dreaming, it’s time to wake up from this nightmare.”
The boy was much too tried to even care or be afraid. He did resent the snow however. The fluffy white stuff was nasty, always so bright, always so pure… as well as cold and unforgiving. It was the last way he wanted to die, though true be told, he didn’t want to die at all. At least he wasn’t bleeding. Red on white, it would have looked horrible…
“It’s all right. It’s all right.” He told her while his mind had somehow still enough strength left to point out the barking sounds in the distance.
“At least the wolves will have something to eat.” He thought and it almost made him laugh, though he couldn’t say why that was so funny.
They were coming closer at an alarming speed and Kyou wondered if he was already frozen enough to not feel the pain of being bitten to death. Probably not. Ugg…
His dwindling senses noticed another sound mixed into the barking, it sounded almost like…
CRYS!
Someone was calling for them and by the amount of different voices it must be a whole search party!
“We’re here.” He wanted to cry out, but his voice failed him and all he managed was a whisper. Again he filled his lunges with icy cold air and with as much volume as he could master he shouted for help.
“HERE!”
They must have heard him, or maybe the dogs had picked up their smell, but only moments later a dog sled pulled up beside them.
“I FOUND THEM!” the driver shouted out much louder than Kyou ever could and in the blink of an eye two other sleds arrived.
Too tired to move by himself, Kyou let the people take the woman out of his arms and wrap her into a blanket. The locals had brought hot drinks as well, but the piece of cloth was about the most welcome thing Kyou ever got.
“I told you!” a very familiar voice somewhere outside his vision told him. “You’d only get yourself killed if you go in the middle of the night rather than waiting till the storm has passed over, that’s what I told you and I was right, wasn’t I?”
The woman from the little cottage was right of course, but Kyou had no strength to answer. It was all so pathetic, HE was pathetic. Not only had he failed to save anyone, he nearly got himself killed and had to be saved by the locals in the end. You probably couldn’t be any more a failure than that.
Wrapped tight into a blanket he was put on one of the sleds. Linds was still scolding him but he let her words wash over him.
Tired, he was so tired… Everything started to get black as he slipped into sleep.
The sound of wailing managed to reach his fading senses.
Somewhere beyond the darkness, the baby started to cry again.