Escape

Afriel ran through all piles of trash and almost skate his way to his house. He checked the surroundings but saw or heard no wolfs near him. He quickly opened the door and shouted for mom.

"MOM, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

He didn't hear an answer at first but soon one she answered.

"Afriel is that you?"

Afriel followed the sound to find his mother in her bedroom with a knife in her hand.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

"Defending myself."

"There's no time for self-defense now, wolfs are attacking, we must escape!"

Afriel could see terror on her mother's face and felt bad for her but now it wasn't time for that. They had to run away and fast.

"Quick, pack a little and put on warm clothes."

"Where are you going?"

"I need to pack also."

Afriel left the room and didn't answer any more questions. This made him feel a bit bad, but there's nothing he could do about it.

His room was really small. He only had a bed, table, and shelf in there. No carpets, nightstands, or other luxury items. Afriel put on a light robe, it would blend more with the environment so the wolfs would not see him.

He grabbed a knife from the table, it was a rather small machete, which was perfect for the still growing boy. It was a gift, that his mother gave him last year.

He had not used it yet, but it was an important memory for him and didn't want to lose it.

He heard some noises outside and glanced through the window. He saw people already running on the ice towards the sleds. The had to hurry up now.

He almost jumped towards the front door, where mom was already waiting.

"Wait!"

He stopped mom from opening the door and just opened the door barely. Only so much, that he could see if there were any wolfs nearby.

Everything was clear.

He grabbed mother's hand and they started running towards the frozen lake. The sleds were about one hundred meters from the shore so thieves or other monsters would not destroy them.

More people started to appear behind them, they seemed to have left in a good time as they were one of the first, that would arrive at the sleds. Afriel felt so happy and relieved. They could even walk and still arrive with the first ones.

He glanced back again and saw some woman fall down. He felt bad for the lady, but it was not his problem. He was there only to help his mother. However, his mother did not think the same way.

Afriel felt mom's sudden stop and trying to pull him away.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

"We need to help that lady."

"But what has she done for us?"

"She's another human of this village."

Afriel felt angry. Those people had done nothing to help him and his mom so why should they help them? Mom seemed convinced, however. What a pain.

"Okay, I'll help her, you go and take a seat at the sledge.

"Fine, but you better come back safe."

"Of course."

Afriel let go of her hand and started sprinting towards the woman. At the same time a wind started to become stronger and was blowing snow into Afriel's face.

Luckily, he remembered the woman's location and easily found her in the storm.

He had no idea who she was, as he had not talked to the villagers other than the children. She had bent her ankle. Afriel helped her stand up and carry her towards the sledge.

A lot of people ran past them without batting an eye. The woman was breathing heavily, like she was out of breath or sick. I wonder what made her like this.

In the heavy snowstorm, Afriel soon started to see the sledges. But that was not the only thing, that he saw. Or it was but he heard something else.

Howling...

The wolfs were approaching. They had finished off everyone at the village and were not following scents of blood and sweat and that was here. They had to leave quickly.

He saw someone come closer from the sledges. It was a muscular man, who had a white beard. Probably from all the snow. He took the woman on his shoulder and started running towards the sledge.

Afriel was relieved, that it was not his responsibility anymore and also started running.

He fell down.

But not because of a hole or she laces. He felt sudden pain in his knee. He looked down to see a big stone at his feet and he felt the warmth of the blood coming out.

What? Had someone thrown a rock at him? No, that wasn't possible. He looked up to see the sledges going away.

No no no no no no no no no. This wasn't happening now.

He was crawling on the snow trying to get closer to the place where the sledges once were. He was hitting the soft ground with his fists, hoping that they would come back.

They did not. They had already left. Another howl could be heard and that made Afriel wake up from his daydream. He got up and started walking towards the shore.

Not into the village of course. That would be stupid. He didn't walk straight west towards the village but rather north-west. There was a lot of mountains in there.

He had visited that place once before and had not run into any monsters. There would be a lot of caves and other places, that he could hide into until morning.

He was slowly walking, he tried to jog or run but his knee was hurting too much. He was holding it with his other hand while limping.

He didn't hear any noises, except the wind but that alone would cover all the other noises that happened in his surroundings. He could only hope that the smell of his blood was also covered by the snow.

He soon started to notice the huge mountains in the distance. The first thing he needed after this was a cave big enough for him to sleep in, but small enough to stop the wolfs from coming.

He saw the huge figures of the mountains, all of them being over five hundred meters tall and with spark needle like hills.

Afriel could see the rising walls of the mountains covered in ice. As he tried to go between them, he got stuck in almost everywhere, as his clothes were getting frozen with the mountains.

He saw many holes and caves, but they were always not big or small enough. He had already walked for almost fifty meters inside the mountain valley and his hands were getting frozen in place.

Then he saw it. The mouth of a cave, where he could barely crawl inside. When he got inside, it was a lot larger. He started to almost cry from happiness but tears were freezing on his face, so he stopped.

The cave was warm and he was super tired. He had no way of making fire or warm himself up so he could only make himself as small as possible and not let any bit of heat go.

Like that he slept for the first night.