13 CHAPTER 13: FROSTBITE

"Please help me...anyone", I whispered in between sobs with my head burrowed in my knees, curled down like a crumpled paper in the midst of a blizzard. The pain of losing my family right before my innocent eyes is so overwhelming that the frostbite creeping like an infection in my skin didn't bother me at all. The thick layers of snow slowly covering my body as I sat down under an oak tree with my bare feet burning in the icy grounds. Wounds and scratches all over my from running and falling down, the the fact that I've been running for many hours already. Trying to escape both the pain, the life that I had, the ones who slaughtered my family and the memories that we shared with together.

Tear rolled down on my cheeks as I walked down a memory lane. It was until last evening that my life was still at peace. It happened so fast, like a hurricane came in so suddenly and destroyed everything that we built for years. The happiness, now completely turned into absolute sorrow and pain, agony and bad memories. If this was a dream I would like to shrugged myself and wake up, but reality hurts as much as wishing that these things didn't happen at all.

I pulled my head up and looked at the thick, grey clouds hovering above the land. Winter is such a very lonely season. You'll never get to feel the sunshine and live with hope again.

"What am I gonna do now?", I told myself as I look around. The sun had set and the night came crawling like a shadow that consumes all life forces in the world. I sighed and picked myself up. I haven't eaten anything for a while and I'm starting to feel week. Breathing then became difficult as I went on moving forward to somewhere I don't know. I just have to go where my shaky, wounded and worn out feet takes me.

Few hours passed and I'm still walking. Going on like a dead person that has no free will. Wishing for a place to take shelter with or just a food to eat. But the forest seemed like an abyss of eternity, driving me into madness going back and forth to the same patterns over and over again.

It was until 11 PM, or so I thought, that I finally saw a light from a trek going down the forest mountain. A shot of hope came rushing into me as I took fast paces to the origin of the light, hoping it will considered helping me at any cost.

At least that was the last thing I knew.

I walked down, almost crossing boundaries in the trek as I went on in a zigzag motion due to fatigue and breathlessness. I just looked forward to the source of light, almost running in a thick icy ground with my feet, dipped down burning in the snow. But pain became almost just an immunity at all. I have to save myself.

"Help...is there anyone out there?", I shouted.

I heard the sound of bottles and knives just a few meters away from where I was walking. The sound slowly became clearer and vivid as I get closer to the light. People who I realized was bandits and thieves came into view, we both met each other's gaze.

I stopped at my tracks and swallowed a lump in my throat. Of all the people I must stumble upon, I crossed path with a group of loot hungry and murderous people. I was about to turn my back when I heard one of them exclaimed.

"Hey boy! Wanna have fun?", the man with a thick facial hair laughed with his dirty teeth and pointed his dagger on me teasingly.

"Yeah yeah yeah, come serve us", the other one on his side seconded him. He pulled himself up and walked towards me. Their reeks of liquor can be smelled from a few meters away. I took another gulp and slowly moved backwards.

"Oooy, there's no running from us!", Another one laughed like maniac and pulled his crossbow and started walking towards me. The rest of them followed.

The familiar fear of being chased came rushing into my nerves once again. I picked myself up and ran to the opposite direction and back into the woods. The layer of snow slowing down my pace but I have to keep going.

My eyes widened at the sight of twin arrows pierced through the thick bark of pine tree beside me. One of the guys started shooting arrows at me, but I evaded their attacks by running in cross motion. They started running faster and faster until they almost reach my back.

But I screamed in pain as a sharp arrow hit my at the back of my shoulder. I came crashing down on my knees and looked back at them, their figures slowly getting closer and closer. So I picked myself once again and scampered through the dark, bushy and icy forest.

"Give up little pig, papa wolf is here!", One of them whooped like a psychopath as I fell down in a small clear. My breath, just an inch away from my body. My strength gave up on me. I let out another cry of pain as a pair of arrow hit my legs simultaneously. Now I can't walk any further.

A pair of hands me back and crashed me with my back. In the thick snow layered ground.

"I beg you, spare me, I just lost my entire family", I almost cried at the his grip on my neck. His stinky breath almost poisoning my lungs.

"Not my problem boy, you got a beautiful chain out there", He signalled one of his guy to pin me on the ground.

I shrugged on their clutch but his hands were so strong that my bones almost broke at his grasp.

"Bingo", The guy who I assumed as their leader pulled the necklace that my father gave me on my 15th birthday. His face almost ecstatic at the sight of my golden locket in front of his face. He placed the necklace in his pocket and rubbed his chin. He looked at me from head to toe with a hint of malice and let his tongue out.

"Come to think of it, he could be use of a replacement for women", He commented as he looked at his mates with a stinky laugh.

My eyes widened at their ideas. The rest of his gang came closer at me and pinned my backwards. Their hands crawling at my chest then to my back as they ripped my shirt off. The touch of the piercing snow brushed sharply on my chest. Two of them pinned my hand down backwards while the other one took a grip of my mouth to prevent me from screaming.

I felt a tongue run through my skin at my back. I shrugged and scream under the palm of one the men holding me down as my tears fell down on my cheeks.

The thought of my parents smiling back when our lives were still normal came flashing into my mind as I shut my eyes. The warmth of my tears touched my face as it streamed down in into my lips. The bitterness of my situation and the hints of salt in my tears reminded me of my imminent demise in the hands of this heartless creatures.

The big guy ripped my undershirt and my pants leaving me naked lying on my back to the ground. Pinned down like a helpless prey dominated by predators.

I shut my eyes in outright frustration and defeat as their genitals touched my lower back. Forced it inside and throbbed it back and forth. The physical pain affected my body but the spiritual and emotional impact of being abused shattered my heart and soul, like the movements they execute, over and over again.

When one had enough, the other one follows. Until everyone gets satisfied by the call of lust in their human biological needs.

The last one cascaded his load inside me and pulled himself up. Leaving me in trance, trauma and shock that I just looked up into the sky and tears flowed down like a river. My body felt burned, broke and lifeless as they stood up and exchanged fives and laughed at me like I'm some kind of a wasted garbage of life.

"Rich people taste good", One of them commented as he waved his genital in one of his mates. They laughed and exchanged fives again.

The sight of them enjoying my situation formed a lump of bitterness in my throat. I shut my eyes and drove back into a memory lane.

My family, smiling back at me at the dinner table as we talked about the good things that we had during the day. The scene seemed to look fine but as it goes I saw my families face warped and decapitated and they started spilling blood with their mouth. I screamed at the sight of their faces but a sharp pain on my gut dragged me back to reality.

I looked down to see a dagger pinned right through my gut. I can taste a rusty liquid going out of my mouth as my blood spilled. Another shot of death blow hit my upper torso then another one and another one. My blood spilled around my body, giving a sharp contrast to the white, velvet snow. The scene so intense that I cried instead of tears, blood.

I whimpered in pain, unable to say another word when a fatal blow cut me off from my connection to the living world. A thick, bloodstained axe dug on me through my chest, breaking my ribs and heart at the same time. My sight instantly turned black as I spiralled into nothingness.

My life has left my body. After all the struggle and fight between breathing and surviving, death triumphed above it all. My dead body was left like nothing in the middle of the winter, slowly buried by the endless fallout of snow from the clouds.

In a heart beat I found myself standing in a middle of a cherry blossom field ground. Nothing can be seen but horizon of nothingness across each direction. The wind blew softly and brushed my hair. looked up to see the sky, so clear and blue, and it stared down at me. Everything is quiet. So quiet that only my heart beat and the soft whispers of the wind can be heard.

In a heart beat, I felt someone's presence behind my back. So I looked around and saw a naked figure standing with his back against me. The wind blew stronger and voices started whispering around. The sky gradually turned grey then black and then crimson and the cherry blossom petals started melting down into blood. I looked at the figure once again and slowly turned to face me. My eyes widened at the sight of his face.

A face so familiar that even with the distorted features I can truly say that he's me.

"Who are you?", I asked with my soft natural voice.

"I am the blood of five sin, five abominations and five curse. I am you", he smiled and everything around me stopped.

I shut my eyes and screamed as my double figure dashed straight to me in a lightning speed with his crimson eyes and sharp fangs. He grabbed my neck and dug his razor sharp canines and sucked my blood.

I opened my eyes and found myself floating in a space like dimension. All my memories playing like a movie around me. I looked around to see mirror right in front of me. I looked at my face. Everything seemed so fine but as I went closer, I started to realize my hair changing colour, my eyes turned crimson from pure hazel, and my skin so pale like I was drained out of blood. My lips became so red like it was dipped in blood and my body toned up a little mascular but leaned. The last thing I knew was feeling a strong amount of energy rushing down my nerves and I feel like I was so high that I can't feel any sorts of pain at all. I shut my eyes and extended my arms. I felt a surge of power in my body. I opened my eyes once again and a malevolent, malicious and stunningly dangerous looking version of myself looked back at me. I narrowed my eyes and let out a smile and the glass started cracking until it completely broke.

I felt like my old self again. Floating in a space like dimension with all my memories.

Suddenly, a strong force of gravity pulled me down into a deep endless fall. As I went down, I heard my father's voice saying his last words. Voices started whispering as I fall deep into nothing, then the words "I love you" I suddenly came into something in my back. My back collided with someone's back as it goes upward, opposing mine. My body came as one with him and everything went black.

I felt the heavy weight of the layers of snow piled down on me. It has been days I supposed since the ground came and buried me this thick. I opened my eyes and I never felt the same again.

I rose up like a flame in the middle of a blizzard. Naked and with my body so perfectly carved. My hair flowing like silver strings in a snow dust wind and my lips, red as blood. I looked up to the moon and it illuminated my grey eyes. My body felt so light that I can even ride the air. An infinite amount of energy surged like a tidal wave into my nerves as I extended my arms and feeling the birth of an ego. I looked around and saw the daggers and the knives scattered around the thick snow floor.

Then once again, I saw the red stain splattered harshly on the ground giving contrast to the white hue of the snow, I rose up from the sheets of my brutal death, from the covers of blood in the snow, in the middle of the winter.

The Blood Winter...