Chapter 5: Unforgiving cold.

She rested calmly in a grassy field, the blue sky was cleared from any clouds and the soft warm wind flowed through her delicately, she looked to the side, her attention called by something, it was a dog, big and white and fluffy, it looked at her, she tries to pet it, however, as she extends her hand, the animal began to bark at her, screaming aggressively and soon groaning.

The sky turned red, the dog turned into a screaming Yeti, and a sword plummeted down from above stabbing the grassy field and freezing it all. She tries to run away as the freezing kills everything it touches, the yeti, the flowers, even the wind dies out by the power of the sword.

She isn't fast enough, she slips and falls, she sees the ice freezing her leg, and her image is reflected across the ice. Yet, instead of her normal self, she sees a demon, a horned, white and red monster.

Lily screams and wakes up.

Once again Lily had woken up in the cold snowy cave, loneliness was starting to become bearable. She kept eating the yeti and practising her sword, the exercise kept her warm while also distracting her from the loneliness.

She looked at the severed head of the yeti, its large horns were black like charcoal and its face was as fresh as it was when she first killed it. Its eyes felt like it was judging her, asking her why she had murdered him in such a cruel way.

Unable to withstand the cold look of the creature she throws the head to the other grave and throws snow on top of it. She then starts throwing snow down burying the two corpses.

She keeps training, swinging her sword, practising push-ups and abs workouts, strengthening her body as well as isolating her mind. Only three things showed up as she practiced, hunger, her father, and her mission.

However, she is weak, she realizes this as she readies herself to train. She places her hands down on the snow, her hands sinking in as she ignores the cold.

She had grown accustomed to it, she used her legs as support, placing them down along with her hands. She then tries to keep her body up using only her hands, her arms trembling as she places her muscles under such a strain for the first time in her life.

She goes down and then tries to push upwards, Lily could feel the tingling pain in her arms, the strain felt somewhat enjoyable as her body was heating up.

Sadly as she pushes up, she immediately collapses down, she is incredibly weak, even if she was only a 16-year-old girl, she was far too out of shape.

However, she stood in the same position again, arms holding through the front, legs temporarily scaffolding the rest of the weight of her body. She again tries to go down and up, she sort of gets to do so, yet fails.

The rest of the day kept being the same repetition, push-ups, eating and sword training.

On the first day of her routine, she was barely able to do three push-ups in a row. Yet, by the third day, she was capable of doing ten, and by the fifth day, she was doing twenty.

Her growth was exponential. It was as if the world was rewarding her by making her grow quickly, as if distracting herself and focusing on the mission was the correct move.

While she kept training the yeti's body was continuously being emptied by Lily who consumed more and more of its body.

She no longer saw the Yeti as a living being, but more as food and resources she could use. Soon enough, she began cutting pieces of the skin of the furry demon to create better, warmer clothing, shoes, shirts and a hood.

All things to better handle the cold, she tied up together by using more skin as cords, and broken bones as her needles to make small holes around them. The creature she once found terrifying, the creature she felt guilty of murdering, was now no longer something she even looked at twice in the mornings.

Her sword rested by her side, during her hours of improvised crafting, soon enough she would be forced to go outside the cave, to go to the unforgiving cold and find more food, and her sword awaited that moment with glee.

That moment had arrived, she was ready, her strength was that of a grown man, her swings were better and stronger, and her clothing was ready.

She now was wearing boots, a shirt and a hood long enough to protect most of her body, it was white because of the creature's natural fur colour and red because of the blood-stained by Lily.

She looked outside the cave, the endless plain of tundra could be seen throughout the horizon. The wind blew harshly outside, her hood moving along protecting her from it.

She held her sword, the metal was cold on her hands, frozen by hell. She tied it on her waistline with a leftover cord and walked out.

Around the cave was the mountain that formed it, it was large to the point that the tip of it could be seen from above the clouds. Meanwhile, the below part was surrounded by black spiky sharp rocks, as if to stop foolish travelers from getting any deeper into the mountain.

However, Lily was determined, she needed to understand well what was around her cave, and she needed to find food and perhaps a better, warmer shelter. Her steps could be heard from the snow that compressed from her weight.

She approached the many rocks and began holding them, the pain was sharp, and blood trickled down from her palm to the snowy ground, "it doesn't hurt..." Lily thinks to herself, her nerves had already been frozen, but she could feel the pain. She endured while lying to herself.

As she held onto the spiky rocks, she positioned her boots on top of two rocks below the ones in her hand. She began climbing the rock, left hand up, right hand up, left foot up and right foot up, a trail of blood was left with each new rock she had reached.

As she arrived a few meters upwards, she was able to see a plain zone, she had officially arrived at the mountain.

As she recovered a bit, she observed her environment, she had arrived at a curious-looking forest.

She approached one of the many black trees surrounding her, as she touched it she noticed the stone-like texture, like a sculpture carefully crafted to look like a tree, an attempt at replicating wood.

However, something was odd about the stone tree, she felt heat emanating from it, and she could see tiny bits of what seemed to be a green glow.

Lily felt curious as to what that thing was, she grabbed her sword and positioned herself, doing a lateral cut to the tree. Her swing was swift and strong, incredibly better than when she first held the blade.

Yet, when the stone tree fell it made no sound, it simply lay there, separated from its roots. Lily noticed the green glow disappeared, while the trunk of the tree remained glowing.

As she touched the cut down the tree she realized it had lost its heat. "Useless" it seemed there that her short-lived hope for a heat source was once again extinguished.

She looked further, her steps compressing the snow below her. The stone forest emanated heat, yet the snow around it did not melt, in fact as she touched the snow closer to the borders of the trunks she realized that the snow was warm to the touch.

The snow was warm, yet it did not melt, further proving the nonsensical laws of that world. She once again looked at the stone trees. There was a large forest that was composed of these trees, she had noticed a bright red ball in one of them.

She approached it, it was red and round, like most red balls are, as she touched it she could feel a smooth apple-like texture.

She looked at the ball for a few seconds, calculating the chance of it being a new food source. She took a bite of the apple only to regret it immediately.

-Eww- She says as she spits out the bitten piece, -sand- it tasted like sand. In hindsight, it made sense that a stone tree would make a sand fruit. Well, it didn't make sense, but by now she had gotten accustomed to nonsense.

Lily throws the apple to the ground, disappointed at the taste of the fruit.

She keeps walking deeper and deeper into the warm dark forest. There doesn't seem to be a single living being inside it. An abandoned stone forest, where not even insects want to be close to.

However, as she is about to walk back to where she came from she hears something, someone, from somewhere inside the forest, as she observes from where the sounds originated she sees a bright light, becoming ever larger and brighter by the second.

Lily looked at the light in awe, as it contrasted with the rest of the dark environment, to the point she could move away from it.