Winter in the mountain

Alric emerged slowly from his slumber.

The light was still passing through his heavy eyelid, showing the day wasn't finished yet.

His mind retook control of his body, intense tiredness shrouding him, mixed surprisingly with explosive energy.

"Ouch," he thought, "That's some crazy pain we have there.." Alric pondered jokingly, feeling as if he had just passed under a train or some sort of herbivorous herd.

Looking around, he couldn't see any differences in the area, aside from the position of the sun, now much lower on the horizon.

Mozzi was standing guard next to him, in a much better shape than before, scaring the small predatory that had tried to approach Alric.

"Thanks, buddy, I owe you one!" Alric said a bit absentminded.

"Wait, where is the crazy girl?" he fearfully thought, glancing around while instinctively protecting his neck with his arms.

"And where are all my previous wounds?" he ask himself again, feeling not a bit of pain while moving.

Seeing nothing of note apart from some blue crabs bickering near the river over a dead fish, he sighed, tired of being constantly on the run, his nerves a bit spent after the last days.

"What is that?" he asked himself while seeing a small heap of dust near him, approximately where he thought the woman was when he fell unconscious.

Prudently closing over, he carefully took a wood stick nearby to touch the strange dust.

When the wood reached it, the powder instantly disappeared in the air, too small and too light to resist even a small touch.

"Could it be...?" Alric couldn't believe his eyes.

Under the grey powder, were laying still some claws and teeth.

He instantly recognized them as being previously on the gorgeous woman he just killed.

"Did I... Absorb her?" he thought.

Linking the enormous energy circulating freely in his body, his previous grievous wounds now almost closed up, he kind of understand that without eating her, he nevertheless absorbed the energy present in her body, resulting in this pile of dust.

"What remains of her is probably the hardest part... No, that's not it, there are no bones around too. Is it perhaps the parts of her which were modified by her rabidness? I don't remember seeing such things with the rabbit tho."

Not sure about his intuition, Alric took a bit of time to organise his thought and analysed what happened.

Glancing at his left arm, he could not help but be surprised, the inscription now shining with a black and green light, glistening under the sun, was vastly more massive than before.

It was now reaching above his shoulder, continuing to develop under the raging energy which was still being slowly absorbed into his body

The mark was now huge and he could feel a sense of power and vitality coursing through his left arm he never felt before.

Clenching his left hand, he blew up some air while contemplating.

His situation was in no way near good but it was better than nothing, living was always better than dying.

"It almost as if I can nourish this strength by absorbing those of others...?" he concludes, not quite sure of himself.

"But why did it never happen before... Could it be the ... Blood? I never touch anything before when my left arm was bleeding after all." Looking at his left hand, Alric was immersed in his ruminations.

"It could be, after all, this inscription absorbs energy from what I eat, so probably from the energy flowing through my veins... By linking it with an external source, it began to absorb just as if it was in my body. I wonder how much time did it take to absorb... Her?... It!

Opting for a neutral pronoun to not throw up from the idea of killing for the first time a fellow human, even a crazy one, Alric finally lookup around him only to find the dusk beginning to set.

"Sh*t, it probably took the better part of the day, I only have less than an hour to search for a secure location to rest..."

Alric began to sense the urgency of the situation, knowing quite well that lady luck had smiled upon him for him being still alive after these dreadful series of perilous events but he knew luck tends to always come to an end one way or another.

He quickly took what remains of the rabid woman, not knowing if it would be useful one day.

His chisels being half less numerous than before, he could not help feeling a bit stressed, his workshop with other blades being nowhere in sight, he had to conserve materials sharp and solid enough to survive.

- Hey, Mozzi, we will have to find a place to sleep this night, if we don't want to spend it running through the forest... Alric said, knowing being in an open area like this beautiful and enormous lake could be quite dangerous at night contrary to the day when it was near the most secure place, even a bit dreamlike.

- Yep, time to move, your battle had alerted quite a bit of wildlife and the dying light of the day is the only thing keeping them from coming over at the moment. Mozzi answered, his head tilted to the right while looking at Alric.

-You are right! What the...? You can speak, well, no, I heard you in my... mind...?" Asked Alric bewildered at the situation.

- Apparently, so, I tried before but you could not hear me, but since our fall in the lake, I felt a connection between us, and it seems to work. The cub thought in his mind, apparently excited to be able to finally communicate properly.

Alric was kind of shocked, strangely, perhaps even more so than after the luminous wave cataclysm.

He already felt animals were smart, perhaps as smart as humans for some after the cataclysmic event, but to be able to speak was a kind of psychological limit he could not even think of, it was the domain of magic in his logical mind.

- But how can I understand you...? Well, it's as if a picture of a concept were directly projected into my mind... Could I do the same with you? He asked, feeling excited at the idea of finally having a conversation partner and being perhaps able to reach a long last dream of his, to be able to communicate with thoughts.

- As if I would know, I just felt I could contact you and now I can, that's cool, don't you think so? Right, what's your name? You named me Mozzi and I kinda like it but I never heard you mentioned yours...? asked the little fox while fidgeting on his paws.

Trying to process what was happening, Alric was sure he could feel a tiny link when Mozzi was speaking to him as if a connection was just right behind his ears and when he looked at it, it would disappear.

Feeling a bit lost, he just tried to speak in his head while thinking about his companion.

- Well, that's normal after all, I don't have the habit of saying my name out loud... I'm Alric, Alric Vermeil, it's nice to be able to speak to you if you can hear me like this that is.

- Ah yes, it worked, I can even understand you better than when you spoke aloud. It's normally a bit fussy, I don't understand the complete meaning of your sentence but when you spoke like that, it's as if I understood the tiny detail of your thinking! Great!"

The cub was now bouncing here and there around Alric, his excitement tangible.

-"I... Well, we better hurry, we will have time to speak after finding a secure place!" Alric decided to put his growing curiosity aside until they could freely speak without worrying about potential threats.

-"Yep, that's for sure, but where do we go?" asked naively the young fox.

Quickly thinking, Alric knew there wasn't too much of a choice, he didn't know anything about the place, but he felt he would be more at ease in a dense forest and he had to remain near free water, so he picked a direction at random, with two twin peak covered in snow dominating the horizon.

His leg completely healed, he picked up the leather book which had dry a bit, noticing some small drawings seems still visible.

The vegetation quickly became denser and denser, greatly slowing the duo.

Alric was more and more attuned the further they go in their environment, touching the trees here and there, this small act already becoming a habit of him.

An hour was soon about to pass when Mozzi run toward him, excitedly shouting "I found it, I found it!!"

- What did you find, you just disappeared a minute ago, I was beginning to worry! replied Alric, surprised at his admonishing tone.

- He, if I want to be unseen, nobody can truly see me! I found a small cave dominating a large area just above the forest, just like what you were searching for! Smugly answered the cub, a small smile barring his sharp white teeth.

Recalling the difficulty he had to see the small fox the first time although he was in perfect condition to do so and the small fox hadn't any intention to hide retrospectively, Alric could not help but acknowledge this small friend of his.

With a small nod, Alric followed behind the smirking fox, passing through dense bushes normally practicable by small wildlife.

Soon he was beginning to be covered by leaves and branches, and slight wounds everywhere on his body which were healing at a fast pace.

"Is it far?" he asked begrudgingly, beginning to think his companion was making a joke of him.

Not knowing the human behind him was having a hard time following him, Mozzi answered with his inalterable good mood." Just ahead, after the big rock on our left!"

Finally stopping behind Mozzi who was waiting for him, Alric could see a shallow cave above him, ten meters deep or so, three to four meters wide.

The rocky area was completely bared above the cave, allowing for a good observation post, and the forest which they were still in was receding a good thirty-meter before it.

A small stream was silently running down the slope a bit further, disappearing in the dense forest which was quickly becoming a green, red and gold area under the light of the setting sun.

Seeing the peaceful and beautiful area, Alric sighed, his tired body aching anew now that the adrenalin rush was disappearing at the prospect of a bit of rest.

Climbing the small distance remaining, he quickly catch up to the fox who was already walking in a circle inside the cave, smelling the soil or the wall here and there.

"There was some kind of big animal living here before, a bear of sort probably," he said matter of factly, "but it didn't use this cavern for at least a good week, so it's probably safe, I would say."

Knowing what the cub was implying, and trusting his sense of smell more than his short experience as a trapper, Alric began to quickly put some rocks before the entrance to reduce its size as most as possible.

His enhanced strength allowed him to move quite big rocks and quickly at that, a hundred kilos being manageable, even two hundred if he didn't have to lift them.

Soon, a sort of wall, made of a mound of stones of two meters in height was securing the cave as the light was fading, cries and strange noises already echoing in the forest under them, signalling the beginning of different hunts.

Mozzi had gathered bits of wood inside the cave during the time and had lighted a small fire as easily as breathing, letting tongues of flames create dancing shadows on the rough cave wall.

Standing on top of the pile of rocks blocking the entrance while looking around him, Alric was comfortably installed, a large stone keeping his back straight.

He could not help but let his mind wander as Mozzi was playing with the fire behind him.

"Too much has changed in too short a time, I do not have any benchmark anymore to understand what is going on... I hope everything is okay for my family..." A small tinge of pain was clawing at his heart whenever he thought of them, knowing full well the probability to see them again was becoming smaller and smaller as he understood the whole world was probably in the same cataclysmic state.

-"Don't worry too much" said Mozzi in his mind while climbing and jumping from stone to stone toward him. "You should concentrate on the present, only when we don't have to survive can we begin to think a bit ahead".

-"Yeah, you are probably right, nothing comes from languishing too much, I just... Well, forget it, better adapt to this brutal life which probably awaits us! I just wish I could listen to some music, it helps me think, an andantino would have been good I think..." Replied Alric, with a bit of a nostalgic tone.

Looking around, he quickly found a small branch gathered by Mozzi for the fire but which he put away because it was a bit too fresh.

Taking it along with his chisel, he carefully considered what he should carve on it, his mind flowing through several ideas before stopping on a feeling his left hand was giving.