The creature didn't just step out of the dust.
It erupted.
A mass of pale, knotted muscle and twitching limbs that looked like it had been stitched together in a fever dream. It didn't breathe; it hissed—a wet, rattling sound that vibrated in my teeth.
"Don't look at the size," the boy said.
His voice was as calm as a frozen lake.
"Look at the joints. Everything that moves has a weak point."
I didn't answer. I couldn't.
I was too busy holding the air in my chest. My lungs felt like they were made of thin glass, ready to shatter if I let the pressure drop for even a second.
The monster lunged.
A blur of white flesh and black claws. It was faster than something that size had any right to be.
The boy moved before I could blink.
He didn't jump; he flowed. He slid under the first swipe, his blade leaving a thin, silver trail in the dim light.
"Ryo!"
The boy used my name for the first time.i didn't even know how he could possibly know it
"The left side. Cut the below his knee!"
I pushed off my good leg, ignored the scream of my nerves, and threw myself toward the creature's flank. I swung Kū-on with everything I had, channeling the pressure from my lungs into my shoulders.
The blade bit deep. The tendon snapped with a sound like a pistol shot.
The creature buckled, but it didn't go down. In its agony, it lashed out blindly, a massive, club-like arm catching me square in the chest.
The "pillar" of air I had built shattered instantly.
The impact was like being hit by a freight train. I felt my ribs—the ones that weren't already broken—craking under the force.
I flew backward, the world turning into a chaotic blur of gray trees and white snow. I didn't hit a tree. I hit empty air.
The ridge didn't end in a slope. It ended in a drop.
I felt the stomach-turning sensation of freefall.
My back slammed against a rocky outcrop, then another. The pain was so intense it went past screaming—it was just a cold, silent void.
I hit a steep, snow-covered incline and began to slide. Faster. Faster.
Branches whipped my face. Rocks tore at my clothes.
I tried to grab something, but my fingers were useless. My lungs were empty, the punctured rib finally digging deep as the internal tension vanished.
Everything went black before I reached the bottom.
I don't know how much time passed.
When I opened my eyes, the world was sideways.
Cold. That was the first thing I felt. A cold so deep it felt like it was trying to replace my blood with slush.
I was buried waist-deep in a snowbank at the bottom of a ravine. Above me, the ridge was a jagged black line against a sky that was now a dull, freezing gray.
The boy was gone. The monster was gone.
There was only the sound of the wind whistling through the rocks.
I tried to move my left arm. Nothing. It felt like it belonged to someone else.
I tried to breathe.
That was the mistake.
As soon as I pulled in a tiny sip of air, the world exploded in red. My lung—the one the kid said would collapse—was failing. Every breath was a wet, gurgling struggle.
The rhythm was gone. The air was out.
I was just a twenty-year-old kid dying in a ditch, miles away from anything that mattered.
"Get... up," I wheezed.
The sound of my own voice was pathetic. It was a dying animal's whimper.
I dug my right hand into the snow, clawing for purchase. I found the hilt of Kū-on.
The sword was still with me, though the blade was bent and the guard was loose. I used it as a stake, stabbing it into the ice to drag my broken body out of the drift.
Every inch was a battle.
The mountain didn't want me to move. It wanted me to stay there, to become another frozen lump of meat for the scavengers to find in the spring.
I managed to roll onto my stomach. I coughed, and a spray of dark blood ruined the pristine white of the snow.
"Splint the bone with your own flesh".
The kid's words echoed in my head, but they felt like a cruel joke now. How was I supposed to tighten my muscles when I couldn't even feel my legs?
I closed my eyes and tried to remember the heat.
The way it felt when the oxygen burned in my blood.
I pulled in a breath. Small. Tiny.
It hurt like a knife, but I didn't let it out. I held it.
I tensed what was left of my core. I squeezed.
A tiny spark of warmth flickered in my chest. It wasn't like sun heat,but it was enough to make my fingers twitch.
I started to crawl.
I didn't have a map. I didn't have a plan.
I just knew that if I stayed still, the cold would win.
I dragged myself over frozen rocks and through thickets of thorns that shredded my skin. I didn't feel the cuts. I only felt the rhythm the weak beating of a heart that refused to stop.
The gray sky began to darken. Night was coming back.
My vision started to tunnel. The trees looked like giants reaching down to grab me.
I was losing.
I slumped against a flat rock near a frozen stream. I couldn't move my legs anymore. The candle in my chest was dying.
"I'm... not... a statistic," I whispered into the dark.
I looked at Kū-on. The ruined steel reflected the first faint stars.
I didn't want to die like this. Not alone. Not in a hole.
I closed my eyes, my breath coming in shallow, wet rattles.
The silence of the mountain was absolute.
But then, through the sound of the wind, I heard something.
A rhythmic sound. Far off.
TOCK. TOCK. TOCK.
It wasn't a monster. It was too steady.
It sounded like an axe hitting wood. Or someone treading on a path.
I tried to shout, but only a mouthful of blood came out.
I leaned my head against the rock, the cold finally beginning to feel comfortable. That was the dangerous part. When the cold stops hurting, you're already gone.
I held onto Kū-on one last time, my frozen fingers locking around the hilt.
Keep breathing, I told myself. Even if it's just a sip.
In. Out.
Then i felt like the darkness was finally swallowing me.