When the World Goes Cold

Chapter 10

Run. All I'd ever done was run, or kill whatever stopped me from running. It was like a deer being chased by wolves, chunks of flesh kept being torn off one by one no matter how long I ran, no matter how short of a break I took. From the day the first revenant rose 'till now. And I was sick of it. It'd got me nothing. It felt like it costed me everything. If I'd fought for something, at least I would've died with pride. But what did I have aside from a worthless life?

Maybe I should've fought to stay with Atlas.

But they could've hurt them because of it, logic—cowardice whispered. The same voice that stopped me from looking for the rest of my family when it went to hell, when I was going to find my friends and fight for an escape, when I first doubted the Orphans. Give it some more, it hissed. Fighting only brought death. And running only brought guilt.

But death had an end. Guilt sunk into veins like it was toxic, eating away the person's insides until they couldn't take it anymore. Death was instantaneous. And I could control it. I was going to control it.

Moonlight bathed the ground, the tracks from where the Orphans paced coal-colored pits I couldn't see the bottom of. The dark garbed figures exchanged light conversations, words snatched up by the wind and torn into chunks I couldn't make sense of. I didn't need to make sense of it. I knew the one sound I was looking for.

I pressed my thumb against my knife spine, tightening my grip until it squirmed in my fingers. The guard was leaning against a tree, a silhouette who smudged around the edges from biting wind, like someone dumped water on a wet oil painting.

Snow crunched under my boots, the sound muffled under the blood thudding in my skull.

I loosened my fingers and the blade drove right in their trachea. Blood painted the white canvas in splotches. Their corpse still twitched after it hit the ground, eyes wide to take in the death that rapidly approached them.

Moving through the familiar grounds, between frosted cabin windows and ice coated breaths, my vision snapped toward each new sound.

The moment the body was found, entire swaths went dark that made a dozen paths entwine to circle it. People rushing to the chaos.

Orphans weren't trained to deal with intruders. It was why they lived on the outskirts of Kősdre; close enough that passersby would either take to the city or find more isolated ground. So they handled this with... shouting, flailing.

Then lights. As if the snow didn't already glow like the moon, yellow lamps ate up oil and spat out beams that threatened to expose me. I crawled behind one of the cabins, holding down an instinct to jerk back. It was harder to notice slow movement.

I couldn't wait here. Each time they grabbed each other to spread the word, it inched closer to alerting the man who I had to get to. Trees edged in near the south-side, punctured with glowing pits that never grew in side. The temple grounds. Only a few people would be posted there at this time, and no-one would run to alert them.

My hand found my pistol.

And I ran.