Red Snow

8

I checked off each turn in my mental list. I was trying my very best not to get lost. With each existing turn that I had memorized carefully a load of anxiety fell off my shoulders. The load hopped back on when I heard a yip or a screech coming from a baddie, getting closer and closer.

I felt a rush of joy as I neared the river room. The joy was replaced with terror when I took a wrong turn and saw a zombie-like creature stretching his decayed, rotten fingers towards me. I doubled back, screaming. I could deal with hordes of blood thirsty monsters, but humans made me scream in terror and hide like a tiny kitten. Not to mention dead humans who wanted to eat my flesh. I thought zombies were just a tale told to us so we wouldn't go near human villages! I thought, hyperventilating and crying.

I turned and ran for the nearest room I could find. My heart was beating so fast, I had to slow it down or it might explode. I didn't care what was in the room; I just had to stop for a second and breathe again.

The room I entered wasn't tall or wide, but it was very long. Cells made of spiked iron bars lined both sides of the room. It must have been the dungeon.

Most cells had frozen, well preserved bodies that once belonged to all sorts of creatures. Some cells had nothing in them. Some cells had shivering animals or people. Every cell had a single hole in the ground that was probably used for the bathroom.

There was something that felt much different here than the cell I had just left. It almost felt colder. The animals looked more miserable and beaten up than Krishana or I had.

Two cells down on the far wall was a wolf I knew; Deavar. He was curled up in a tiny ball, muttering to himself between shivers. I almost pitied him; he had two brand marks on his forehead and his eyes looked swollen. A gash on his back was steaming from some kind of nasty poison.

The sight of him disgusted me. Not just because of his wounds and grotesque physical state, but because he had betrayed the chasers. He had betrayed Nick. He betrayed everyone so he could end up starving in a frozen jail with no one but stray thoughts to talk to.

I've never understood such logic, but so many people live by it.

My hackles rose. He was the reason I wasn't in the North Pole training. He was the reason I had come so close to death so many times. He was the reason I couldn't help my friends.

I heard the baddies stomping down the hall quickly, chattering anxiously. I thought quickly and fell down in a corner with a pile of frozen animals. I plopped on my side so my back faced the entry way and I played dead, pretending I had been frozen mid-scream. Like most of the other frozen things.

The hair on my back pricked up when I heard the baddies crawl in the room. Their claws clicked and slid on the floor like a tap dancer's shoes. I tried my best to not breathe or shiver in fear.

"Where 'sheh? Where sheh?" One huffed deeply.

One made a clicking sound with it's tongue, like it was coaxing a cat from its hiding. Wait, that's exactly what it was doing. "Here cat, here cat, cat cat cat,"

"She tired. She takes big gulps. Quiet for big gulps." One requested with a silvery voice.

They were extremely quiet. I was quiet. I held my body perfectly ridgid. It was perhaps the most terrifying thing I had ever experienced, waiting for what felt like months while not breathing or moving.

"She don't like you," One scoffed. "She like me. She told me. She come to me."

I don't know how that thing had gotten such a stupid idea, but I don't think I would ever tell a baddie that I like them, let alone willingly come to them.