SURVIVALISM EPISODE ONE

Cynthia drew her poison dart arrows; three in the bow and released her pull. One by one they pierced the skulls of the gray wolves under the tree. The rays of the arctic sun were barely climbing over the mountain to the east; Mount Allimore to be precise. Having used the last of her arrows she threw the wooden bow over one shoulder and scurried down the Redwood Tree, onto the snowy blood splattered ground where the wolves lied; their souls lost to the known world. She examined their carcasses and realized a peculiar similarity between them. Their eyes were completely blank as if they suffered an intense blindness. 

"Possessed, Poor souls" she whispered looking forward at the Redwood Forest. 

The contrast of Redwood and white snow reminded her of Valentine's Day, a time when life was somewhat simpler. Sighing a breath of strong cold air she pulled the white hood over her head and continued her stroll. On encountering a great frozen lake she cursed a little and drew a map from her blue jeaned back pocket. She quickly unfolded it and gripped the thick paper tracing her eyes down to a brown terrain that ended at Delamy; lake of the Redwood Monster. Her hazel eyes went from the crumpled map to the thick wide sheet of ice. She looked back at the map and saw that beyond the lake was a military camp. Knowing the way around it would take forever she set out for the venture. With her left foot first on the ice she knew it was stable enough although she feared the monster was still active below her feet. The sunrays were disappearing as the sun was blocked by a trio of enormous passing clouds. 

"Cynthia!" hollered a stern voice from the Redwood Forest behind her. 

This was immediately followed by the roar of an engine. She looked back just in time to witness a dirt motorcycle explode from the edge of the forest onto the ice blanket. The rider was a muscular black man whom sported white camouflage clothing. He slowed at her side and ordered her to get on. She obeyed and gazed in awe the many approaching cyclists as her rider went faster and faster.  

"Frederick what are you doing!" she yelled. 

"Me? What are you doing!" he yelled back "Wondering off on me like that. You know the Renegades would track you if you left without being initiated!"  

"I didn't want to be!" 

"Why the hell not?" he pressed. 

"I am not like you Frederick, so easy to adapt to everything, you are like a big rock!" she roared "I can't even live in the sun like you and your people" her voice softened.

Frederick fell silent and focused through the snow stomps after going up a mound on his left back into the forest. The cyclists were still in pursuit though their numbers had reduced drastically as most had crashed on the snow stomps. Cynthia held tightly onto her friend feeling the cold breeze against her face and wondering what he had collected from her reason. Her hood and red hair blew angrily behind her whipping the violent air. Once again she looked back and nearly screamed at the white masked cyclist close behind them. 

"Frederick!" she screamed as the masked man revealed his pistol and took aim. 

He took a glance at his rearview mirror and instinctively turned right, over another snow stomp in between closely separated Redwood Trees. A female cyclist on their right struck a snow stomp and flipped forward, crushed by her quad. Another cyclist rode off a crooked ramp shaped boulder on their left only to be greeted by a Redwood Tree trunk in a fiery death. Cynthia swallowed hard when Frederick hollered "Hold on koala!" 

The dirt motorcycle went airborne off a sloped land into another section of the forest where the trees were no longer Redwood and had unusual markings. When the bike land she gripped him hard and looked back at a beautiful explosion at the slope's summit, where a cyclist was off his seat and on fire. The bike rumbled along deeper and deeper into unknown territory until the land dropped flat again. 

"Frederick I think we have lost them" she gripped his shoulders. 

There was a visible gray sand beach on their left and he swiftly rode out onto it. The white sea was half frozen and the clouds appeared strangely transparent. The warmth of the sun could be felt as Frederick stared out at the large red unidentified birds diving for fish by the reef. A calming spectacle of nature not to be interfered with. She climbed off the dirt bike when he had switched off the engine and followed him when something big and white was approaching from the north. It grew in size each second and Cynthia felt like tugging Frederick since she stood no chance with an arrow less bow and a switchblade. Frederick shot the polar bear square in the forehead with his silenced pistol when it was eight feet away, before turning to her and asking "If you are not human then what are you?" 

Cynthia was taken by surprise and stared at his gun longer than she anticipated. Her eyes rose to his stern face and then stared out at the sea. 

"Well?" he pressed. 

"How do you know this?" she asked in her calmest tone. 

"I'm not an idiot Cynthia. I figured it as one of the reasons you ran away." 

"Really, what was the other one?"  

"You didn't like the food." 

She chuckled to herself and began slow and strong. "I've been this way for a long time Frederick. My parents were vampires who ate people like you, they hated both the military and the government. I've never eaten anyone and I wanted to show your people that we weren't all the same."  

"You do realize my life is now in danger because of you right. When were you planning to tell me all of this?" he furrowed his brows. 

"Honestly I was never going to tell you Frederick, at least, not like this. I feared your kind. What they would do to me if they ever found out" she momentarily looked down and gazed up into his dark brown eyes. 

"You came here for the snow right? I believe you've noticed the mornings the snow isn't going to last much longer. You know my kind won't hesitate against your people and the others that ain't us. They'll probably be assuming what I did earlier, and who knows, they'll probably kill me just for being here" he took a moment to examine his pistol. 

"Frederick I would never forgive myself" she embraced him gazing up into the handsome face of black adolescence. "Tell them of my power, tell them you were hypnotized and that's why you are here with me." 

"If I do that I'll have to undergo all my training again Cynthia. Besides, what are you going to do? All alone out here by yourself" he inched closer with worrisome eyes. 

"I am a vampire Frederick. I do not belong amongst your kind. I will find a way on my own, find a human bride because I simply cannot be" her eyes fell to his white clothed chest, unable to meet his again.  

Frederick swallowed hard placed a gentle kiss on her cold forehead before whispering into her left ear "Take care of yourself koala."  

Just as it was, she listened to the abating roar of his dirt bike and once again she was standing all alone in the omega of winter, as she had done many years before.