Insanity Black

Chapter Eleven

Scarlet and Lucille stood at the entrance for the safe zone, waiting for the door to be buzzed open by a man in a jumpsuit standing inside a protective office next to the door. They were both dressed so that every inch of their skin was covered by some kind of cloth, because even the thinnest piece of material against the cold could give you that extra amount of time to get to safety.

"So what exactly are we looking for Cap?" Lucille asked through her headset. "Any footprints or really any type of traces would have been covered by ice by now."

"Trust me, I know what I'm looking for." Scarlet answered easily as the door opened and they were blasted by the frigid air that immediately froze the metal walls of the entrances interior. "Do you remember the last time we came up against a Polar Reaper?"

"How can I forget? You nearly lost your leg and I woke up near frozen." Lucille shivered hating remembering the close encounter of the end of her life. "You know, I still don't understand how you were able to kill that thing all on your own with a partially attached limb."

Scarlet smirked and stayed silent making Lucille huff slightly as they started heading out into the safe zone. It was stunning. The white all around sparkled and shimmied in the sunlight making a stunning snowy oasis everywhere you looked. Too bad that if even a millimetre of skin was shown to the air you'll get ice burns that take years to heal over.

"Come on. We'll start along the edges of the zone and if we don't find anything there we'll circle five metres out until we meet again in the middle. You start east and I'll go west." Scarlet ordered already heading over to the west side of the zone. "If you find anything contact me."

"Yes Captain." Lucille nodded her head before going east.

They searched along the perimeter of the zone until they met in the north. They then split up again five metres into the frozen forest to search again. They continued into the forest searching section by section of five metres. During this time it was getting noticeably colder as the wind picked up, tossing around snow and the sun had visibly sunk closer to the horizon, which meant the forest was nearly pitch black already.

"Lucille, we'll head back for today and start back up when it's light again." Scarlet ordered through her bracelet.

"But daylight won't be for another 40-odd hours!" Lucille argued.

"We have nothing to light our way and it's getting too cold even with our thermosuits on. Plus the dark is when we're most vulnerable to the Polar Reaper."

"Still...fine." Lucille sighed not liking that they were retreating so soon. "I'm heading back to the safe zone now."

Scarlet sighed softly and gave a last look around before turning and heading back to the safe zone. They were both easily 50 miles away from the safe zone so it'll take them around half an hour to walk back to the safe zone. Halfway there though Scarlet froze in place as an unusual sound in the forest alerted her through the speakers in her hood. Looking at her bracelet that was analysing every sound around her Scarlet saw an unusual pitch in the usual forest sounds around her. Her bracelet has labled it as the sound of a stick snapping under a weight too heavy for it to bare.

Screens appeared in Scarlet's vision one showing the sound waves of the forest around her and another showing any heat signatures and moving objects that were around her. Moving her head slowly and cautisously around her, her body started to stiffen from not moving a single muscle. Another spike in sound had her raising her head to the trees above her.