It’s been two and a half years already. Two and a half years of this endless winter. Shelter is scarce out here, and the shelter that I can get does not keep the heat in. It is just as cold inside as it is outside.
And I’m hungry. I’m so hungry. My clothes from two and a half years ago are tattered and there’s not really enough of the cloth left to say that it’s useful. I keep it anyways, though, as I reminder of who...and what I used to be.
I used to be a regular human being who ate a lot of stuff. Until this Ice Age set in, I’d never thought about eating another human. Now that’s all I eat. The animals are gone, scared off or hunted out. The plants are all dead and frozen. Sometimes, it’s hard to eat it, knowing what it is that I’m biting into. But I know that if I don’t eat it, I’ll starve to death. I don’t know for sure why I keep going, there’s no point anymore. I don’t live; I survive. I don’t want to face death though. I’ve stared him down several times, before the winter set in and never abated, and every time I started to give up, I’d remember that, and keep going.
I was one of the lucky ones. I’d found a cave, in the woods. I was just stepping out to go find something else to eat when I saw him. At first, I thought he’d make a nice meal. He turned out to be everything else that I’d ever thought I’d needed since winter started. He was hiding in the bushes, his brown hair down to his shoulder’s already, the ends jagged, like he’d cut at it with a knife. It was clear that he’d been in that space for a while, snow frosting his hair and shoulders. When I stepped out, though, his head swiveled towards me, his eyes meeting mine, and even though I knew I was going to kill him later, I suddenly wished that I had new clothes, and that my hair wasn’t tangled.
Slowly he uncurled from his position and stood up, running towards me quickly and bundling me back into the cave. “Hush,” he whispered, his voice urgent and hoarse from not speaking. Despite the fact that he was in my cave, despite the fact that I hadn’t ever seen him before, I listened.
And it was a good thing that I did.
