Boundless

Part 1~ The Beginning of the End

I can still smell the hot stew mother had made for us many nights before this one. But I can no longer feel its warm touch on my tongue, and I can no longer picture the smiles on my dead parents faces. "Father"! Edith calls out to the vast emptiness, desperation clear in her voice. Edith and Stephan run on past the trees and through the snow. Searching for some distinction of their families warm cabin through the white haze of icy snow and wind. She waited a while, fooling herself into expecting an answer. The cool night air whipped around her hair and stung at her face in reply. she turned to her younger brother. "Stay next to me Stephan. Don't you dare let go of my hand." He squeezed her hand harder. "I'm scared Edith." She could barely make out the boys stifled sobs filtering through the wind next to her. Sorrow and fear grabs for her heart, she fights it off. Focus. "As long as we are still together we have strength. We will make it out of this alive, I promise." No reply. She stops. "Stephan, look at me, I promise." Grabbing his shoulders she pulls him into a tight hug. He nods and she knows they need to keep moving. She's standing up again to continue running in the direction she thinks their house is in when a powerful force tears her brothers hand away from hers. A loud cry erupts in the direction of the younger sibling. "Edith! No, Edith don't leave me behind, Edith!" Edith feels her heart stop abruptly and her whole world seems to freeze as if the cold had finally won the battle against the wind. "Stephan!" Her voice is like that of a crazed howl. "No! you cant take him away from me, I wont let you!" She launches herself at the soldier, blindly lashing out and calling out to him. "Stephan! Stephan, where are you? Stephan!" but all she receives is a deadly silence and a harsh impact against her skull that causes her world to fade to black.

The trees sway a little as Edith does her best to stand up. She swore she could her a sadistic laugh somewhere beyond the raging fire of the woods. "Stephan"! she screams, again the wind is the one who answers her, this time with a cold tug at her shirt inviting her to a long awaited rest. In the distance she thinks she hears the howling of wolves. Worry is her only company as for the first time she realizes exactly how much trouble she is in right now. "Mother... why? I still need you. Kota still needs you. Why didn't you come with us? we could have made it..." She starts running in the direction of the soldier who took her brother. "I'll find him, I wont let them take him away..." She spoke out loud to the white flurry of nothingness in front of her. I just need to keep moving. I just need to get him back... but how? How was she supposed to fight these soldiers who wanted God knows what with her family? Hopelessness begins to eat its way into her being, grasping at her every attempt to keep on just a little bit longer. She takes another step. "please...", a broken whisper escaping out of her chapped lips. She falls, the welcomingly fresh snow is a soft bed just for her, and it covers her like a blanket. Sleep comes easily.

~

It was a cold and rainy night, the night my family sat around the table eating what would be our last meal together.

I stared at the flames dancing back and forth against the old chiseled stone of our fire place. Somewhere in the background I hear my mother warning my younger brother to finish his meal. "But i'm tired of stew momma," he whined. "I want something else, stew is all we've eaten since November." He said. Mother turns to Kota a soft sadness hidden behind her tired green eyes. "There there, my little one, I know it gets boring eating the same thing every night, but we don't exactly have a choice dear." She explained. "Please finish your meal, its important for all of us to stay as healthy as possible during this harsh winter." Her eyes glanced my way pleading for some sort of support. "Yeah," I look at Steph a serious expression on my face. "I mean there was that one time last week when we found some raspberries." I offer. My father and brother burst out laughing and my mother elbows me in the side. I smile up at her jokingly but feel a stab of guilt when I see her hurt expression. "Now Stephan," father speaks up deciding now is a great time for a change in subject. "You do know what happens to little boys who don't finish their dinner..." Steph's expression quickly turns from one of stubbornness to one of fear. "No, you can't be serious. Not that father." Their father stands up out of his chair with his hands held up in the air like a grizzly. "Theeeey get the tickle bear unleashed on them!" Next thing we know Kota is being tickled to death on the floor, and we're all laughing up a storm. After we are all finished eating, mother tucks us in and sings us her favorite song. "Moon and stars watch my world tonight... protect my birds as they dream in their nest... listen to the tune played in their minds... and sing it up to the sky as we rest..."

About what seems to be an hour later I am awakened to the sound of harsh thunder rattling or house and causing me to tremble. I open my eyes to the image of our mothers tears being wiped away by our father. "Pay no worry to the cold or any heed to the hunger Susan, instead know that I will always protect our light in this darkness, until I take my last air if need be. Have faith in the strength of this family. We are each others every breath, and because of that we are strong.

~

I feel the last of my fathers favorite words resinate through the fiber of my core. "We are each others every breath, and because of that we are strong." The solemn echo of my breath blends into that of the wind. I wince a little at the harsh pinch of the cold on my face when I try to move. First things first, I've got to try. "Get up Edith." A voice penetrates itself through the cold night air and I freeze. I was right, they were still after me. No. No, no, no, no, not like this, not here, not when she still needed to find her brother. They had gotten separated. He had been taken... They were running from the soldiers... There was still hope. I have to move, I have to fight. Except she couldn't. She couldn't move, she couldn't do anything. "Edith." This time she heard something different in the voice, like a dull humming was mixed into it... or a growl. "you called me." Fear shot its way down her spin in a split second as she snapped open her eyes. A scream escaped her lips and disappeared into the blizzard. In front of her was a large wolf like creature the size of a small horse with huge tuffs of fur running down its back like a mane. It had a coat so purely white she had at first mistaken it for more of the snow. Its paws and shoulders were like that of a bear. It had a huge puffed up tail and ears that reminded her of a fox. And still it had all the basic mannerisms of a wolf. It seemed taken aback by the sudden out burst and instinctively took a step backwards before inching closer and sniffing her in confusion. He nudged her shoulder as if he thought that could make her move, and for a second Edith was afraid he thought she was dead. "You need help. You're injured and practically frozen." This is when Edith realized two things. One, the voice was in her head and it was coming from a huge beast who wasn't trying to eat her. Two, she was injured, bad. When she had fallen in the snow earlier she happened to slice open her leg on a rock. She couldn't feel it, but now she could see the blood, oozing out beneath her making her want to drift off into another peaceful sleep. The fear hit her hard, harder than any emotion she had felt in her entire life up till this point. She was going to die. Die without knowing if her brother had made it out alive. Die without protecting him. "No you will not." The creatures voice is a loud awakening from the bitter coldness that is currently surrounding her and holding her down like knives in her back. "You seem to have no recalling of who I am." This time Edith looks at the creature with confusion. "wha-" "That is fine. But we must go, which direction do you remember them taking your brother in?" How does it know about my brother? Edith turned her head to look down a path of broken tree limbs which were now covered in thin sheets of sparkling ice. She looks back at the seemingly harmless creature and he nods at her. Suddenly he kneels down in front of her. "Climb onto my back, I will track Stephan. Hold on tight to my fur, we must be swift like the antelope who used to graze here." Edith's fear is suddenly replaced with a new found hope for saving the remainder of her family. She grabs the snow white fur and does her best to pull herself up. "What about father?" She croaks out, her voice is tired and jagged. The creature, now bracing his shoulders to launch himself into the forest, stands up and takes off at a startling speed. "Do not fear child, he is still alive from what I can tell, but he may not be for long, we must hurry. I can only hope that my paws will carry us fast enough to escape this storm." Edith wonders at what the beast just said. Does he mean the blizzard? No. She suspects he is talking about the storm that her family is being faced with. The tides indeed were turning. As far as Edith knew this was the marking point in the history of their loving family when her days from here on after would forever be changed. This storm was a cold and harsh sword that had cut away everything she had once held dear, and Edith wasn't prepared to face the reality of this world without her parents. She wasn't ready, and she wasn't going to let them slip out of her grasp. They ran on.