Salvation

XVI

            As the mornings ebbed into nights, and nights faded into mornings I grew closer to the closed-off man who I shared a shelter with. We eventually shared names with each other as the snow began to fall and I was able to move freely without doubling over as the pain shot through my body.

He called himself Miles, and I knew he didn't want to know my name for the fear that I would die in the middle of the night and turn. It was the first big step that we had made in a long time. Our few sparse words here and there still prevailed, but we still spoke to one another.

Our days were mostly filled with silence, but I found the silent comforting rather than awkward. I had lived my entire life isolated and silent. I was thankful that Miles didn't feel the need to fill every waking moment with meaningless chatter.

I found him watching me more as I grew stronger as if he was afraid that I would turn on him as my strength returned. I didn't need any more enemies than I already had, so I showed him that I didn't need to be watched that a hawk and I was here to help.

With the snow as high as our knees, I watched out of the cut-out window I had helped Miles make after confessing that this box was seeming to act as a prison with no way of looking out. Whether he agreed or just cut his walls to placate me I wasn't sure of. But the fact that he did it meant more to me than I was willing to share with him.

We were planning on going out hunting today, regardless that the snow was still piling up we knew that the animals would be moving soon, trying to find the foliage that they needed to survive off of. I should wake him up, but I knew that Miles needed as much sleep as he could get. He had stayed up late the night before making sure that everything was in order for our early hunting session this morning.

It would be the first time that I leave this box in the sky. As much as I wanted to leave, there was a sense of security within this tiny home.

Miles had taken his double stacked mattress and separated them. My bed was put on the wall opposite of his own. Dressed in the gear that Miles had loaned me, I was ready to go as I watched the snow steadily fall from the heavy clouds above.

While my own bag and Easton's sat at the foot of my bed, I hadn't dared touch either of them. I didn't have the courage to go rifling through Easton's bag when he is laying face first in a firepit dead in the middle of a forest. One day I would have the strength to open it, but today wasn't that day.

As the faintest peak of the sun began to make its appearance, I moved to Miles side. Sliding the knife that he kept at his side out of his reach, I laid my frozen hand on his warm skin from being buried under the blankets.

"Miles," I gently shook his arm as I prodded him awake. "Wake up, the suns rising."

I only had to shake him once before his eyes flew open, his hand reaching for his knife out of instinct. I had only made the mistake once of now moving the knife away from him before waking him, the faint, healing line against my jaw would scar from the knife slicing into my skin as Miles had jolted awake.