The harsh snowstorm pricked needles into Alton’s face as he continued to trudge through the thick snow. All he carried under his thick pelts were a few knives, a compass, and some smaller pelts he would use as pouches to keep his findings in. All he needed for his trip out into the wilderness. The journey was made every few days to look for food and scavenge for any other necessities. Despite the danger, he also felt he would lose his sanity if he stayed huddled in the small cave he called home. 

The storm was coming down harder than usual, he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. Though, slogging through the perpetual snowstorm provided more stimulation than staying in the empty grey walls of his cave. The snow doesn’t stop, but it doesn’t stay around either. Where it goes, Alton doesn’t know. He thinks about the snow for days at a time. Sometimes for a week straight, but he can’t come to a conclusion. It’s all he can think about at this point. He’s been stuck in this sub-zero anomaly for years, and since forgotten the grassy plains of his valley homeland, and the crystal-clear waters of the river down the hill, and the small forest a few miles away...

It‘s all grey fuzz in his mind now. It’s a vague recollection of his past life being replayed every few days. A result of the endless amount of times he’s forgotten and remembered the time before the snow. He’s grown numb to it. The years of isolation, the years of fear over getting lost in the snow, and the years of almost dying in the endless icy bedding, he’s grown to accept it all. This is his life, and if he’s going to die here, so be it. At this point, he is only prolonging the inevitable. For what reason, he does not know. 

He continued his trek forward. The journey aims for a forest a few hours from his cave-home, a forest he has seen many times. Even without any signs that he was going anywhere, his mind has memorized this exact pathway. The sight of the foggy snowstorm has been burned into his mind. The movement of his limbs felt like clockwork, and didn’t dare to diverge from the path. Each step of his old boots into the deep snow left temporary tracks. By the time he starts his journey back, they would have disappeared completely. 

A quick glance around him revealed no signs of his destination, but he knew he was close. With a deep breath he continued onward. All he saw was snow. Cold, bleak snow. He’s grown past the monotonous sight of it all. Now he’s losing his time to it. Looking at it for hours at a time, for days on end. What else can he do? Die in the endless, white hell? 

What good would that do? 

He didn’t know why he didn’t try that. It would be an easy escape, but he just couldn’t bring himself to try it. Was it a fear of the snow, or a fear of death? He couldn’t figure it out. He asked that question every day, but he couldn’t get a clear answer, even after his mental arguments.

It didn’t take long for the forest to come into view. Plain, stagnant pine trees for as far as the eye can see. In an excited burst of energy, he ran towards the wooded area. It’s something he usually did when he saw the forest. He didn’t know why, it might be because it’s something different than the tundra storm or the dark cave. Or it might be because it’s the destination. The afternoon sky brought foggy light down on the pine trees from above the storm. It made for the most beautiful scenery possible in this place. Maybe that’s why he liked it. It makes for a break from the same, repetitive sights he was used to, and something to give his eyes stimulation. Even if he’s seen the woods for years, he never gets tired of it. It was one of the few places that brought difference in his bleak life. 

He walked towards a familiar scarred tree. It’s one tree he manages to recognize every trip here. He took out a knife and carved a simple vertical line next to the many other marks of his past trips. It  started as a waymark to help him not get lost, but it grew into a sort of tradition for him. He never questioned why he continued to do it, he added the mark and never asked why.

He continued on deeper into the forest. The goal was to find firewood and food, and neither of which are very difficult. So he didn’t expect to go very far, but before he could continue any further, he immediately locked onto a ruffled patch of snow. It’s a patch that he had never acknowledged previously. A patch which had been left untouched since before his time. 

The patch was covered in fresh blood. 

His heart rate quickened at the sight. His legs weakened, and his own blood drained from his face. He felt nauseous. The sight of the gruesome scene caused him to fall to his knees. Even if it was a simple pool of blood, he’d never seen such a sight in his years in this place. The crimson liquid burns into his eyes. He hated it, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. It was the center of his attention, as if the snow had completely disappeared, and all that’s left was the red stain on the ground. As he looked closer, he noticed that the blood trails deeper into the forest. Alton swallowed back the bile and got up. His legs felt brittle as he attempted to regain composure. After a few minutes of deep breaths, he began to follow the crimson trail. 

It went on for what felt like hours. The trail ebbed and flowed between a few droplets to large splotches on the snow. Every few steps he had to stop to suppress his growing anxiety at what the trail could lead to. Sick as he might be, he pressed on. The freezing-cold storm has long since left his mind. Having been replaced with paranoid thoughts of the bloodstains. As he walked up to the end of the blood, his eyes came to a sickening sight. 

An odd, vaguely humanoid, white mass laid in the snow. Alton would have completely missed it if the blood didn’t trail up and pool around it. His heart began beating even faster as he ran up to the unmoving lump. He stayed a few feet away from it, fearing it might still be alive and aggressive. He stood and stared as his body seized up in a panic. He waited a few minutes, no movement. He slowly crept up to it and raised his shaking index finger to graze it across its body. No reaction. Not even a twitch. 

It had an odd texture, and seemed to be covered in some sort of fur. A few more prods, and he came to the conclusion that it was likely dead. With that knowledge, he grabbed its shoulder and turned it over. 

What came into sight was bizarre. It was a bit difficult to see, as it’s snowy white fur blended almost perfectly into the snow, but he managed to make out its vague shape. It looked like a human, female by the looks of it, with the face and extremities of an animal. A white appendage lay still between its legs, what Alton assumed was a tail. The sight of the blood covering the humanoid made his stomach churn slightly as the sight imprinted a permanent memory into his brain. 

His mind was full of thoughts on what to do with it. First and foremost: check if it’s alive. He gingerly brought his hand up to its neck and pressed a few of his fingers to its neck and felt around for a heartbeat. The fluff was deeper than he thought it would be, his fingers were sunk deep into the fluff before he felt its actual neck. His heavy shaking and lightheaded feeling made it difficult to focus on the task.

It didn’t take long for his heart to leap into his throat as he felt a faint, rhythmic beat amidst the dank neck fluff. He drew his hand back and stepped away from it as his mind flooded with a million different thoughts about the odd monster. The blood, the body, the pulse. It all made him nauseous. He couldn’t hold it back this time. He fell to the ground and emptied his stomach onto the snow. The fresh bile seeped into the ground as he coughed the last bits of it out. He laid on his back for a few minutes, refusing to look at the ground around him and instead try to calm himself down. He kept his eyes closed as he took a few deep breaths to regain composure. He groaned again as his body strained on the snow. He attempted to ignore the lingering aches as he got up and limped towards the creature.

He sat and stared at it through the stormy fog for a few minutes. It didn’t move, but it was alive. 

It was alive. It had a pulse. The thought of it made the butterflies in his stomach flutter. He had never encountered another life in the tundra before this. Not fauna, or even a single insect. Never, ever. His mind then focused on the injuries, and the possibility of his one chance at a companion on the verge of dying.

He quickly crawled over to it and ran a shaky hand over its body looking for injuries, and felt lacerations peppered throughout it. He didn’t exactly know what to do in this situation, so he decided to try his best with his limited knowledge. He began with taking off one of the pelts he was going to use as a pouch and tore into it using a knife to cut it into pieces. His cuts were messy, but usable for what he aimed to do. He started with the large cut on its arm. Wrapping the pelt piece tightly around the wound. He continued working downwards, ignoring the smaller cuts. He came short a few pieces, leaving two large cuts on its calf open, but he hoped that this wouldn’t be enough to make it bleed out. The cuts on its stomach were too large to cover with the cuts he made, so blood continued to leak freely from its body, although at a much smaller amount than before. He had no way to clean the blood of its fur, even at his home. So he hoped that the bloodstains or clinging snow won’t harm it in any way. Now the problem came to what he was going to do with it. It was still alive, but should he actually try to bring it back to his home? It could be dangerous. He assumed it’s intelligent, based on its humanoid appearance, but what if it wasn’t? What if it killed him as soon as it woke up? What if it doesn’t ever wake up?

After a few moments of deliberation, he decided to make the attempt. Even if it does perish on the way, he’ll at least be able to use they cadaver for meat and more pelts. He grabbed the wrists of the beast-thing and tried his hand best to swing its body onto his back. He wasn’t the strongest he could be, but his time in the storm has certainly hardened him. It took a few moments to stabilize himself and get used to the new weight on his back. It was small, but still certainly the largest object he’d ever attempted to bring back. Previously, all he needed to carry back was a pelt-full of berries and firewood. Something this large was never attempted by him. Nevertheless, he was on his way within a few minutes. His trek back was going to be a while, several hours at the very least. He had completely forgotten about his original goal, and focused all of his attention on saving this strange creature. He strained under the weight of its body, and he could feel blood seep into the skin on his back. He moved in long strides in an attempt to quicken the pace over his impaired movement.

He walked past the familiar tree. It was as scarred as it has been since he began the trips. This time, however, he paid little attention to it as he moved his way through the trees and into the bleak tundra. The walk was long and tiresome. The storm has been going as strong as it has been for as long as he could remember. It never changes. The journey was different this time, though. Each step felt more and more strenuous as the weight on his back took a toll on him. The creature lay limp on him. Alton felt its heartbeat against his back. A reliving, albeit scary, acknowledgement that it’s still alive. Regardless, the journey was as automated as his previous walks back. He let his body take control of the direction as he focused on not falling over from the weight of the beast.

It’s been about five hours since he began to walk back. Alton guessed that his cave-home should be no more than ten or so minutes away, but it was all a guess. He couldn’t tell time anymore. Like a sundial in the dark, the constant storm brought little to no sense of passing time to Alton. Any estimates he makes are based on his own perception of time passing, and it’s often inaccurate. Time slows, but it never speeds to Alton. What feels like days could go by in straight daylight in the tundra. Nighttimes could go on for what feels like days. It messes with him, like a hungry boy staring up at an apple hanging just out of reach.

The thoughts were forced out of his mind as the mouth of the cave soon came into sight. It was on a slight hill, but that should be no problem. He began his slight ascent, but his tired legs and the beast on his back made it much harder than it should be. He breathed a sigh of relief as he set the beast down on a few pelts on the floor. He rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes as he glanced towards the outside, the mouth of the cave showed low evening light. He grabbed the last few pieces of firewood and struck a small fire close to the beast. That was one thing he needed when he set out to go, more firewood. Regardless, the fire both melted the ice and exposed how poorly he bandaged the beast. Blood has seeped all over its fur and all over his own body as well. Some of the pelt-bandages even fell off. He checked it’s pulse again, relieved to feel it’s still there. 

He stood back and took in the sight of it. Now that he’s out of the danger of the snowstorm, he could get a better view of his new housemate. He didn’t exactly know what species it looked like. It had been a very long time since he’d seen any other life, but it reminded him of some sort of canine. The ones with the wolves and the foxes. Those are canines, right? He didn’t know, nor did he think he would get the answer any time soon, so he pushed the thought away from his mind as best as he could.

It still had not woken up, but it’s face seemed a little less twisted in pain than before. The womanly curves were even more obvious now in the light of the fire, but Alton didn’t dare investigate that thought further, for fear of his mind twisting in perversion. It’s moist fur had begun to dry, leaving dark red stains encrusted on its pale fluff. He would need to find a way to wash the mess off, but he never needed to wash off something that messy before. The blood was everywhere. On the pelts, all over the floor, and all over both him and the beast. That was a problem for later, though. Now, he was exhausted, and wanted to get some sleep as soon as possible.

He took off the heavy layers of his pelt attire and set them down to the side. Too bloody to lay on, he thought. He looked around, but no pelts were usable. The pelts he usually used were under the beast. He was too tired to try to find an alternative, so he sat on the floor, planning to use the cold and bloody pelt as a pillow. Before laying down, a revelation dawned on him: is it really safe to sleep with the beast in the cave? It doesn’t matter at the moment. He’s too tired to think about that. It’s injured anyways so it’s not like it’s going to be very hard to fight it off. He laid his head upon the sodden pelt. Despite being more uncomfortable than usual, his eyes never felt heavier. His mind began drifting into a dream, his only true escape from the madness.

The cave fell apart around him, reforming as a place he couldn’t recognize. He began to feel blood dripping through the cracks in the floor. He felt his flesh crawl. He had to get up off the ground. He could feel the flesh beneath him, crawling and hissing. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, and looked around. The room was almost empty, with only the large hole in the wall, being filled with the dead body of the beast he had killed. And the door, with its hinges locked shut. He walked over and stared down at the dead beast. Her body was covered in a thin layer of dust and ash from the flames that had devoured her.

He stood and turned to look away from the dead monster in the hole. The beast had been so alive, so whole. Her face was twisted in a visage of terror. He had heard that she had been so strong. Not heard, seen! He saw the beast! He had heard the beast laugh that night. This monster was not so strong. She was small and weak in her prime, but she still had endurance surpassing everyone he knew. He could not kill this, he had not killed the beast, even if it looked like the beast was dead. No, he could not keep her dead.

"It’s not enough," she said, her voice echoing in the hole as she spoke. "What is it that I am doing? Do I care how I die? What has been done to me? Who killed me? I am the thing that killed it."

Alton couldn’t hear what she was saying. He began to move away from her, before tripping and falling into the void behind him.

The space around her began to warp away before he did, it was as if he was falling, then was pulled away into the black hole. He could see the dark, twisting edges that lay beyond it, and he was pulled forward, into a small, tight hole.

"There's nothing," he said. "You killed me."

"You're lying," she said. The warp faded away a little more. In the light, he could see the faint silhouette of her looking down upon him as he continued falling into the void. He had not meant to take her with him, so she had had time to prepare herself for this final act. "The only things here are the walls."

"What?"

"You can't see the ground," she replied. "You're still falling, and the walls will catch you and trap you." She was right, he realized, as he fell deeper into the dark. What was left of his strength was slipping away in the void, and he knew his time was almost up. She grew farther, but remained close at the same time. Like she didn’t want to leave him. And then, just before the walls caught and trapped him, the sound of the air rushing past him made him stop.

He could feel his body, no longer free to move, no longer able to see, as the air rushed past in a slow, rhythmic sound. "It stops," she said. "When the sound stops, you fall down." Then she turned and left him, as the air reached out to drag him down. "I'll catch you when you stop," she said and began falling, and with a last, last cry, she disappeared. The air became a river that swept him downstream and up, and then it was gone. He was left floating, staring at the fading riverbank. His mind was gone, and the only thing he felt was the river's current dragging him further and further, and it was his only sensation of life. The rest of his body was empty. He felt at peace.

The landscape around him began to blur, and the void turned to color and shapes. Color and shapes be recognized, and hated. The faint, early morning light shined past the snowstorm and into the cave, as Alton lifted his head and rubbed his eyes. Morning in the cave. Like every morning here, dull and empty. Although, he was much more sore than the usual mornings and the dream-

His tired thoughts were interrupted as his eyes met the blue irises of the beast from across the cave. It’s face twisted into a fearful expression as it huddled against the wall.