Aran lay there a long time while his unconscious mind tried to piece itself back together. He drifted in and out, as the sun rose and set several times, but he was never lucid enough to notice time’s passage. The snow was what woke him, finally. The cold had seeped into him, sharpening his perception as his mind shook itself awake. At first he just continued to stare up, at the soft white flurries floating down on him in the grey light of morning. A memory in the back of his mind was urging him to wake, to move, and he finally snapped awake, remembering where he was. He sat up with a jolt, the sudden movement disorienting after so long sedentary. He braced himself with a hand, slowly shaking his head to clear his mind.
He looked around, slowly recalling he was still in the crater, and what had happened. For a moment fear gripped him as he realized he was probably still being poisoned by radiation, but after a moment, he realized he could feel nothing in the air, no corruption seeping into him. Aran looked inward, confused. His core was, well not gone, but completely different. His whole body felt like it was his core of mana now. There was no separation, no way to push it into his body anymore, because there was nowhere to push from. And all of his mana was changed, still the dark green poison, but it no longer felt like it was poisoning him. He allowed himself a small smile. His gambit had worked, and the mana had still healed him. Done a lot more than healed him, really. His mana seemed to be everywhere now, not just linking every part of his body, but filling it. His blood seemed to be completely mana now, but he wasn’t sure. He looked down at himself, seeing his ashen skin and the dark green scars littering it, souring his mood.
“Must look like a walking corpse now,” he thought to himself. Truth be told, he was surprised he wasn’t a corpse now. With a start, he remembered the snow. It was falling softly now, but no telling if a storm was coming and there was no way he wanted to be caught in that. He slowly climbed to his feet, testing his legs to make sure he was steady. Surprisingly, he felt great, better than before, even. He dug around in the snow, looking for his bag. It had fallen off while he was rolling around in the dirt, and it had all of his food in it. Snatching it out of the snow, he opened it up to check on his supplies. All the chips had been crushed, unsurprisingly, but the jerky in its packaging looked as good as ever. He considered eating some now, as he hadn’t eaten since collapsing, but found he wasn’t hungry. “Mana must have topped me off or something,” he mused. Putting his supplies away, he looked up at the rim, trying to find his direction from before. With the sun hidden by clouds, and having no idea what time of day it was, he chose a direction with some educated guessing, and pushed his way to the rim.
After about half an hour of trudging through increasingly deep snow drifts, Aran reached the edge of the crater, high enough to see the bay, putting him not too far off from his original path. With a grin, he tightened the straps on his bag and pushed south. After a few hours of walking, the sky had begun to darken, and the wind had picked up. Recognizing the signs of a blizzard, Aran hurried to the remains of a small office building, mostly intact. Stepping in through a broken window, he found a door to a small back office with only a small intact window to help seal in the heat. He settled in, sliding a large desk against the door, just in case. As he sat down on the threadbare carpet in need of a serious cleaning, he took off his bag and relaxed, reflecting on his journey so far. If not for the snow he would have kept on walking, he still felt great, not tired at all. Looking down at his scared arms, he realized with a start he wasn’t wearing a coat. He hadn’t felt cold at all, and he’d only just realized he’d been completely comfortable the whole trek since waking. Aran grinned. The changes from the radiation didn’t seem so bad after all, even if his skin was grey and weird. Thinking about the radiation suddenly made him remember something, and he gingerly touched the top of his head. With a loud sigh of relief, he realized his hair was still there, though it seemed longer than he remembered.
He considered having some jerky, but he still wasn’t hungry. Still, he thought, better eat while I have a chance, who knows if I’ll find more food on the way. Tearing off a piece of jerky, he popped it in his mouth. He only got one chew in before retching and spitting it out. The jerky had tasted like ash, like the most overdone, burnt meat he’d ever eaten. He scraped the rest off his tongue, and noticed it looked far darker, strange even in the dim light of the office. Holding it up to the light from the window, it was black. He stared. Pulling the rest of the jerky into the light, it looked fine. On a hunch, he stuck out his tongue, placing the jerky onto it. Immediately, the taste turned bitter, and he watched as the jerky rotted to black ash. He glared at the jerky, throwing it across the room. He tried with two more sticks of jerky, both with the same result.
“Great. Just lucky enough to survive, just unlucky enough to somehow destroy food now,” he muttered to the darkening room. It had to be the influence of the radioactive nature of his body now, he supposed. He glared down at his hands. Fuck. Guess I’m not really that hungry anyway. He lay back against the cold cinderblock wall, and shut his eyes, letting a dreamless sleep take him.
He woke, bleary eyed, to the sound of wind battering against the glass of the small window. Annoying. He grunted, extricating himself from his contorted position against the wall, and opening bleary eyes. He looked around the room, noting the shadows flickering against the wall lit in blue light.
Wait.
He looked at the wall again, the smooth white cinderblock wall was definitely blue. He twisted and stood, looking out the small window, and his breath caught in his chest.
The sky was alive. Across the roiling storm clouds, ribbons of blue light swept and flashed brightly, sweeping in graceful arcs before fading. The entire sky was lit by the strange lights, and the clouds even glowed from within with the same blue light. Aran stood a little higher, pushing up against the glass to get a better view.
As the wind had picked up, the snow left on the ground had shifted, billowing in small flurries in the magical wind. The light reflected off the snowflakes, creating a shimmering field of tiny stars as far as the eye could see. As he watched, the ribbons of light in the sky drew a little closer, in what he could only describe as a dance. Each light seemed to have a rhythm to its movement, scintillating across the clouds, and sometimes they crossed paths, corkscrewing around each other before splitting and vanishing. They seemed to be alive, even joyous, in their dance across the sky.
His gaze held him there, entranced by the beauty of the storm. Gradually, the storm passed him by, light slowly fading back to the twilight of pre-morning. He slumped to the ground as the last of the light disappeared, heart hammering in his chest, taking a shuddering breath. Incredible. That was the only word for it, really. He had no idea what he’d witnessed, but he doubted he’d ever forget it. He smiled, slowing his racing heart. “So much for sleep,” he whispered to the empty room, shattering the silence accumulating in the wake of the storm.
He stood, gathering his backpack, and what he suspected was now useless food. He quietly removed the barricade from the door, listening for any movement on the other side. He had no intention of walking into the waiting embrace of any more horrors. After several minutes of waiting, he opened the door as quietly as possible, peering into the hall. Nothing stirred in the dark recesses of the building. He strained his eyes against the dark, searching for anything that didn’t look like building or rubble. Satisfied, he opened the door fully, stepping out from his little cave.
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Bare feet whispering against the accumulated dust, he slipped out the same way he’d entered, facing east. Turning to the right, he picked his way forward, slower than before, with the light of dawn still a ways off. The street signs were long gone, but today he hoped to make it to the highway, and its straight path south. For the next 2 hours, he continued, making quick progress where the snow hadn’t formed a layer obscuring the ground, and shuffling when it did, gradually moving west along his southerly direction, searching for the tell tale swell of the highway.
With the advent of dawn, he increased his pace, no longer as worried about missing a sign of the highway in the dark. It was midmorning by the time he found it, swathed in snow, a few cars abandoned on the shoulder. He jogged up to them, hope flaring. As he approached, he frowned. These cars looked positively ancient. The windows on a few still remained, but all of them were rusted out heaps, tires crumbling. He dragged a finger across a door, the metal disintegrating at his touch. He pulled on a door, the hinges screaming as it came free easily, making him flinch and immediately stop to listen. The gentle breeze of the morning, and the rustle of snow shifting beneath his feet were the only sounds. Letting out a weary breath, he turned back to the small sedan, looking for anything of value.
After searching the glovebox, center console, and underneath the seats, he grunted in frustration. Some bits of paper and a phone charger were the only fruits of his search, all worthless. He popped the trunk, again listening for any response or sign that something else had heard, before continuing. Inside he found a mug, which he unhesitantly swiped. Looking at the other cars, he quietly searched the rest. He found a pair of old work boots in the backseat of a truck, but they were far too small, so he abandoned them in disgust. He shook his head, looking down at his feet. Not that he really needed the boots, he supposed. The cold hadn’t bothered him since he woke up in the crater, and he was getting comfortable walking barefoot, like some sort of wandering monk from a story. He rolled his eyes at the thought. Best get on with it.
He turned from the small group of cars, and started walking, taking a deep breath of the brisk air, sharp with the scent of winter. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he set a slow, meandering pace down the road, avoiding snow drifts when possible.
It was afternoon when he heard it. A soft swish sound from up ahead on the road. Aran immediately stopped, squatting to keep low. The sound did not repeat. Heart slamming in his eardrums, he took a single step to the left, hoping to circle around. The snow crunched beneath his foot, and a snow drift shivered about 30 feet in front of him. Aran froze, holding his breath in fear.
The snow drift slowly shifted, rising and twisting back towards him. Aran only caught a glimpse of a glowing blue eye in the center of the mass before he turned and sprinted for the side of the road, and the trees beyond the embankment. A low hum filled the air, undercut by the sound of snow rasping along the cement as the strange thing moved with startling speed, cutting him off and forming a long, low wall of snow before him. Moving on instinct, Aran lept, aiming to clear the creature. The mass of snow was faster, though. Immediately, a tendril of snow whipped up, solidifying into a club of ice, swatting him back out of the air, driving the air out of him. Aran landed with a huff, gasping for breath as he scrambled to his feet. He clutched at his chest, feeling cracks in his brittle skin through his shirt. He felt mana surge to fill the gaps, his breathing easier.
He glared at the monster, searching for the eye, picking it out the bright blue spot at the crest of a low mound along the wall now encircling him. “Eyeball in the middle of a blob of snow? As if that’s not the most obvious weak spot,” he muttered, thanking his stars he’d grown up with a generation obsessed with video games. He bolted straight at the eye now, and instead of jumping over the wall like before, lowered his body and attempted to tackle the creature.
The eye shot to the side as he landed, moving through the snow like water. Aran landed hard, slamming into the snow, his momentum arrested by the much stiffer snow, nearly solid it was so dense. He grunted, trying to get his hands under him, as the snow gathered in a wave, sweeping over him. He rolled to the side, flinging himself farther with a shove to the ground. Surging to his feet, he swiveled, trying to find the eye again. He found it, farther away now, as the snow monster seemed to have learned from its previous mistake. He took another step forward, intending to try getting the eye again, as a club of ice smashed into him from behind, sending him tumbling. He coughed out a grunt of pain as the air was again driven from his lungs as he slammed into the ground. Right, surrounded. His backpack had absorbed much of the blow, but he could feel mana pulsing across his back. He attempted to stand once more, but hearing the whistle of wind across ice, he rolled to the side as another club slammed into the ground, sending dirt flying.
“Fuck!” he dodged another strike from above, rolling forward this time, coming up into a crouch, just in time to catch another blow to the chest. Falling back, his hands slipping on the icy ground, the hits came in quick succession now. He felt mana flowing across nearly his whole body now, as his arms protected his head from the blows raining down. His body was repairing itself, but it wasn’t enough. Fear welled up within his mind, pulling him back to the days before. Back to the days of his mother’s reign of terror, his mind submerging into a place of shelter. Built of his will, his consciousness drifted, body still being battered, as the snow monster slowly started to envelop him.
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He was in the dark, in the hallway again, frost creeping up the walls. He could hear the creaking of the chair in the living room as he was pulled along, unable to resist, until he reached the doorway. Turning, he could see her now, the decrepit form facing him, empty eye sockets glaring at him even as ice crept up her face. Worthless, she screamed soundlessly. He tried to back away, but the room seemed to pull him in, towards her, and he knew that would mean only pain and death.
Reaching deep, he grabbed the doorframe, anchoring himself, pulling away. NO! She screamed, voice sending shivers down his body. You will be punished! You deserve this! He shook his head, and remembered. Remembered walking out of here, remembered surviving nightmares and living through a nuclear explosion. He let go of the door. He could feel his body stirring. He looked down at his hands, noticing the grey, splintered and cracked skin, with bright green light shining from within. He raised his gaze, and strode towards her. What?! What are you doing, boy? Given up hope finally, realized you’re worthless?
He reached her, noticing how small she was up close, sitting in the chair. No. He reached out, hand grasping her neck, bare tendons and bone sliding in his grip. I have been through too much. I will not give to you. Icy frost crept of his fingers, as his grip lost some of its strength. Her face shifted, grotesque grin spreading as a laugh echoed in his mind. Anger flared within him, and green light blazed into life from him, pouring out from every crack, as his eyes lit up with rage. He focused his will, and pushed. The frost retreated back, slowly, then all at once. Green veins, burning with light, raced up her body, as the body began to crumble. Aran heard her screaming fade, and opened his eyes.
He was still on his back, surrounded by a cave of snow. He held his hand aloft, gripping the glowing eye of the monster, as green fiery lines crept across its surface. He snarled, pulling the orb closer as he grabbed it with his other hand, the snow around him starting to crumble. He could feel the creature within the eye, could feel its fear and its hunger, even as it resisted him. As his mana slowly crept along it, he could feel himself getting stronger, could feel himself devouring the creatures energy with his own. With renewed focus, he poured more and more mana into the beast, green light shining from his body and the eye as it was slowly consumed. With a final scream he could feel in his soul, the orb exploded, as a pulse of energy washed over him, the snow around him falling to the ground in a puff.
Aran sat up, eyes wide. He’d just consumed that thing, or at least its energy. He wasn’t sure. He could still feel the way energy had flowed into him even as he pushed his mana into the thing. He glanced down at his arms, as the green light dimmed, leaving only the dark cracks in his skin, like scarred veins. He grinned. Magic, I guess. He looked around, to see if the eye had left any remains, but found nothing. He shrugged. Guess it doesn’t like that. Makes sense, I kind of… ate it? Probably best not to think too hard about it. Turning thoughts of his weird ability aside, he turned back to the road.
Hope there's not more of those things, he thought. He looked up at the sky, edging into late afternoon. Only one way to find out though. He grinned, and kept walking.