The three wolves huddled together in the cave, pitch black now that the entrance was blocked off. The brown earth bent and cracked and they feared they'd never find an exit. Eventually the earth grew silent. Slowly they crept onwards.

"Where are we going?" Jessica asked.

Her voice was muffled from the dead marmot in her mouth. She didn't want to drop it so she held on to it tight, her fangs digging into its flesh. It was slowly dribbling blood down her chin, which dripped on the ground with every step she took.

"We're getting out of here." Snowpelt said.

Hawktooth cast them a sidelong glance. "In other words, she doesn't know."

Snowpelt shot him a look of disapproval. It quickly faded as she said, "Hawktooth's right."

"What if we just run into a dead end?" Jessica said.

"If we don't move, we die." Snowpelt said. "If we keep going we might die. Any chance is better than no chance at all."

And so they kept on crawling. They climbed piles of rubble, gradually descended sheer cliffs, and squeezed through choking gaps. Around three hours in Jessica realized she could see surprisingly well in complete darkness. While the cave wasn't brighter by any means, she could somehow make out the shape of the cave around her. For a moment she tried to mentally describe it but gave up searching for an analogy. She'd never experienced anything like this as a human, so how could she put this in human terms?

...

Kashi stood still as a statue. He was covered in at least thirty kilos of packed snow. Though he couldn't hear very well right now, he heard at least a dozen villagers run past him, shouting and murmuring about demons.

His whole body roared with pain, but his left side in particular stung from his newest wound. Icy cold seeped into his bones, numbing the pain somewhat. He hoped his blood wouldn't ruin the snowman disguise.

"It hurts..." Kashi thought. "What did I do to make them that mad? I just asked where the nearest hospital was, for crying out loud!"

When the noise died down he lifted himself up on his heels and shifted an inch to the right. He stopped and checked for noise again. He moved again. And again. And again. And the clamoring came back. He stopped and prayed nobody noticed him.

A gun cocked. It was pointed towards him. Kashi clenched his teeth and shut his eyes.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Oi Nick! Waste bullets again and I will waste you!" shouted a gruff voice.

"Philemon, I saw that snowman move!" Marcus said.

"Demons don't look like snowmen, they look like wolves-" Philemon retorted. "-Or emaciated blue men."

Marcus pointed angrily at Kashi. "Well Father Isaac said it could look like anything it wanted, so why'd it want to stand out?"

Philemon crossed his arms. "If that were the case it'd try and look like a person to waste our time-"

"Then how do I know you're not one?" said Marcus.

"Of course I'm not one you imbecile-" Philemon said.

And they kept on going and going. Kashi realized there was no sign of them stopping for the time being. A few more villagers joined in and they all just got louder. In the midst of their squabble Kashi had made it to the palisade.

"Ought to have taken my chances with the wilderness," he thought. "Matter of fact, I'm going to do just that."

...

Meanwhile Hekkatomb was perched on the church steeple, staring at the entrance. When was Kashi going to arrive?

There was just one entrance into the village. One!

Damn that ninja! Knowing his speed and personality, Kashi would already be in the village by now. Either that or he'd just made off into the forest while seriously wounded. And from the looks of what was going on down below Hekkatomb swore it was the former. He must be hiding somewhere. But where?

Hekkatomb contemplated wiping the village off the map. It would be too easy. One simple technique and Kashi would would be done. But he didn't. For some reason Malachi wanted this village intact, buildings and all. Hekkatomb didn't get it. These days new Zones were dime a dozen.

He yawned, straightening his back and stretching his arms. As he opened his eyes he saw a white rectangle in the corner of his vision. Right behind him at the other side of the village was another entrance he hadn't noticed. His eyelid twitched. Snarling, he grabbed on to the steeple, but he let go of it just as he was about to hurl it at the mob of frightened primitives.

As his anger faded it occurred to him that maiming Kashi wasn't his main priority. The second most important priority was that damn fruit.

He leapt some fifty meters up into the air, then glided weightlessly down to what he assumed was the main entrance, which was the one he'd been staring at for the past five minutes. After landing he bent down and picked up a strand of hair from the snow. He held it close to his eye. It was lurid purple fading away to toxic green, and it had this hideous iridescent sheen to it.

He shut his eyes and tried to think of nothing. In the darkness of his inner eyelid he saw the outlines of every rock and tree and mountain. An invisible winding trail snaked off into the hills. He smirked. This would be too easy. That girl's residual spirit energy was about as obvious as a diarrhea stain on a Klan robe.

He stretched for a while and did several reps of squats and pull-ups in the snow. He'd need to be in peak condition for his journey.

"Oh, who am I kidding? It's just a little girl! It won't take me long to track her down." thought Hekkatomb. "Whatever. I'll deal with that later."

He jumped high into the air and landed back on the steeple. He slid down the roof, grabbed the gable, and swung into church through the highest window.

"Now for what I'm really here for..." thought Hekkatomb as he slowly descended onto the stage.

Unrolling the carpet he got down the trapdoor and made his way to the cold grey room where Father Isaac was praying.

Hekkatomb cleared his throat and put on the most formal voice he could. "Allow me to clarify our agreement."