9th of Glace, year 20XX

“Renee. Renee, wake up.” Someone was softly shaking Renee’s shoulders with a slight note of urgency in their voice.

With a soft scowl, Renee removed the open textbook that she placed over her face for shade and rose from her supine position so that she was no longer lying on the bench but sitting on it instead.

“I wasn’t asleep,” Renee replied. “Although The Modern Representation of the Dual Goddesses is doing its best to bore me to it. What’s wrong, Anise?”

Her university roommate and cousin, Anise, made a guilty face as she turned her laptop toward Renee. “How do I upload my homework file to this again?”

They were sitting outside in the open, expansive courtyard located within the University of Elysia. It was noon, and the last of their classes had just ended. The courtyard was unusually empty today, but that was due to the upcoming Winter Break starting tomorrow. That left just Renee and Anise sitting outside alone. 

While there had been heavy snowfall in the past few weeks, today had been a warmer day, which is why the two girls were outside to get their daily dose of sunlight while the sun was still up.

“Anise!” Renee tried not to make an incredulous face as she leaned in closer. “That’s the second time this month and we’re only nine days in!” 

“I know!” Anise appeared flustered, her face pink. “I think I saved the pdf to the wrong folder again.”

Sometimes, Renee suspected that Anise grew up in a household with no wifi or modern amenities. The poor girl seemed to have a grasp on the basics, but often gets confused from time to time, as if she read a book on how to operate them but never applied her lessons to real life before. 

Without another word of complaint, Renee took the laptop from Anise and searched through for Anise’s homework file. After successfully locating the pdf, she attached it to Anise’s assignment page and submitted it.

“Thank you!” Anise clapped her hand together. “That was my last assignment! Now I don’t have anything for Winter Break except studying for finals.”

“Lucky you,” Renee sighed as she picked up her textbook again. “I have to read this entire passage over break. Why couldn’t we be assigned actual history textbooks instead of contemporary analysis textbooks?”

“Are you really not going home for Winter Break?” Anise tilted her head at her as she packed away her laptop. “You still have time to change your mind.”

Renee’s face hardened as a wave of emotions squeezed her heart. Normally, she would be thrilled to return to her hometown in Lorelia. But now… “I’m just going to visit my parents for a bit. I don’t like going back to an empty house, no matter how nice the house is.”

Nice was something of an understatement. Renee’s home has been in the Arlinus family for many generations and was still standing proud and strong. It was a timeless classic, large and charming and boasting of an architecture style from a more glorious era. However, now the house was cold and empty, only serving to remind Renee of her parents’ absence. 

When Renee woke up in the hospital not long after the car accident, she found herself alone. Her parents never woke up. Both of them had been in a coma for the last six months. As for the boy with silvery blue eyes and the snow falling in the middle of summer, the doctors and paramedics were certain her memory was nothing more than a hallucination, although they weren’t sure how Renee got out of the car. They thought she might have crawled out on her own, but there were no scratches from the broken glass on her hands and knees.

That’s when her aunt and cousin came, swooping in out of nowhere. Up until that point, Renee didn’t even know she had an aunt or cousin, but legal documents confirmed that their words were true. While Renee was still reeling in shock from the recent events, her aunt helped handle the business side of things and even moved into Renee’s home so she wouldn’t feel alone. To her surprise, she found out that her cousin Anise was the same age as her and even attending the University of Elysia in the fall, just like her.

That’s how she and Anise ended up becoming roommates and an inseparable pair of friends. They were as different as day and night. Renee had long, straight black hair and a forward personality. Anise had pale golden hair that fell in loose curls and a very shy but kind personality. Renee was majoring in theology. Anise was majoring in medicine. There was not a single shared trait that makes one think they were cousins. 

The only thing they shared in common was their age, and the fact they were both citizens of Elysia, the landmass in the middle of the continent that belongs to no kingdom and is ruled by no king but a council of elected priests instead. It was said that Elysia was the land closest to the goddess Eislyn because it was also where the World Tree was located.

Anise bit her lips, seeming embarrassed to ask Renee a question that hit so close to her sensitive spot. “Then I’ll stay here as well.”

The edge of Renee’s lips curled in a small smile of amusement. “Don’t you want to see your mother again? Aren’t you a little homesick?”

“Not at all!” Anise shook her head. “I’ll much rather stay with you.”

Renee gave her a small smile.

“I’m hungry,” Renee declared out of the blue as she snapped her boring textbook shut and slipped it into her school bag. “Let’s get something to eat in this courtyard. The sun feels nice today.”

Anise bobbed her head in agreement as she quickly scrambled to collect her things.

Renee swung her bag over her shoulder and stood up from the bench. She didn’t take more than a few steps when the air around them changed abruptly, like the calm before a storm. Chills went down her spine as a strong feeling of unease fell over them.

At first glance, nothing had changed. The sun was still bright, the sky still clear as ever. But the sounds of birds singing were gone, replaced by an unnatural silence. The gentle winter breeze that occasionally swept through the open courtyard was gone as well. The air was completely still.

“Did you feel that?” Anise asked softly, voicing exactly what Renee was thinking. 

“Did the air pressure drop?” Renee shrugged, but her flippant attitude couldn’t hide her feeling of anxiety either. “It’s not uncommon for that to happen before a storm. The weather forecast did predict a snowstorm coming soon, didn’t it?”

Anise nodded and was about to start moving again.

That’s when Renee saw it—wolf-like creatures prowling at the edge of the courtyard. Her heart leapt to her throat as she reached out for Anise.

“Anise, stop.” Renee warned in a hard voice. “Get behind me, right now.”

Anise made a noise that was not quite a squeak nor a gasp when she spotted them too, but she gave a small nod in response to Renee’s word. 

There were three of them, creeping closer to the two girls. Whatever they were, they weren’t real wolves. There was a sense of wrongness to them that Renee struggled to describe. They didn’t seem solid and alive the way normal animals were, but appeared to have been made of shadows, the kind that burns into a person’s vision after they stared at the sun for too long. 

But what’s apparent to both girls was the fact that the non-wolves had their eyes trained on them like a hunter stalking prey. They most definitely do not look friendly.

“Anise,” Renee spoke slowly and softly, trying to keep her voice from trembling. If she loses her composure, Anise will panic as well. She had to hold it together for both of them. “Slowly move backward. Don’t make any sudden move, understand? As soon as I give the word, we make a run for it.”

“What- What are they?” Anise asked. She, too, seemed to come to the same conclusion as Renee that they were no ordinary creatures.

“I think they’re… nythrals.” Renee forced herself to say it. Nythrals. Something that only existed in legends and stories. Creatures made of magic and chaos energy with a desire to destroy. They were described to be the servants of the goddess Eris, sneaking through holes in the Boundary to wreak havoc in the physical plane.

Unfortunately for Renee and Anise, that meant their lives are now in danger.

“But aren’t they made of magic?” Anise asked with a note of desperation. “There has been no magic in this world for a thousand years. How do we kill them?”

Renee would like to know the answer to that as well. Despite the urgency of the situation, several other questions flew through Renee’s mind.

How is no one else noticing these nythrals? How did they get here and where did they come from? Why are they appearing here and now? 

Renee craned her neck to survey the courtyard, trying to find anything, anything, that can be useful in their current predicament. The benches are two low, so no use climbing up there to get away. The trees are too far away, as are the other exits to the courtyard. She glanced back at the nythrals and was terrified to see that they had begun to spread out, as if cornering the girls and cutting off other escape options.

Renee slowly opened her school bag again. “Remember what I said? Run when I tell you to.”

“But—”

Before Anise could get in another word, Renee pulled out The Modern Representation of the Dual Goddesses and chucked it as hard as she could at the head of the closest nythral.

“Run! Run, run, run!” Renee shouted as she yanked Anise backward and shove her in the direction of the exit.

The book struck the nythral with a solid thwack. To Renee’s shock, instead of the nythral recovering from the impact, it instead disintegrated completely like a wisp of smoke. 

Renee gasped in surprise. So the nythrals could be killed, or rather, destroyed. 

Unfortunately, the other two nythrals took the death of their own as their cue to attack. As if they had been waiting for this the entire time, they both sprang into action as one. They were fast, covering the remaining distance in seconds. There was no way Anise or Renee was going to outrun them.

Renee wasn’t sure what came over her in the next moment. Stupidity? Or bravery? Either way, she slid her school bag from her shoulder and swung it as hard as she could at the first nythral to reach her. Despite being relieved of a heavy textbook, her school bag was still quite hefty.

The second nythral must have been smarter than the first, because it leapt backward, narrowly avoiding Renee’s bag. Renee cursed, the momentum of her bag too deep into its arc to make another swing in time, so she let go of her bag just as the third nythral made its move by leaping on top of her and knocking her to the ground. On instinct, Renee yanked both her hands upward just in time to grab onto the creature’s face before it could bite down on her throat.

Renee gasped, struggling to hold the creature at an arm’s length away. 

Where is the second nythral right now? She can’t fend off both at once, she can barely fend off one. She only hoped that the second one wouldn't attack while she was grappling with the third.

Renee brought her knees to her chest, and planted her feet solidly on the shadowy creature. Then, she kicked off as hard as she could, trying to kick it off her, but instead, her feet went through the nythral, causing it to disintegrate like the first. 

Great, now all she had to do was to take care of the last one—

“Renee!” Anise’s scream was the only warning Renee had before the second nythral was on her again, springing up from behind.

Terror seized Renee’s heart. No, she thought. I don’t want to die here today.

Time seemed to slow as the second wolf closed on her. Renee couldn’t hear or feel anything else but her own panic and the ringing in her ear as she braced herself for the inevitable impact. Suddenly, Renee felt something in her chest release. Something bursted out of her, an indescribable feeling of energy.

Then, time froze.