The cold reaches everywhere like gas. It climbs up with it’s frozen claws, choking all the heat out of any naked living thing. Many a man soul has been frozen stuck in time, forever locked out of heaven without the proper burial. The cold reaches to the hearts of all, mother, father, child. All hearts care on its own, no transaction is made without the searing cold’s hand on the shoulders of all those involved. This is a world of the damned, they seek no god, for god can’t find them. This world is cold.
A body covered in ragged clothing acts like a coat, goggles with switches on the side cover the eyes. The blizzard roars pushing all the hanging rags in the wind. The body starts to pick up the pace, for the clothing has become too ragged to protect it from the wind. Then the body sees a house, there is heat coming from it. The body reaches the door. The body opens it to find a man sitting in front of the fire.
“Who are you?” The man says ever staring it to the fire.
“Why do you care? If you want to kick me out I’ll be the only one being warm here.” A woman’s voice echoes monotonous.
“You can stay, the thing hung left here is the fire we can both take from it.”
The woman pulls the rags over her head, and she pulls a chair from the corner of the room. The room was made entirely of wood there was another door across from the front one. The room had 2 beds opposite from each other in the back. The flame rose high. The man wore a red denim jacket with ragged pants. His hair was short and black, his eyes a steely gray. His skin was tanned.
“Why do you think this happened.” The man asked.
“I’m not the person you should ask about that.”
“How come.”
“I don’t focus on the past, I only focus on what important to me, there is saber-toothed deer to hunt, hides to sell, people to steal from!”
“I see.”
“The how’d you get this place.”
“Why’d you ask” he mocked
“Places of the old world are hard to find, most of them have been destroyed.”
“I used to own this place before the frost.”
The woman decided to take off her goggles and anything covering her face. Her hair a dark curly brown. Her eyes a bright yellow. The heat from the roaring fire radiated everywhere. Then there was a gunshot breaking through the door.
“What was that?” The man whispered.
“Drifters.”
“What?”
“Drifters, they will kill us if we don’t prepare. Put out that fire!” She spoke a worried tone. He grabbed a jug of water that was next to the flames. The flames hissed out and the room became dark and cold rather quickly. The woman took out a giant revolver. And begins to aim at any movement. The woman takes out a makeshift shift knife and runs through the back door.
There was a lull, the blizzard has calmed down, a bullet breaks the window. The woman retaliates by shooting back in the direction of the shot. Then the screaming.
“Aaaayeeeeee.” A guttural woman-like scream. Then there is a flash from a gun reveal a shadowy figure cutting down the Drifters. After a while of this, the man’s voice comes back. The woman runs to her goggles lay on the floor. She flips the switch for night vision instinctively. She turns around to see the man his face worried and bloodied.In his had was a pile of wood and bloody ripped clothes. She shuffles backward aiming her gun towards him. He frowns and walks to the remnants of the flames. He hunches over the remnants them he shoves everything he had into the ashes. He walks over to under a bed and, he grabs a hide sac filled with liquid. He opens it and pours some of it over the remnants. He takes a match out of his pocket and light it on the matchbook, he only had three matches left. He throws the matches into the wood and the fire begins with life again. The man sits back down in his chair and motions towards the second. The woman slowly gets up and a sts in the next chair still aiming his gun towards the man.
“My name is Akakios, I used to be a soldier.”
“Anya, I used to be a drifter.” she slowly took off her goggles as she sat in the chair.
“So Ánya, did I kill your friends?” He said emphasizing the first A.
“No, did your friends freeze the world over?”
“Maybe, I’m no longer their keeper.”
“What do I do now?”
“You could leave, or you could stay with me for a while.” He stared into the hot flames like a trance.
“....” Anya couldn’t decide.
“Well if you choose to stay I’ll see you in the morning.” He walked off to the first bed in the corner and slept in it. Anya dumbfounded, sat in the corner and slept. Gun glued to her hand. The fire was slowly dying.
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