The night was merciless.
Every breath Fred took felt like it was being dragged through knives.
His hands, raw from climbing the jagged rocks beyond the Hollow, bled freely, staining the frozen ground.
Nia limped beside him, her face pale and set in a grim mask, her broken arm cradled against her chest.
Torin stumbled, each step more labored than the last.
The wound across his ribs was deep, ugly — every few minutes, Fred had to shove a piece of cloth into the bleeding gash just to slow the river of blood.
Each time he did, Torin would grunt softly — not in complaint.
In stubborn defiance.
They had escaped Kael.
But they hadn't escaped death.
It followed them like a shadow that grew thicker with every heartbeat.
---
By dawn, they found shelter.
An old radio tower, long abandoned, leaning drunkenly against the pale sky.
Its metal frame was twisted by rust and storms.
Graffiti coated its base — angry, colorful curses from people long gone.
Fred led the others inside the crumbling remains of the maintenance building.
It stank of mold and rot.
But it was dry.
It was hidden.
It was enough.
For now.
Nia collapsed without a word, pressing her back against the wall and sliding to the ground.
Torin tried to stay upright, but his knees buckled.
Fred caught him just in time, lowering him to the cracked floor.
For a moment, Fred just stood there, breathing hard, staring at his broken, bleeding friends.
They were alive.
But only just.
> "We need fire," Fred rasped.
> "And we need to stop the bleeding."
His voice sounded foreign in the frozen air.
Like it belonged to someone else.
Someone stronger.
Someone colder.
--
Fred found old rags in a collapsed locker.
Nia, despite her pain, helped tear them into bandages with her good hand.
They worked in silence.
A grim dance of survival.
Fred wrapped Torin's chest as best he could, ignoring the bubbling wheeze of his breath.
Torin should have been in a hospital.
Hooked to machines.
Tended by real doctors.
Not patched together by shaking hands and prayers.
But there was no hospital.
No help.
Only themselves.
And maybe not even that, soon.
Fred caught Nia staring at the door more than once.
Flinching at every gust of wind.
Every creak of the old tower.
As if Kael might materialize out of the mist at any moment, sword in hand, to finish what he started.
Fred understood.
Because he was thinking the same thing.
Freedom wasn't a blessing.
It was a target painted on their backs.
--
The first sign of danger came just before sunset.
Fred had gone outside to gather wood — brittle, frozen branches that snapped like bones.
That's when he saw it.
Movement in the trees.
Not guards.
Not Kael's soldiers.
Something worse.
Silent figures wrapped in scavenged furs, faces hidden behind crude masks.
Hunters.
Not official.
Not organized.
Just men and women who lived beyond the Hollow — feral survivors who saw strangers not as people, but as prey.
Fred froze.
He counted at least six.
Maybe more.
They moved like ghosts through the snow.
Closing in.
Slowly.
Patiently.
They were stalking the tower.
Stalking them.
Fred ducked back inside, heart slamming in his throat.
> "We have company," he whispered.
Nia's eyes snapped open.
Torin coughed weakly.
> "How many?" Nia asked, voice tight.
> "Enough," Fred said grimly.
Enough to kill them all if they stayed here.
But if they ran…
In their condition…
They wouldn't make it a hundred yards.
---
Fred didn't hesitate.
He moved fast, dragging an old filing cabinet across the door.
Nia braced a fallen beam against the window.
Torin, trembling, forced himself upright, gripping a broken piece of pipe like a club.
They were building a fortress out of garbage.
Out of scraps.
Out of sheer, stubborn will.
The hunters circled outside.
Waiting.
Fred could hear their footsteps crunching in the snow.
Could hear the occasional low chuckle — the sound of predators savoring the kill before it even began.
> "We make them bleed first," Fred said quietly.
> "We make them think we're not worth it."
Nia nodded.
She said nothing.
There was nothing left to say.
They were past words now.
Only actions mattered.
Only survival.
---
The first assault came at twilight.
A rock shattered the window, sending shards spraying across the floor.
A figure lunged through the gap, wielding a jagged hunting knife.
Fred met him head-on.
There was no finesse.
No skill.
Just rage and desperation.
Fred drove the branch he was holding straight into the attacker's gut.
The man gasped, hot blood splashing Fred's hands.
He crumpled without a sound.
Another shadow appeared at the door, trying to wrench the cabinet aside.
Nia was there in an instant, stabbing downward with a shard of glass.
A scream tore the air.
Fred grabbed the fallen attacker's knife, spinning toward the door.
He slashed at a second invader — a woman with wild hair and a broken jaw.
She stumbled back, blood pouring from her forearm.
> "GET BACK!" Fred roared.
For a heartbeat, the hunters hesitated.
The ferocity.
The madness in his voice.
They hadn't expected that.
They had expected victims.
Prey.
Not demons fighting for every inch.
---
When it ended, Fred didn't know how much time had passed.
Minutes?
Hours?
He stood in the center of the room, panting, covered in blood that wasn't all his own.
Five bodies lay in the snow.
The others had fled into the night.
Fred didn't feel triumphant.
He felt empty.
Drained.
Another piece of himself torn away.
Nia was crouched in the corner, trembling violently.
Torin was unconscious, slumped against the wall.
Fred wiped the blood from his face with a shaking hand.
They had survived.
Again.
But the cost kept rising.
Piece by piece, freedom was devouring them.
And out there — somewhere — Kael was still hunting.
And worse things lurked beyond him.
Things even Kael feared.
Fred sank down beside his friends.
Pulled them close.
And waited for the next nightmare to come crawling out of the dark.
---