The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 35 - Symbiont Host Storage (Patreon)

                                                                                             Alexander North

After walking through the hall for a few minutes without running into any frozen ones, I finally remember to ask, “By the way, did you happen to hear people running by before you fell asleep in there?”

Cynthia turns her head to look at me but doesn’t say anything until she turns to face forwards again and says, “No. And you really should’ve asked this earlier.”

Yeah, probably. Wasn’t thinking about it then though.

“Situation?” She asks after a couple of seconds as we walk.

I glance at her before raising my arms and extending my claws as I see the outline of a brute charging through the halls ahead of us. “You good for a fight? We can talk after we deal with this.”

She glances at me, then towards the direction I’m looking as the footsteps of the charging brute begin to draw closer. “Count me in.”

I can’t help but grin before rushing towards the intersection with my claws out and her following behind me with her sword drawn. The brute rounds the corner right when we reach it before looking at us with a crazed look in its eyes and changing the direction of its charge directly towards me. But I jump into a roll to dodge it while reaching for a knife and sending it flying at the brute’s leg, piercing into it for a second and making it stumble. Cynthia then sidesteps it as it falls before bringing her own sword down on its neck and beheading the creature.

“Just like old times at basic training.” I state with a nod while beginning to walk over to the frozen one in order to retrieve my knife.

Cynthia barks out a laugh at that while shaking her head and pulling her blade out of the brute’s neck, just to pierce it into its skull instead as she says, “I don’t remember any monsters at basic training.”

“Meh,” I retort back before yanking my knife out of its leg. “The minor details aren’t important.”

“Uh huh,” she slowly drawls out as she pulls her sword back out of its head, wipes the gore off of it onto the ripped clothes of the brute, and sheathes it again. “Now what was that about people walking by?”

“Not too long before I found you, I ran into a group of two soldiers and three civilians…” I begin to explain the details of our reunion.

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“Okay, I understand,” she says after I finish explaining. “You told them to run away instead of to hide in one of the nearby rooms because you didn’t know how your fight would turn out, since it would’ve trapped them in that room if say that large wolf you found earlier appeared. And now you don’t know where they went.”

“Yep,” I answer with a nod before looking around the floor and asking, “you wouldn’t happen to know the exact layout of this floor, would you?”

Surprisingly, or I guess not so surprisingly considering that her father is even more protective than my own, she answers in the affirmative, “Yes, I do.”

I glance at her before nodding my head towards the hallway and saying, “Well be my guest then.”

She chuckles at that while walking ahead of me and beginning to lead the way towards the storage unit.

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“So,” Cynthia whispers as we both kneel down low to the ground and peer around the corner at the enormous wolf standing at the end of the long hall, right next to the symbiont storage unit entrance, “I think we found your wolf.”

“Hmm,” I quietly hum in response. “That we have.”

We both quietly stare from our place at the intersection for several seconds as the enormous wolf seemingly sleeps in peace surrounded by a few other smaller wolves. Which makes me wonder if the rest of its pack is just out for the moment, or if they died while fighting those wendigos from earlier.

However, after a while, my eyes widen in shock as a familiar head pops out of the window of the symbiont storage unit before the veteran guy gives a salute and a nod.

“And that’s one of the civilians,” I whisper, quite surprised that they managed to make it here themselves. And by the looks of it, before the massive wolf did.

The veteran points at the large wolf outside, then down the hall, then down at the doorknob.

“He wants one of us to lead it away before he’ll unlock the door from the inside for us,” Cynthia repeats the meaning of his hand motions out loud.

I frown at that before thinking of the many things that could go wrong with that plan. But the issue is that there isn’t much we can do about it. After all, that door is one of the most secure doors in the entire building and even has bolt locks along with the magnetic locks. So even with the technology being unusable, that door’s lock is still in effect. Meaning we can’t get past the door without them unlocking it.

“Damn thing’s probably camping out there because of them,” I hear Cynthia mutter with a hint of frustration in her tone.

Yeah, that’s likely. Wolves are supposed to have good senses of… smell…

As if responding to my line of thought, the large wolf opens its eyes before instantly turning to look directly at us with a sniff of its large nose.

“Looks like we don’t have a choice,” I tell her while quickly climbing to my feet and pointing towards a room. “You hide in there while I distract it and bring it away from here for a few minutes. Once the coast is clear, make a break for the door and get in. Then wait for me to return.”

Cynthia begins to protest, but I push her away and begin running towards the large wolf.

“Hey furball!” I shout with a wave of my arm while stopping at another intersection between us and the wolf that is already getting to its feet. “Catch me if you can!”

I then bolt it down a different hallway branching from the intersection right after seeing the large wolf begin its chase.

Heroics normally aren’t my thing. But there really isn’t another way I can think of for us to make it through to the stairwell.

So I better not die.