The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 58 - The Golden Butterfly (Patreon)

                                                                                        Alexander North

After I reach the city gates, I find them wide open and without anyone there to watch over them. Except for a couple of wendigos that I quickly tear apart. So I head through them into the city to find the various levels of the city full of frozen ones for as far as the eye can see. And to make matters worse, the lowest level of the city appears to be buried in snow.

Please don’t let there have been anyone down there.

I know it’s a futile wish, as there must’ve been at least one person in the shops on the lowest level, but still…

A loud scream suddenly echoes from about a block away, followed by another one in the same direction. So I quickly break into a sprint, jumping from one patch of snow to another on the multilayered streets of the city towards the direction of the scream. And once I reach the source, I find it to be a young woman and a child hiding in a store with the entrance partially blocked by snow with several wendigos and two large frozen ones that I’ve never seen before. The creatures both look like they’d be more at home in the water than on land, as they’re both cephalopods who are slamming their various tentacles – each of them glowing with a pale blue light – against the wall of the store while the wendigos sit back and watch.

Okay, I’m certain there weren’t any octopi or squids in the river. So where did these things come from?

I quickly check their energy levels to find them both having energy levels quite a bit lower than my own.

Shouldn’t be much of a problem.

I rush in towards them with one of my arms pulled back and my claws spread out before stabbing my hand straight into the back of one of the wendigos and grabbing its heart. The creature lets out an ear piercing screech, but I ignore it as I rip out the heard, absorbing the energy in the process.

By now most of the other frozen ones in front of the store, along with a few that weren’t here notice me and immediately begin to attack – likely encouraged by their numbers. But I don’t give them the time as I quickly tear the throat out of another wendigo and dodge the claws of another.

Out of the corner of my eye as I tear through each of the frozen ones, I see the mother and child watching me through the frost tinted window with a mixture of fear, awe, and surprise on their faces. Which makes me briefly wonder which one they’ll settle on by the time I finish with these frozen ones.

To my surprise, both of the cephalopods turn tail and begin sliding away across the snow without showing even the slightest bit of inclination towards joining us. So I quickly finish off the frozen ones near me before chasing after them. But I don’t forget to smash the snow out of the way of the door, allowing the child and mother to leave the store if they wish.

The cephalopod frozen ones are surprisingly fast considering that they’re squids whose only limbs are over a dozen tentacles, but I eventually catch up to them and rip out each of their hearts. During the chase I do find out what their power is though. It looks like they can slide across snow and freeze things they touch with their tentacles.

I look at their corpses for a few more seconds before shaking my head, glancing back towards the store where I see the mother and child quickly rushing out and down the street in the opposite direction from me, and finally turning back to walk towards the center of the city.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a few hours of navigating through the snow and ice covered city and killing frozen one after frozen one after frozen one, I end up having to stop to rest at some point. Which is when I realize that I really need to take a break, since I haven’t slept for over a day and a half now.

So I move slightly off of the path to the planet hall and enter a store I recognize very well as the Golden Butterfly. A bookstore run by a friend of dad’s.

I can’t help but feel a little bit anxious as I walk through the front door before looking around at all of the books – some antique, some not – all covered in froze, and some even frozen shut. But nowhere around the room do I see Miss Anne.

Please be okay.

I chant this over and over in my mind as I continue moving through the bookstore, only to pause as I reach the back and surprisingly find a note. One that makes me let out a sigh of relief.

Alex, if you find this, then don’t worry about me.
I’ll be at the planet hall’s emergency bunker.
Stay safe.

Sincerely,
Miss Anne.

She’s okay. She should be okay.

I can’t help but smile a little at that before placing the note back down on the counter and moving to the back of the store. Then I bolt the door and continue further until I find the guest room that Miss Anne would have me stay in whenever I visited the city on my days off. Just so that I wouldn’t have to stay at the base during that time.

Seeing as this door doesn’t have a bolt, I block it with some furniture, knocking the frost off of it in the process.

Then I move to the bed and lie down with a sigh of relief.

An hour or two of sleep should be enough to get me back to near peak condition. Or at least it better be since I don’t have the time to sleep for any longer than that.

“Wake me up if any energy sources get within a dozen meters of me,” I tell my terminal before closing my eyes and slowly falling asleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discord Invite

Top Web Fiction

Table of Contents