CHAPTER TWO - HER SCENT
925 Words
The cold outside the Wall doesn’t bite.
It hunts.
The moment the gates seal behind us, the wind cuts straight through my clothes like they were never there. My breath turns to fog instantly, thick and panicked, and the ground beneath my boots crunches with a sound that feels too loud for a place this empty.
George swears softly beside me.
“You feel that?” he asks.
I nod. Talking feels like wasting warmth. “It feels like … something is watching.”
He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Great. Already haunted.”
The hunters move fast, spreading out the way trained people do. No one yells. No one jokes. The wasteland punishes noise.
A man with a scar carved across his cheek glances back at me. “Who the hell is she?”
George steps in front of me instantly. “She’s with me.”
Scarface snorts. “Didn’t know they were sending children now.”
“I’m not a child,” I say before George can speak.
The man’s eyes flick to me. Cold. Measuring. “Out here,” he says, “that doesn’t matter.”
We march for hours. The landscape never changes—just endless snow and jagged ice formations rising like broken teeth.
The sky is a dull, colorless gray that presses down on my skull. Every step feels wrong, like the ground might swallow us whole if we pause too long.
My fingers ache. Not numb yet. Worse. Like they’re screaming quietly.
George leans closer. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
"You’re lying.”
“Still fine.”
He smiles, but there’s worry behind it. Small sparks jump between his gloves, fading quickly so no one notices.
We stop when the sun dips low—or at least, when the light dims enough to suggest time is passing. Camp is silent and efficient. Thermal shields are raised. Weapons are checked. No fires. No warmth that isn’t controlled.
I sit near George, knees pulled to my chest.
“This was a bad idea,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
I stare out at the white nothingness. “Because when they called your name, I felt like I was being buried alive.”
He exhales slowly. “Ava…”
“I won’t slow you down,” I say quickly. “I swear.”
“I’m not worried about that.” He responds just as a scream cuts through the air.
Sharp. Wet. Too close.
Everyone’s up instantly.
Weapons snap into position. Blue-white lights flicker on, casting harsh shadows across the snow.
“Formation!” someone hisses.
The scream comes again—closer now. It sounds human.
That’s what terrifies me.
A figure stumbles into the edge of the light, clutching its stomach. Blood stains the snow beneath it, dark and steaming.
“Help me,” it cries.
I freeze.
George’s hand tightens on my arm. “Don’t move.”
The figure lifts its head.
Its face is wrong. Familiar, but twisted, like a bad copy. The skin around its mouth peels back, revealing something dark and writhing beneath.
“Skin walker,” Scarface mutters.
It lunges.
Everything blurs.
Hunters fire ice-charged rounds. The creature shrieks as frost spreads across its body, cracking its stolen skin like glass. It collapses, twitching violently.
Silence crashes back down.
My heart pounds so hard I think it might split my ribs.
George breathes out. “You saw that, right?”
I nod.
“That thing,” he continues, voice tight, “it didn’t look at anyone else.”
I swallow. “It looked at me.”
We move again, faster now. No one speaks. No one relaxes.
The night stretches on, heavy and suffocating.
Then it happens.
We’re crossing a narrow ravine when the ground beneath us moves.
Ice explodes upward. Hands—too many hands—burst from the snow, grabbing legs, dragging hunters down screaming.
Chaos erupts.
George throws lightning, arcs of blue energy ripping through the dark. I move without thinking, blade flashing as I s***h at something that shouldn’t be solid.
A skin walker grabs my wrist.
Its touch is wrong.
Not cold.
Not warm.
Just empty.
The moment its skin meets mine, it screams. A scream so loud my ears hurt, ringing like a loud speaker was blasting right at it.
A sound so high and broken it makes my head ring.
Smoke rises where our skin touches. The creature jerks back, clutching its arm as black veins spread rapidly beneath its flesh.
“What the—” someone shouts.
I stumble back, staring at my hand.
Unmarked.
Unburned.
Unchanged.
No rotting flesh, no decay, nothing at all.
Like as if I had never been touched.
The skin walker collapses, writhing as ice creeps over it from the inside out.
Everything stops.
Every eye turns to me.
I don’t understand what just happened. My chest tightens, panic clawing up my throat.
“I didn’t—” I whisper. “I didn’t do anything.”
George stares at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“Ava,” he says slowly, “it touched you.”
“I know.”
“And it burned.”
The wind howls, louder now, carrying distant, echoing cries.
Scarface steps closer, fear flickering across his hardened face. “What are you?”
I look down at my hands again.
I don’t have an answer.
But far out in the white silence, something else does.
Something that just learned my scent.
- Writer
