Chapter 4

  Again, as it has been happening for years, snow is falling. The sky, covered in a grey bnket, is made of clouds. The wildlife life, thriving, evolving, and living.

  The surface is covered in lots of species. Wolves hunting, eating, mating, sleeping. Bears are mostly resting. Twin stalkers stalking. Birds flying high. Fish swimming deep. Simply put, it was lively.

  But this wasn't the only pce lively, deep, deeper than fish could swim. Under the ground, things were moving, things the surface wanted nothing to do with.

  In a cave, so dark that nothing could be seen, but things could be heard, the sound of coins rustling. The air was dry, hinting at not a single drop of moisture. It was also unbearably hot, uninhabitable for all but the strongest creatures. Slowly, breathing could be heard, growing louder and louder, more restless.

  Then, it became calm and collected. Followed by the sound of sniffing. Shortly after, the sniffing had stopped, and finally, something became visible. In the pitch bck darkness, a fming eye shot open, the giant vertical slit, shooting up towards the ceiling. Yet, it didn't seem to look simply at the ceiling but past it. A horrifying, vibrating voice spoke out in a tongue that was neither human nor monster, "The Surface."

  Turning back a few days, we are in a forest filled with pines, and an enormous ke is present. But that is all, it is silent. But then, we hear the sound of snow, crunching under the weight of a creature, along with ragged breathing.

  Through the pines, a wolf is approaching the ke. Surprisingly, it is alone, with no pack in sight. Also surprising is the fact that no fresh wound is present on the wolf, instead, a sea of scars. From the snout to the hind legs, scars over scars, hinting at the age of this wolf.

  Walking slowly up to the ke, it used its remaining strength to smash open a hole into the ice. After a few tries, finally, with a cracking sound, the ice broke. Followed by the hasty sound of drinking.

  The wolf, finally having drank enough turned towards the forest and sat down, and began to think. It would probably die soon, either having been caught by a bigger predator or having reached the limit of its time.

  It thought back to its pack leader and mented the fact that it couldn't evolve into a dire wolf. Had that happened it wouldn't be in this situation of having grown old and having been left behind by its pack.

  Deciding it should continue to march, it turned around again to drink one st sip but it stopped, frozen in pce, petrified.

  Right beside it, just two meters away, a human child stood looking straight at it with a certain look in its strange eyes.

  The way it stood showed absolute confidence. Its strangely reptilian eyes held a look that the wolf knew all too well, the look of a predator having spotted prey. And its mouth, open, showed a row of teeth fit for ripping flesh. Behind these teeth, the wolf could spot an abnormally long tongue with a split end coiling around.

  As if all those things weren't questioning enough, the kid was covered alone and covered in the fur of wolves. This wolf had spotted many humans before and could safely say that the one before it was nothing like the rest of his kind, an anomaly.

  But all those things weren't even the most questioning part about this being, the strangest thing was how this child even got there in the first pce. Because, even though the wolf was lost in thought, it was still constantly smelling, seeing, feeling, and sensing its surroundings. Nothing would go unnoticed, yet this child just... appeared, how? It was like nothing the wolf had ever seen, and it was inducing a fear it had long forgotten, the fear of the unknown, the fear of death.

  Yet, even with this fear present, it still got up and crouched down, ready to lunge at the child's neck. And after a few seconds of the child not moving, the wolf decided to attack. Jumping forward, the wolf saw the child move to the side with a simple step and pull its right arm pack, ready for an attack. Still mid-air, the wolf felt a force connect with its ribcage, sending it a few feet to its right.

  Sensing its body, it noticed the punch's ck of damage, and the wolf gained a bit of confidence. Going again for a pounce attack, it watched the human pull the same move again, this time hitting the wolf a bit earlier and from a different side, resulting in it getting uppercut by the child.

  Landing, it instantly snapped towards the child only to see it already having retreated a few steps back. The wolf again felt its body and again noticed the ck of damage these hits were doing. Looking at the child it also noticed something different, the left shoulder seemed to be damaged. It didn't know how or from what, but the left shoulder was slightly higher and more tense, showing pain. This fact, paired with the child only having used its right arm indicated a weakness. But it was too early to say something just yet.

  Again going for a lunge, attack. The wolf repeated its actions 3-4 more times. Getting hit each time, it decided to continue this until the child could no longer dodge. It only needed to catch the boy one time for it to win. So, it got ready for the next attack and jumped.

  That was its st move, as the boy looked down at the dead wolf, half his throat having been ripped out.

  Sighing, the boy spit out the chunk of flesh and walked away with disappointment. The disappointment wasn't towards the wolf, no while the boy didn't know the name for it, he was feeling respect for the wolf, in fact, he was feeling respect towards every beast he had killed. The dissapointment was in himself, for he had been searching for other ways to fight than using his teeth.

  He had noticed that, unlike other creatures who had cws, tails, and spikes, he had nothing except teeth. It's not like his teeth tactic wasn't working, it is just that he wanted other ways in case his teeth couldn't work in some way.

  Today he had tried punching and quickly realized that he wasn't doing any damage, resulting in him falling back on his teeth.

  Sighing, the boy continued to wander, touching his left shoulder and wincing in pain. The boy didn't know what exactly was causing the pain. He could of course put one and one together and figure out that it was the point where the first wolf he had ever fought had ripped a chunk out. But the wound had healed, or so he thought until a few weeks back it started to hurt a bit. At first, it wasn't that much, but the pain grew more and more. And today it had reached a new peak. But realizing the boy could do nothing about it, he just decided to accept it. Walking towards the west, the boy continued. One or two days passed like that until the boy decided to do something he had never done.

  Looking at a mountain, while chewing on a twin stalker heart, he decided to venture to the top of this mountain. The mountain wasn't anything special, yes it was more on the bigger side and it was the st one of the mountain chain, but other than that, there was nothing, just a normal mountain in a long chain of connected mountains.

  Looking down at the corpse, the boy decided to one st snack ripped out one of its eyes, and began to walk.

  Eating the eye, he started picking up some speed, then some more and some more, reaching full sprint, the boy went up the mountain. Now going up the mountain, the boy realized that this was a longer way than he had thought, but stopping didn't even enter his mind for a second. He wanted to go to the top, so he was going to the top.

  A few hours ter, he had arrived and what he saw was breathtaking to him. What he saw was like the ponds, rivers, and kes he had seen before. Yet it was nothing like them, it was so grand and huge that he couldn't even see the end. And if his eyes didn't deceive him, the ke wasn't frozen, or at least not fully.

  What the boy had found was the ocean, the end of the world he grew up in. But he didn't know nor understand that. The only thing he understood was that he wanted to go there.

  Sprinting down the mountain, he nearly tumbled and fell, catching himself before that could happen. With the great ke, growing near a new smell started to enter the boy's nose. It was something he had never smelt before, this was just growing his excitement even more. Resulting in him picking up even faster speeds, sprinting past trees, rocks, and roots with excelency. And finally, there it was, the neverending, vastness of the ocean.

  While sand in general wasn't new to him, this amount of it was. But that was just a side thought as he ran towards the shore, where ice meets sand, and continued running over the ice until... there was no ice. It was so foreign to him, the fact of unfrozen water. Stopping near the end and sliding the st few meters, the boy stopped at about the end. Kneeling, he looked into the dark abyss that was the ocean water with mixed feelings. Fear of the unknown and excitement for the new these two thoughts were mixed inside his mind.

  As he continued to look he felt thirst, so as he did as he always does and stuck his head in the water to take a gulp. Only to pull it instantly out and spit the water away. This water was strange, it had a stinging sensation that was pulling his mouth together, clearly undrinkable. But feeling the thirst now even more for some reason unknown to the boy. He sprinted back to shore grabbed chunks of snow and stuffed them in his mouth, resulting in the snow melting and his thirst being satiated for now.

  Turning back to the ocean, the boy looked left and right, deciding on a direction to walk. In the end, the left direction was chosen.

  And so the boy started to walk, for days and days. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. His life was rather bnd right now, or at least he felt like it. No wolves wandered near the ocean for some reason. And only the occasional twin stalker decided to show itself. During breaks, the boy decided to test the waters and tried swimming. At first, it looked horrendous, but after a week of trying, he finally managed to get some motion and from there on out it only started to pick up, resulting in his diet switching from mammals back to fish, not that he compined. For some reason, he liked the taste of these fish more than anything else. This was one of the reasons keeping him at the ocean.

  After a month of walking the boy spotted something, far up ahead, the ever-white world he knew ended, switching to the por opposite. Far up ahead, the snow ended and dark, grey colors seemed to continue forward. Always excited for something new, he started to pick up some speed, and the next day, at dawn, he had arrived where the snow had started to end.

  From there on onward, the ground was made of dozens of small rocks, gravel to be exact. Again, unknown to the boy. Stepping onto the stones the boy noticed the instant difference, the stones he was walking on were way warmer than the ground where the snow y. Looking up at the rock desert, the boy noticed the ck of fauna. No pnts were present, only rock and stone. Here, mountains also started to rise again, though this time more spread out and alone, unlike before when they were chained together. In the distance, the boy could also spot strange-shaped rock formations protruding from the ground.

  Deciding to continue walking the boy realized that he quite liked this new area, while the exact termonologies of warmth and cold were unknown to him, he could still distinguish and say that he enjoyed the change to the warmth.

  A few days went by until the boy spotted something, far out into the ocean, there was a mountain, no, an isnd. And for some reason, he felt the desire to go there. This desire wasn't like when he wanted to go up the mountain. No this here felt more like a call, an unknown pull calling him there.

  He wanted to look away, but he couldn't, it was a vortex he couldn't escape from.

  And as if hypnotized, he started walking into the ocean. Swimming towards the isnd.