Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
My terrified imagination throws a hundred awful scenarios at me—that someone’s going to grab me from behind. That the monster that carried off the woman is going to return and see me naked. That I’ll never find anything and freeze to death, my chunky, dimpled ass hanging out of the snow. The library I work at will post a brief written eulogy for me. Rosalind was a passionate employee and an advocate for books. Perhaps too passionate in her love for the Vampire Diaries or Twilight, as she wrote far too many strange stories about such things. She died as she lived—strangely and alone. Oh, and please remember to return your books on time.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
But I run towards the cliffs, my breath sobbing out of me with every step, my skin frozen and my body so cold I want to scream aloud, and no one stops me. I make it to the rocks and the wind is slightly less brutal here. Glancing around, I touch the shale and it clinks to my feet. The snows grow thick up ahead as the cliffs surge forward, like plates of rock rising from the snowy ground. I can continue forward and hope for a cave, or I can go back and crawl into my coffin and hope for death to be swift.
I think of the monster who stole the woman again, and the fact that I’m naked and vulnerable and weaponless, and that decides me. Keeping close to the rocks, I move forward, teeth chattering.
Just when I think I can’t stand the cold any longer, I spot something ahead. Is that…a cave?
Am I going to be that lucky? Someone above must be looking out for me.
Sure enough, I stumble into what looks like a small cave. I want to sob with relief at getting out of the wind, though it’s not much warmer in here. My foot wrappings have lost almost all of their moss and the fabric clings to my icy feet like a wet paper towel. It gets darker the further I stumble into the cave, and I’m dimly aware that this is how people get eaten by bears…but I’ll take my chances with the bears at this point.
With searching fingers, I feel around in the cave. I touch something furry and I scream, drawing backward in terror. Nothing lunges for me, though, and after a hesitant moment, I reach forward again.
It’s…a fur. As in, a fur blanket. Choked with relief, I unroll it and wrap it around my shivering body. Oh god, that’s so much better. I clutch it to my naked form and shuffle a little deeper into the cave, looking for anything else. If there’s a fur blanket, there should be a person that this fur blanket belongs to, right? Am I somewhere in the wilds of Alaska? That would explain the snow, but not how I got here. I shouldn’t be here. I live in…
I pause.
Where the heck do I live?
The fact that I can’t recall is a little worrying. “It’s the cold,” I tell myself, blowing on my fingers. “Once you warm up, your brain will kick in. Now you just gotta find a nice hot fire, Rosalind, or a cup of hot cocoa.”
I move even further back into the cave, and it’s weird, because I could swear it is getting warmer in the cave despite things. Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite? Caves get colder the deeper you go inside them. Even a cave in a desert gets chilly at night. I know this, because I wrote a fic for the movie The Mummy and did research on caves, because I wanted to get a love scene between Evie, Rick, and Ardeth just right. I’m also a little worried about a cave-in. I saw a horror movie once where someone got squeezed into a too-tiny crevice in a cave and never came out alive.
I did not write fic for that one.
I find the cave wall and press myself against it. There’s a drip of water here, and a bumpy, ridged rock formation that I feel with my hands.
Water, I remind myself. Not ice. Water. That means it’s above freezing in here. That’s…odd.
A pebble clinks somewhere nearby.
I freeze. Was that inside the cave with me or outside? All is silent for another long, tense moment, and I turn towards the entrance. No one’s there. If someone’s here, they came from inside the cave. Trembling, I hug the fur closer. “Hello?” I whisper. “Is someone there?”
A hairy arm wraps around my waist. Another pins my shoulders against a hard, rock-like chest.
The scream bubbling in my throat is covered by a third hand, and no one hears the monster drag me away, deeper into the cave.
Two
R’JAAL
I play with one of the leaves of the thick vines in the fruit cave. Once, they were covered in fruit, but now they are picked clean. We are supposed to be here, solving this mystery…and yet my mind is on other things. I glance over at T’ia. To say that things are going badly between us is very much a lie. But because she is the only unmated female and I am the only unmated male, I feel obligated to make some effort toward her.