The growl of the Darsion patrol became terrifying, reverberating through the frozen metal of the aircraft and vibrating in the very ground beneath them. It was a tangible, approaching threat that extinguished the last thoughts of comfort.
There was no time for words.
Without hesitation, Nico acted, his senses screaming at him to move. He snatched his knife from the ground and shoved the remaining food packets deep into his coat.
Leoill, his face masked with pure terror, pushed himself off the cold metal floor, his movements clumsy but fueled by a new, frantic resolve. The almost-warm sanctuary they had found was no longer a place to stay.
Nico scrambled out through a jagged tear in the side of the fuselage, leaving the precious, fleeting warmth behind and plunging them back into the darkness of Fjellheim's night.
"C'mon, we've got to move, Leoill."
The air, heavy with pulverized ice, slammed into their faces, an assault on their lungs and skin that stole their breath away.
Their escape was less of a run and more of a desperate crawl. They were a single unit, no longer two separate soldiers but a two-headed beast fleeing a predator.
Nico's instincts were honed by days of his survival alone -- he read the terrain, and recognized it like the back of his hand. He had played these games before: constantly running from the enemy. Leoill, in turn, proved his worth. He recognized the specific tactical patterns of the Darsion military, including the slow, methodical grid search that people like the Darsions would employ.
"Hey, Nico," Leoill called out.
"What?" He replied.
Leoill sent out non-verbal commands, which communicated more than words ever could. A shake of his hand, a desperate tug on Nico's arm, and a quick gesture with his thumb.
However, Nico gave out a discomforting frown, perhaps in confusion.
"Are you stupid or something?"
"Huh?"
"I'm not Darsion. I don't understand what these hand signs mean."
"Oh..."
***
The sound of the Snow-Husk, a brutalist personnel carrier designed to hunt through Fjellheim's harshest conditions, grew from a distant rumble to an outright roar as it lumbered closer. Its powerful engines pushed effortlessly through the deep snow, and the beams of its searchlights became more terrifying, cutting through the darkness.
Nico and Leoill were pressed flat against the ground, half-buried. The fine snow was clinging to their faces like an icy shroud. They could feel the ground trembling under the Snow-Husk's immense weight.
For an agonizing moment, a flicker of light landed directly on Nico's dark coat, and he felt his heart try to beat its way out of his chest, utterly exposed.
Then, just as abruptly as it had arrived, the patrol passed. The roar of its engines slowly faded into the distance.
Nico and Leoill remained frozen for several long minutes, their bodies rigid. When Nico finally stirred, pushing himself up, the first thing he did was look at Leoill, who was on his back.
"Get off, will you? We're clear now," Nico said, as he took a glance around the surrounding landscape.
Leoill obeyed, as he too began to rise from the ground.
"I'm just cold," he commented, as his body trembled, and his bandaged face was slightly pale.
They shared shaky breaths, plumed out in ragged, frosty clouds. They could finally take a moment to breathe. But with the fading terror of the patrol came the reemergence of the relentless cold. The adrenaline that had warmed their veins was gone, leaving them more vulnerable, and exhausted than ever.
The patrols passing had consequences: it had driven them much farther from the wreckage and deeper into the unforgiving, unknown cold of Fjellheim. As they pushed forward, a creeping unease settled over them as the landscape itself began to change in unnerving ways.
"Are we... hallucinating?" Leoill questioned.
"I'm not, but are you?"
"The ground just... feels so weird."
The ground was now littered with bizarre, crystalline formations that glittered with light. The very air grew unnervingly still, the wind dying to an almost complete hush. The snow under their boots was different too -- it no longer felt powdery but had a jagged, almost glassy quality to it.
This was a new terrain to them. The rules of survival they had just learned were likely useless in the face of his place.
It was as they rounded a particularly massive, iridescent ice formation that Nico raised a hand to stop. He pointed, not with his hand, but with a slight tilt of his head toward a sight that froze the blood in their veins.
It wasn't a patrol, not a man, but a terrifying, unnatural shape that had been obscured by the snow.
It was immense, hunched over, its body a grotesque combination of what looked like something organic and utterly remote compared to mankind's discoveries.
It was perfectly still, its bizarre form seemingly part of the landscape, but its presence hummed with an immense and quiet power that seemed to press down on the very air around it. Its form was a silhouette of rusted metal and bone, a creature that shouldn't exist.
"What... on earth is that?" Leoill questioned.
"I don't know... It's like an abomination of sorts..." Nico replied.
Nico and Leoill stared at the grotesque, motionless thing, their faces pale and their fear a cold, shared lump in their throats. They were trapped between a pursuing patrol and a waking nightmare.