Wintertime: show
Ukko was only just seventeen but in many ways he was already a man and a denizen, now, of the stark and barren forests up north. Autumn had fallen, as short as it was, and his boots were soaked from the layers of frost that his warmth had melted. His toes were wet and numb; he shuddered and wrapped himself tighter in his furs while he went to check his traps.
Just keep moving and it’ll warm you up.
He gritted his teeth and reached for the axe at his hip when he heard a squeal. The same instrument he’d used for chopping firewood and keeping himself warm at night could also double as a deadly weapon. His aim, he thought, wasn’t too shabby, and the sharp blade could easily decapitate any animal that had been unfortunate enough to ensnare itself.
It was his first successful catch in the past couple of days. Finally he could eat something besides meager salted fish and stale crusts of bread—great news, for those alone would not be able to keep him in good enough condition to make it through the winter, let alone thrive and grow stronger.
He approached where he had set his trap. It was a basic affair, fashioned from some leather and rope he’d swiped from a raid several months back. Ukko gripped his axe tight, ready to slaughter whatever had wandered into his clutches… but lodged it into the stump of the tree when he found that it was… a girl?
Yes. A small, human girl caught up tight and unable to free herself.
She stiffened in fear when she saw him, her eyes moist and puffy and her cheeks dripping. Obviously she had been crying and the sight of his tall, wiry figure closing in only seemed to make her more despondent: she tugged helplessly at her restraints and struggled to escape.
The coldness inside of him, ever-present as it was, bit with a ferocious disappointment. It was only a girl. Nothing he could eat, unless he wanted to murder a harmless child first. The very proposition left an acrid taste in his mouth. He wasn’t that desperate.
Ukko unsheathed his knife and wordlessly began to cut her free, his expression stony and impassive. If he had done it out of a sense of goodness and decency, it would have been hard to tell—his motions were rough and calculated.
The last bond snapped loose and the girl let out a shaky breath that turned into a humid puff of steam as she shuddered in the cold. Her complexion was ruddy and sanguine and her clothes seemed questionably scant for such weather conditions. His chapped lips pressed together quietly.
“… T-t-t-thank-thank-thank y-y-y-y-yo-you, m-m-m-mis—”
“Don’t bother thanking me. Save your breath.” He stood up, taciturn, and sheathed his knife. The girl followed suit, but even when standing her height didn’t quite reach his waist. She couldn’t have been older than ten.
“I-I-I-I’m s-s-sorr-sorry,” she shivered violently. “I-I-It wo-wo-won’t hap-pen ag-ag-again.”
“Gods, kid, what are you wearing? You’re gonna freeze to death. Where are your idiot parents?”
He wasn’t sure why he asked; he didn’t particularly care. But this girl’s strange plight seemed to make him distinctly uncomfortable. Perhaps because he understood and remembered what it was to be just a kid, young and alone and cold.
She frowned sharply and gazed at the ground with a solemn countenance. Something about it seemed to suggest that she was biting back tears or, at the very least, some terrible memories.
“I see. I understand.” Ukko picked up his axe again and set it at its usual place, strapped against his flank. He adjusted his gloves and seemed prepared to head out again. This had been a failure. “Good luck, kid. It’s hard out here.”
He turned his back and trudged through the growing piles of snow—not that he particularly wanted to, but there was little, really, for him to do. There was no chance of the girl surviving as her situation currently was… at the end of the day, though, he had his own troubles to worry about.
She let out a whimper. A moment passed, and suddenly he could hear the sound of many small footsteps following in his own.
“W-wait! P-p-p-please. I-I-I’m cold and h-h-h-ungry, c-c-could you please give me something to eat?”
Ukko stopped and stiffened. Why waste what little he had on a child who would die anyway?
“No,” he replied irately. “You’re not my problem. Last thing I need’s a whiny, gaping mouth to feed. Especially a useless little kid.”
“But I don’t know where to go.” Her voice was soft and resigned. “Please, sir, I don’t know what to do.”
“Go back to where you came from, then.”
“I can’t,” she shook harder and seemed to retreat into the folds of her dress in an effort to stay warm. Ukko saw, rather alarmingly, that her fingers were starting to turn blue. Not from the cold, necessarily, either… no. Her fingertips were already just slightly necrotic.
“I can’t go back. They kicked me out of my village.” A couple of tears rolled inaudibly across her tinted visage. “I killed someone on accident.”
It all hit him suddenly, like a sharp punch in the gut.
She has it, too… the curse. The shroud of death that I wear. The blight…
He mentally kicked himself for not noticing it earlier, for not seeing her dying fingertips and the thick bags under her eyes and her dark, clouded complexion and the way she shuddered so damn hard that it seemed like her chattering teeth were about to be rattled out of her skull. But now that it was apparent to him, though, he couldn’t stop looking at her, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. For in her small, frail figure, there was his own past self. There were the feelings of senseless isolation and fear and madness and harrowing solitude that he experienced. The memories of a bitter time when he wandered, alone, and had to claw and struggle and writhe for every breath that he took…
A long-buried thread of empathy twitched and sparked to the surface of his mind with a passionate jolt. How cruel could he be to leave her to die?
… Please, you’re being soft. This girl is weak and you know you can’t do anything for her. Look out for yourself.
His expression hardened almost intangibly. There was a part of him that wondered whether the best solution for the both of them would be sticking her in the throat with his axe; she would suffer for only as long as it took to bleed out. It was a morbid thought, indeed, but what else could he do? What could he spare her without placing himself at risk?
There wasn’t anything he could give away without sacrifice on his part. But if there had been one thing that he’d learned through his time serving as a troop, it was that very notion. One would always need to lose something in order to achieve anything worthwhile. It wasn’t as though this girl, as frail and helpless as she was, could provide for herself, anyhow. She was essentially a broken bird: no threat to him and prepared to die alone.
Ukko exhaled sharply and made a curt motion towards her.
“C’mere, kid.”
She approached, albeit diffidently. With one swift movement he shed his warm, outer set of furs, his muscles tensing a bit as the wintry atmosphere bit harshly into his flesh. A part of him instantly regretted doing anything at all.
“W-w-wh-what are—”
“—Quiet down. If you’re gonna live you gotta save your energy and not waste it in chattering. You understand?”
The girl nodded. He felt her body tense palpably as he draped his heavy clothes around her bony, delicate shoulders. They were still cozy with the residual heat he’d left, and it took only a few seconds, once she had soundly and gratefully wrapped herself up, for her convulsing shivers to cease and quiet down.
Ukko willed himself not to show any feeling. This was only temporary. There was no use in attaching himself. Mechanically he grabbed a hunk of bread—a part of his next meal, regrettably—from one of his pockets and offered it to her.
She looked like a mouse, something about her meek and timid and yet all too eager to snatch up every little available morsel in her paws and nibble. It amused him… or, rather, it amused him as much as such a dire situation could. For alas, mice, as cute and small as they were, could also be cowardly and pestering; he assumed this to be the case for the child, also. And so it was that he watched her only for a brief moment before he caught the sky with an incisive gaze. Already the horizon was darkening with crepuscular blues and oranges and purples. Soon, he knew, it would become deathly cold: cold enough to freeze his spit the moment it left his body. He couldn’t afford to be so exposed when that time came.
“You wanna live, little girl, then get moving and follow me.” He straightened up from where he’d bent down next to her tiny, fragile figure, his boots tramping resolutely through the snow towards where he’d etched out his camp. He didn’t do anything more for her, much to her dismay.
“I’m not sure I can walk much farther!”
“Well, I’m not carrying you,” he retorted. “So you’d better find it in you to keep up.”
That seemed to work well enough. She struggled and straggled along behind like a lost puppy, picking her way through the wells in the snow left by his boots. Ukko tried not to give her the impression that he was above leaving her behind; she stamped along without much of a pause. Underneath his remaining trappings, his pale hide was already growing prickly and clammy while he walked.
She’s not gonna make it.
It was hard living out here. Most died. He was alone and on his own and there was nothing left for him here, or anywhere, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He wished that it was as simple as sticking to himself and just surviving but he wasn’t even sure if he could ever be safe again. There were those who wanted him dead simply for who and what he was, and what he’d done, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Not for him and not for any of his ilk, either.
Ukko cast a glance behind him to watch the girl persistently wade through the snowdrifts, many of them up to her hips in height. He already had one little follower, it seemed like. Someone who, similarly, would never be able to feel secure ever again…
She is also doomed to this life, isn’t she?
He sighed. There was no denying his feelings to himself, even if it made him weak. To see a girl so young and alone, afflicted with the same type of curse, resigned to the same tempo of life… he wasn’t sure if he could bear to witness something like that once again. Not if it meant that she had to endure the same kind of pain.
Luckily she was persistent, though, to be sure… he had to admit it. Maybe there was a chance for her. Maybe she would live into adulthood like he did.
He scraped away at a patch of snow with his heel, and dug up the coals he’d banked earlier that day. His muzzle spread with a rough grin once he realized that the embers were still glowing with a present warmth—it left out the ordeal of coaxing up new ones from scratch. All he needed this night were a few batches of tinder, a couple of rounds blowing on the budding flames, and some short minutes spent waiting, and then he would have a roaring fire to sidle up to for the night. This satisfied Ukko; it augured well for the eve ahead of him, even if he hadn’t brought back an animal he could butcher and roast…
No, there had been none of that. He’d brought back something else entirely.
She’d started off huddled by herself, several paces away from the heat, watching longingly as he cycled through his usual business of stoking the blaze with his boot and whittling away at some sticks with his knife and then using them to char his usual slice of fish and sliver of bread and whatever else he’d found during the day. He mostly had ignored her, but once he was finally relaxed and had realized that, despite the odds, he was still warm and alive and fighting as well as ever, his mood lightened somewhat. It caused any inner benevolence that he possessed to begin to peak.
He didn’t have much, but maybe he could spend a little bit in order to feel less alone.
“Hey, you,” he motioned towards her with a stiff gesture, another torn piece of bread in his gloved hands, “don’t stand in the cold. You’ve got a spot by my fire for tonight.”
The girl approached with a slow cautiousness, obviously not completely trusting him but not exactly replete with other options. She bowed in his direction, seemingly quite intimidated by his age and size, but gratefully took the food he’d proffered with a soft ‘thank you’ and curled up close to the lapping flames while she ate—no doubt she was trying to get rid of the coldness in her heart and in her fingertips, like he always seemed to be doing.
The girl seemed very thankful for the warmth and comfort he provided, even if it was only conditional. But at the end of the day, she was still only a child, and a hungry, needy one at that. After several moments her bite was gone and she had nothing left to suck on and chew. She let out a soft whine and curled up tighter into his furs.
“… Ummm, excuse me, sorry. I… I don’t mean to be a burden, but… could I please have some more, Mister...?”
“It’s Ukko. And I don’t got much of anything left for today. Sorry, kid.” He skewered what little was left of the fish and found that he was also disappointed with it. The amount of food he’d kept was dismal, and he knew it.
“Alright, it’s fine. I don’t mean to be a bother, Mis—I mean, Ukko.” She flopped onto her side in defeat and turned away from him, towards the flames that burned hot and fierce and bright and threw a sharp orange light upon her smooth, shiny skin. The girl was no longer cold… but she could never exactly be fully warmed, either.
There was a long moment of silence as the fire gnawed at the last bit of food for that day, and he could just see, in the scant glow its burning form left upon the snowy earth, her shaking figure as it began to sob into his soft, comforting pelt. Her throes quickly degenerated into a spastic and violent display, and this left him distinctly unsettled.
She was being assailed by a myriad of physical and emotional pains, to be sure; hunger was likely only one of her worries.
Ukko thought she looked pitiful, to the extent it touched something within his chest that, despite his best efforts, was still a bit warm and soft and receptive to such feelings. It caused him to grimace sharply as he studied the fish. Could he really afford to give something like this up? Sure, he needed to scrounge and scavenge just to stay alive, and that was taxing. Yet…
He made another entry into his series of consecutive bad decisions anyway. Surely he was a hell of a lot stronger than the girl, given how unused to the wilderness she clearly was, and he could do without that last scrap—his tough constitution could take a bit of hunger without too much consequence. But when he considered her frail, moribund little form, bony and scant of flesh as it was… he couldn’t be too sure.
Against his better judgement, he nudged her with his foot, jarring her out of her isolated emotions. She took a shaky breath and looked at him with dark, weepy eyes, but, again, didn’t hesitate for a moment when he offered her more to eat: she snatched it up with a greedy quickness, like a baby bird, and then shifted ever closer to the heat and resumed with her frenetic rodent nibbling; in just a few moments that was gone too and she was licking her fingers clean for every last small little bit that she’d missed.
Ukko knew that type of desperation, that wanton appetite that gnawed and bit and pined at all hours of the day, desperate and devouring. He remembered it, and how often it used to come to him and how helpless it felt to fight against it when night after night he was forced to bed down with a starved, empty belly and no food to relieve it. It was the sort of hell that had changed and toughened him over the years… for better or for worse, it was that hunger that had shaped him into the slick, hardened person he was.
He hoped his gesture, as small as it had been, had eased her pain somewhat. He didn’t want that someone else with the blight should have to endure more than what they were already forced to… especially not alone.
After an extended moment of silence, he took out the flask he always seemed to carry on his person and took a generous, drowning swig of vodka. The deceptively clear, icy drink looked like water, but it was nevertheless strong and sour and it burned down the entire length of his throat like a roiling flame. It was that sort of virulent strength that helped keep his insides warm through a long, cold life, and when it came to be the depths of winter he knew he would mind it even less than he ever did.
“… Life is tough up here, and I don’t want nothin’ to go to waste… if you want me to keep feeding you, you’d best listen well and prove to me that you got the guts to survive.”
His voice was hoarse and rough and it was the stoic, sobered side of him talking, mostly, but there was a hint of hopefulness and promise in what he said; he could just see the outline of her head as it nodded and disappeared beneath the makeshift blanket he’d given her, seemingly happy enough that she was out of the cold at all and that she’d been able to eat something, at least.
“I will, I promise.” Her eyes drooped and she gave a gaping yawn. He could tell that the warmth and closeness of the fire was already lulling her to sleep. “Thank you, Ukko, Mister.”
“Sure, kid.”
The girl lay there placidly in a comfortable torpor, and ceased responding to the stimulus of his presence; her breathing slowed into a calm, steady rise-and-fall, the ebb and flow of the air in her lungs forming a gentle and predictable rhythm that was soothing to the ear. Before long any emotion on her face had melted away to give her the soft, serene expression that she doubtlessly wanted to wear once again.
Indeed, something about it allowed him to be at ease himself.
Ukko reclined against a rock and guzzled his drink, rising to throw more wood on the fire once the wind started its malevolent howl and hurled its snowy storms in another blizzard. It was cold out there, in the world, but for this night, at least, life had shown him a bit of its less-brutal side. And as the night waned onwards and grew dark, he too bundled up and found something relatively soft to lie on as he ignored the snow’s pointed ferocity and reaped the fruits of a hard day’s labor.
He may not have had an easy life, by any stretch, but there were parts he could appreciate. And now that he’d saved a young girl from the certainty of a grim death, perhaps he wouldn’t have to enjoy them alone.
Just keep moving and it’ll warm you up.
He gritted his teeth and reached for the axe at his hip when he heard a squeal. The same instrument he’d used for chopping firewood and keeping himself warm at night could also double as a deadly weapon. His aim, he thought, wasn’t too shabby, and the sharp blade could easily decapitate any animal that had been unfortunate enough to ensnare itself.
It was his first successful catch in the past couple of days. Finally he could eat something besides meager salted fish and stale crusts of bread—great news, for those alone would not be able to keep him in good enough condition to make it through the winter, let alone thrive and grow stronger.
He approached where he had set his trap. It was a basic affair, fashioned from some leather and rope he’d swiped from a raid several months back. Ukko gripped his axe tight, ready to slaughter whatever had wandered into his clutches… but lodged it into the stump of the tree when he found that it was… a girl?
Yes. A small, human girl caught up tight and unable to free herself.
She stiffened in fear when she saw him, her eyes moist and puffy and her cheeks dripping. Obviously she had been crying and the sight of his tall, wiry figure closing in only seemed to make her more despondent: she tugged helplessly at her restraints and struggled to escape.
The coldness inside of him, ever-present as it was, bit with a ferocious disappointment. It was only a girl. Nothing he could eat, unless he wanted to murder a harmless child first. The very proposition left an acrid taste in his mouth. He wasn’t that desperate.
Ukko unsheathed his knife and wordlessly began to cut her free, his expression stony and impassive. If he had done it out of a sense of goodness and decency, it would have been hard to tell—his motions were rough and calculated.
The last bond snapped loose and the girl let out a shaky breath that turned into a humid puff of steam as she shuddered in the cold. Her complexion was ruddy and sanguine and her clothes seemed questionably scant for such weather conditions. His chapped lips pressed together quietly.
“… T-t-t-thank-thank-thank y-y-y-y-yo-you, m-m-m-mis—”
“Don’t bother thanking me. Save your breath.” He stood up, taciturn, and sheathed his knife. The girl followed suit, but even when standing her height didn’t quite reach his waist. She couldn’t have been older than ten.
“I-I-I-I’m s-s-sorr-sorry,” she shivered violently. “I-I-It wo-wo-won’t hap-pen ag-ag-again.”
“Gods, kid, what are you wearing? You’re gonna freeze to death. Where are your idiot parents?”
He wasn’t sure why he asked; he didn’t particularly care. But this girl’s strange plight seemed to make him distinctly uncomfortable. Perhaps because he understood and remembered what it was to be just a kid, young and alone and cold.
She frowned sharply and gazed at the ground with a solemn countenance. Something about it seemed to suggest that she was biting back tears or, at the very least, some terrible memories.
“I see. I understand.” Ukko picked up his axe again and set it at its usual place, strapped against his flank. He adjusted his gloves and seemed prepared to head out again. This had been a failure. “Good luck, kid. It’s hard out here.”
He turned his back and trudged through the growing piles of snow—not that he particularly wanted to, but there was little, really, for him to do. There was no chance of the girl surviving as her situation currently was… at the end of the day, though, he had his own troubles to worry about.
She let out a whimper. A moment passed, and suddenly he could hear the sound of many small footsteps following in his own.
“W-wait! P-p-p-please. I-I-I’m cold and h-h-h-ungry, c-c-could you please give me something to eat?”
Ukko stopped and stiffened. Why waste what little he had on a child who would die anyway?
“No,” he replied irately. “You’re not my problem. Last thing I need’s a whiny, gaping mouth to feed. Especially a useless little kid.”
“But I don’t know where to go.” Her voice was soft and resigned. “Please, sir, I don’t know what to do.”
“Go back to where you came from, then.”
“I can’t,” she shook harder and seemed to retreat into the folds of her dress in an effort to stay warm. Ukko saw, rather alarmingly, that her fingers were starting to turn blue. Not from the cold, necessarily, either… no. Her fingertips were already just slightly necrotic.
“I can’t go back. They kicked me out of my village.” A couple of tears rolled inaudibly across her tinted visage. “I killed someone on accident.”
It all hit him suddenly, like a sharp punch in the gut.
She has it, too… the curse. The shroud of death that I wear. The blight…
He mentally kicked himself for not noticing it earlier, for not seeing her dying fingertips and the thick bags under her eyes and her dark, clouded complexion and the way she shuddered so damn hard that it seemed like her chattering teeth were about to be rattled out of her skull. But now that it was apparent to him, though, he couldn’t stop looking at her, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. For in her small, frail figure, there was his own past self. There were the feelings of senseless isolation and fear and madness and harrowing solitude that he experienced. The memories of a bitter time when he wandered, alone, and had to claw and struggle and writhe for every breath that he took…
A long-buried thread of empathy twitched and sparked to the surface of his mind with a passionate jolt. How cruel could he be to leave her to die?
… Please, you’re being soft. This girl is weak and you know you can’t do anything for her. Look out for yourself.
His expression hardened almost intangibly. There was a part of him that wondered whether the best solution for the both of them would be sticking her in the throat with his axe; she would suffer for only as long as it took to bleed out. It was a morbid thought, indeed, but what else could he do? What could he spare her without placing himself at risk?
There wasn’t anything he could give away without sacrifice on his part. But if there had been one thing that he’d learned through his time serving as a troop, it was that very notion. One would always need to lose something in order to achieve anything worthwhile. It wasn’t as though this girl, as frail and helpless as she was, could provide for herself, anyhow. She was essentially a broken bird: no threat to him and prepared to die alone.
Ukko exhaled sharply and made a curt motion towards her.
“C’mere, kid.”
She approached, albeit diffidently. With one swift movement he shed his warm, outer set of furs, his muscles tensing a bit as the wintry atmosphere bit harshly into his flesh. A part of him instantly regretted doing anything at all.
“W-w-wh-what are—”
“—Quiet down. If you’re gonna live you gotta save your energy and not waste it in chattering. You understand?”
The girl nodded. He felt her body tense palpably as he draped his heavy clothes around her bony, delicate shoulders. They were still cozy with the residual heat he’d left, and it took only a few seconds, once she had soundly and gratefully wrapped herself up, for her convulsing shivers to cease and quiet down.
Ukko willed himself not to show any feeling. This was only temporary. There was no use in attaching himself. Mechanically he grabbed a hunk of bread—a part of his next meal, regrettably—from one of his pockets and offered it to her.
She looked like a mouse, something about her meek and timid and yet all too eager to snatch up every little available morsel in her paws and nibble. It amused him… or, rather, it amused him as much as such a dire situation could. For alas, mice, as cute and small as they were, could also be cowardly and pestering; he assumed this to be the case for the child, also. And so it was that he watched her only for a brief moment before he caught the sky with an incisive gaze. Already the horizon was darkening with crepuscular blues and oranges and purples. Soon, he knew, it would become deathly cold: cold enough to freeze his spit the moment it left his body. He couldn’t afford to be so exposed when that time came.
“You wanna live, little girl, then get moving and follow me.” He straightened up from where he’d bent down next to her tiny, fragile figure, his boots tramping resolutely through the snow towards where he’d etched out his camp. He didn’t do anything more for her, much to her dismay.
“I’m not sure I can walk much farther!”
“Well, I’m not carrying you,” he retorted. “So you’d better find it in you to keep up.”
That seemed to work well enough. She struggled and straggled along behind like a lost puppy, picking her way through the wells in the snow left by his boots. Ukko tried not to give her the impression that he was above leaving her behind; she stamped along without much of a pause. Underneath his remaining trappings, his pale hide was already growing prickly and clammy while he walked.
She’s not gonna make it.
It was hard living out here. Most died. He was alone and on his own and there was nothing left for him here, or anywhere, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He wished that it was as simple as sticking to himself and just surviving but he wasn’t even sure if he could ever be safe again. There were those who wanted him dead simply for who and what he was, and what he’d done, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Not for him and not for any of his ilk, either.
Ukko cast a glance behind him to watch the girl persistently wade through the snowdrifts, many of them up to her hips in height. He already had one little follower, it seemed like. Someone who, similarly, would never be able to feel secure ever again…
She is also doomed to this life, isn’t she?
He sighed. There was no denying his feelings to himself, even if it made him weak. To see a girl so young and alone, afflicted with the same type of curse, resigned to the same tempo of life… he wasn’t sure if he could bear to witness something like that once again. Not if it meant that she had to endure the same kind of pain.
Luckily she was persistent, though, to be sure… he had to admit it. Maybe there was a chance for her. Maybe she would live into adulthood like he did.
He scraped away at a patch of snow with his heel, and dug up the coals he’d banked earlier that day. His muzzle spread with a rough grin once he realized that the embers were still glowing with a present warmth—it left out the ordeal of coaxing up new ones from scratch. All he needed this night were a few batches of tinder, a couple of rounds blowing on the budding flames, and some short minutes spent waiting, and then he would have a roaring fire to sidle up to for the night. This satisfied Ukko; it augured well for the eve ahead of him, even if he hadn’t brought back an animal he could butcher and roast…
No, there had been none of that. He’d brought back something else entirely.
She’d started off huddled by herself, several paces away from the heat, watching longingly as he cycled through his usual business of stoking the blaze with his boot and whittling away at some sticks with his knife and then using them to char his usual slice of fish and sliver of bread and whatever else he’d found during the day. He mostly had ignored her, but once he was finally relaxed and had realized that, despite the odds, he was still warm and alive and fighting as well as ever, his mood lightened somewhat. It caused any inner benevolence that he possessed to begin to peak.
He didn’t have much, but maybe he could spend a little bit in order to feel less alone.
“Hey, you,” he motioned towards her with a stiff gesture, another torn piece of bread in his gloved hands, “don’t stand in the cold. You’ve got a spot by my fire for tonight.”
The girl approached with a slow cautiousness, obviously not completely trusting him but not exactly replete with other options. She bowed in his direction, seemingly quite intimidated by his age and size, but gratefully took the food he’d proffered with a soft ‘thank you’ and curled up close to the lapping flames while she ate—no doubt she was trying to get rid of the coldness in her heart and in her fingertips, like he always seemed to be doing.
The girl seemed very thankful for the warmth and comfort he provided, even if it was only conditional. But at the end of the day, she was still only a child, and a hungry, needy one at that. After several moments her bite was gone and she had nothing left to suck on and chew. She let out a soft whine and curled up tighter into his furs.
“… Ummm, excuse me, sorry. I… I don’t mean to be a burden, but… could I please have some more, Mister...?”
“It’s Ukko. And I don’t got much of anything left for today. Sorry, kid.” He skewered what little was left of the fish and found that he was also disappointed with it. The amount of food he’d kept was dismal, and he knew it.
“Alright, it’s fine. I don’t mean to be a bother, Mis—I mean, Ukko.” She flopped onto her side in defeat and turned away from him, towards the flames that burned hot and fierce and bright and threw a sharp orange light upon her smooth, shiny skin. The girl was no longer cold… but she could never exactly be fully warmed, either.
There was a long moment of silence as the fire gnawed at the last bit of food for that day, and he could just see, in the scant glow its burning form left upon the snowy earth, her shaking figure as it began to sob into his soft, comforting pelt. Her throes quickly degenerated into a spastic and violent display, and this left him distinctly unsettled.
She was being assailed by a myriad of physical and emotional pains, to be sure; hunger was likely only one of her worries.
Ukko thought she looked pitiful, to the extent it touched something within his chest that, despite his best efforts, was still a bit warm and soft and receptive to such feelings. It caused him to grimace sharply as he studied the fish. Could he really afford to give something like this up? Sure, he needed to scrounge and scavenge just to stay alive, and that was taxing. Yet…
He made another entry into his series of consecutive bad decisions anyway. Surely he was a hell of a lot stronger than the girl, given how unused to the wilderness she clearly was, and he could do without that last scrap—his tough constitution could take a bit of hunger without too much consequence. But when he considered her frail, moribund little form, bony and scant of flesh as it was… he couldn’t be too sure.
Against his better judgement, he nudged her with his foot, jarring her out of her isolated emotions. She took a shaky breath and looked at him with dark, weepy eyes, but, again, didn’t hesitate for a moment when he offered her more to eat: she snatched it up with a greedy quickness, like a baby bird, and then shifted ever closer to the heat and resumed with her frenetic rodent nibbling; in just a few moments that was gone too and she was licking her fingers clean for every last small little bit that she’d missed.
Ukko knew that type of desperation, that wanton appetite that gnawed and bit and pined at all hours of the day, desperate and devouring. He remembered it, and how often it used to come to him and how helpless it felt to fight against it when night after night he was forced to bed down with a starved, empty belly and no food to relieve it. It was the sort of hell that had changed and toughened him over the years… for better or for worse, it was that hunger that had shaped him into the slick, hardened person he was.
He hoped his gesture, as small as it had been, had eased her pain somewhat. He didn’t want that someone else with the blight should have to endure more than what they were already forced to… especially not alone.
After an extended moment of silence, he took out the flask he always seemed to carry on his person and took a generous, drowning swig of vodka. The deceptively clear, icy drink looked like water, but it was nevertheless strong and sour and it burned down the entire length of his throat like a roiling flame. It was that sort of virulent strength that helped keep his insides warm through a long, cold life, and when it came to be the depths of winter he knew he would mind it even less than he ever did.
“… Life is tough up here, and I don’t want nothin’ to go to waste… if you want me to keep feeding you, you’d best listen well and prove to me that you got the guts to survive.”
His voice was hoarse and rough and it was the stoic, sobered side of him talking, mostly, but there was a hint of hopefulness and promise in what he said; he could just see the outline of her head as it nodded and disappeared beneath the makeshift blanket he’d given her, seemingly happy enough that she was out of the cold at all and that she’d been able to eat something, at least.
“I will, I promise.” Her eyes drooped and she gave a gaping yawn. He could tell that the warmth and closeness of the fire was already lulling her to sleep. “Thank you, Ukko, Mister.”
“Sure, kid.”
The girl lay there placidly in a comfortable torpor, and ceased responding to the stimulus of his presence; her breathing slowed into a calm, steady rise-and-fall, the ebb and flow of the air in her lungs forming a gentle and predictable rhythm that was soothing to the ear. Before long any emotion on her face had melted away to give her the soft, serene expression that she doubtlessly wanted to wear once again.
Indeed, something about it allowed him to be at ease himself.
Ukko reclined against a rock and guzzled his drink, rising to throw more wood on the fire once the wind started its malevolent howl and hurled its snowy storms in another blizzard. It was cold out there, in the world, but for this night, at least, life had shown him a bit of its less-brutal side. And as the night waned onwards and grew dark, he too bundled up and found something relatively soft to lie on as he ignored the snow’s pointed ferocity and reaped the fruits of a hard day’s labor.
He may not have had an easy life, by any stretch, but there were parts he could appreciate. And now that he’d saved a young girl from the certainty of a grim death, perhaps he wouldn’t have to enjoy them alone.
It Begins: show
“Where is Rick, Shane?” my mother was asking the policeman who’d worked with Dad.
“I’m sorry, Lori…” he replied, trailing off. I furrowed my brow, instinctively moving closer to my mom, looking up at her as I did so. She looked sad. She looked like she didn’t believe him.
“What are you saying?”
“The life support machine had stopped working by the time I got to him. Lori, he wasn’t breathing,” Shane replied. I didn’t like this.
“Mom?” I asked, feeling my voice catch. She spared a glance down at me before returning a teary-eyed gaze to Shane.
“You mean he’s…?” she choked. I knew what she meant, but I didn’t want to accept that. Shane, too, glanced down at me, looking upset as well, before turning a pained expression to my mother.
“I’m afraid so,” he answered softly.
In denial, I looked up at my mother, tugging on her clothes, “He could still be okay, right?” She looked down at me, and I could see in her eyes the very thing I didn’t want to see. She didn’t say anything, she just placed a hand on my head before pulling me tight against her. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been afraid when I’d heard he’d been shot, but we’d thought he’d get better. My eyes began to sting as tears welled up inside them and began to spill down my cheeks and into my mother’s clothes. I couldn’t believe my father was gone. That just seemed completely and totally implausible. I remained still, shell shocked as I was, clinging desperately to my mother as I cried, refusing to look at their faces, refusing to see the looks on them that told it all, the looks that said clear as day: “Your father is dead, Carl.”
“I have to get you two to the refugee center in Atlanta,” I heard Shane saying to my mother decisively, “It’s what Rick would have wanted. It’s dangerous here.”
I could feel my mother trembling, but she said nothing. I held onto her as tightly as I could. After a moment, I felt her hand gently patting my head. She was trying to be comforting, but this didn’t bring my dad back. It didn’t make it any easier to breathe. At length, she spoke to me, in a soft voice, “Carl, we need to leave with Shane, now.”
She grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back slightly, crouching so as to be at eye level, and stared expectantly in to my red, dripping eyes. I didn’t want to leave, not without my dad, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t find my voice to convey this to her anyway, and so I merely gave her a weak nod, raising a hand to wipe at my tears in a failed attempt to dry my face.
“Go pack a few changes of clothes, alright?” she said after a moment. Trying to hold myself together so as not to appear weak, I simply nodded again, going to my room in a haze. I felt unstable on my feet, and everything seemed somehow foggy. I wasn’t fully aware of what was happening, of what I was doing, but I caught sight of my Science Dog shirt making its way into the bag I was packing. For a moment after filling it, I just… stopped.
The things we had heard and seen on the TV had been horrible enough. This sickness, whatever it was that was bringing the dead back… it was terrifying, if I was honest. Who wouldn’t be terrified, given the circumstances? But now, on top of that, to hear that my dad was gone? I felt numb, achy… and more than anything, afraid. That’s the only way to describe whatever was happening inside my chest. It was the most powerful fear I had ever known. Things had been normal, but now, in such a short time, the world had changed into something horrible. I didn’t know how to process it, what to feel, so all I felt was emptiness… and terror. It all felt like a bad dream. It had to be a nightmare.
At length, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and casting my gaze behind me, met my mother’s concerned eyes. She took notice of the bag I’d packed and gingerly hefted it from the floor, taking one of my hands in her free one. Her sad eyes held my own for a moment, saying so much to me. I don’t know what to say to you, son. This isn’t what I wanted. I’m so sorry that this is happening to you. I wish your father were here. Until she spoke aloud, saying simply, “Come on, Carl.”
I don’t remember leaving the room, or the house. I don’t remember anything after that, except a ringing sound in my ears, a sense of disorientation, and disbelief, until I came to my senses again in the moving car. For a moment, I had a feeling of having woken up from a nightmare, for a moment I thought none of it was real… until I realized that in the driver’s seat was Shane, not my father. Being hit so forcibly by that realization that it was not a dream seemed to cripple me. I felt as though I were collapsing inward—this shouldn’t be possible. Nothing made sense. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, but it hurt… I was hurting. That may be all I knew in that moment.
***
We’d been in the camp here for a while now. I had accepted our new life; Shane had been very good to my mother and I. He almost felt like another father, but I didn’t let myself think about this much, because I didn’t want to miss my real father. I liked to distract myself from that. The adults of this group were good at providing for us; they hunted, fished, and went on runs down into Atlanta to scavenge food from abandoned buildings. My mother and I stayed in the camp almost always, just like the other kids and their mothers did.
It was a day like any other; I was practicing a knot Shane had taught me, and nearby I could hear him arguing with my mother—this wasn’t uncommon, but I never said anything to either of them about it. I didn’t talk much at all, really. Today they were discussing putting up a sign to warn people away from Atlanta… and not for the first time. I’d heard all these things more than once before.
“Shane we can’t just let people go into the city knowing what’s there,” she was saying. He wouldn’t have any of it.
“Lori, we don’t have the time. We have too much to do to take care of ourselves, and I’m not gonna jeopardize this group like that,” he retorted harshly.
Most of the arguments about this were just reiterations of those same two ideas, my mother saying it needed done and that we should make the time to do it, while Shane told her it couldn’t be done, nor could we make the time. I tried to stop listening and kept working on my knot. My dad would have known the best solution, I told myself, giving up on the difficult knot and instead beginning to tug at blades of grass. I tuned them out, acting on pretty much autopilot as the day went on. At one point we heard someone trying to contact us on the radio; someone heading into Atlanta. My mom and Shane had the same fight again. I wished they wouldn’t.
Then my mom decided she wanted to go stop the person. For a moment I panicked, but Shane told her no, and she stormed away. As my mom returned to our tent, I started to follow her, but Shane stopped me and he went instead. I waited, impatiently, rather unhappy that she’d even thought of leaving me like that, with dad gone and all. After a few moments, I headed for the tent anyway, and called out to her. Shane was leaving as I drew close, and spoke to me very briefly, telling me she was inside. Once he was gone, I entered the tent. My mom met me in the entrance, crouched and taking my hands. She assured me she wasn't going anywhere, and I nodded eagerly. We stayed there for a while.
“Mom I don’t want you to ever go,” I said at length, “You don’t need to go near the city, right? I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re right. Shane’s right. I won’t be going out there, okay, Carl?” she said, crouching a bit before me and brushing my hair back a little. I nodded and she hugged me close. When she broke off the embrace and returned to tending things that needed doing, I went off to find something else to do, but as usual, it was very mindless. Nothing really interesting happened until we were radioed by the team who were on a run in the city and learned that they were trapped; Shane told my mom and Amy that we couldn’t send anyone to save them or we’d risk the rest of the group. This world was so harsh; it scared me. Those people wouldn’t be coming back alive, just because we’d have to risk ourselves to save them…
Or so we thought. It wasn’t long before a loud alarm could be heard blaring out and echoing through the valleys. The sound, it turned out, was emanating from a red sports car that raced back to our camp and parked, one of our runners, Glenn, emerging from it. Some of the other adults berated him for the sound, saying it would draw the walkers to us, and they silenced it. Amy demanded to know where her sister was. I stood with my mother, simply watching. At length, a truck came up behind the red car and parked. Our runners began to emerge and reunite with their families. Thinking about my father, and how we’d never reunite with him, tears came to my eyes. My mother crouched down in front of me and took my hands, trying to comfort me, but it was still hard. Why was it so hard? It had been so long now since we’d lost him…
“How’d y’all get outta there anyway?” Shane was asking the group.
"New guy,” Glenn replied, “he got us out.” Shane inquired further, and another runner confirmed, calling out to the newcomer and telling him to come say hello.
“Guy’s a cop like you,” he was saying to Shane. I heard footsteps, and everything got quiet.
I was still looking at my mother, but at the silence, I turned to see this guy. The figure that had emerged from the truck was impossible. It couldn’t possibly be who it appeared to be, could it? That didn’t make sense. My mind was doing flips, and saw no reason to this; nor any reason to try to comprehend this very thoroughly. That figure, it was one I knew well, one I recognized with ease. He looked just as surprised as I did and began to run towards my mother and myself. Hesitating no further, I broke free from my mother and ran towards him eagerly.
“Dad! DAD!”
We collided in a hug, the purest joy filling me as my dad and I fell to the ground for a moment before he lifted me up, kissed my head, and hurried towards my mother. When he reached her, she joined the embrace. I didn’t know how he’d come back to me, nor did I care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. My father was back. That was all that mattered for now.
“I’m sorry, Lori…” he replied, trailing off. I furrowed my brow, instinctively moving closer to my mom, looking up at her as I did so. She looked sad. She looked like she didn’t believe him.
“What are you saying?”
“The life support machine had stopped working by the time I got to him. Lori, he wasn’t breathing,” Shane replied. I didn’t like this.
“Mom?” I asked, feeling my voice catch. She spared a glance down at me before returning a teary-eyed gaze to Shane.
“You mean he’s…?” she choked. I knew what she meant, but I didn’t want to accept that. Shane, too, glanced down at me, looking upset as well, before turning a pained expression to my mother.
“I’m afraid so,” he answered softly.
In denial, I looked up at my mother, tugging on her clothes, “He could still be okay, right?” She looked down at me, and I could see in her eyes the very thing I didn’t want to see. She didn’t say anything, she just placed a hand on my head before pulling me tight against her. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been afraid when I’d heard he’d been shot, but we’d thought he’d get better. My eyes began to sting as tears welled up inside them and began to spill down my cheeks and into my mother’s clothes. I couldn’t believe my father was gone. That just seemed completely and totally implausible. I remained still, shell shocked as I was, clinging desperately to my mother as I cried, refusing to look at their faces, refusing to see the looks on them that told it all, the looks that said clear as day: “Your father is dead, Carl.”
“I have to get you two to the refugee center in Atlanta,” I heard Shane saying to my mother decisively, “It’s what Rick would have wanted. It’s dangerous here.”
I could feel my mother trembling, but she said nothing. I held onto her as tightly as I could. After a moment, I felt her hand gently patting my head. She was trying to be comforting, but this didn’t bring my dad back. It didn’t make it any easier to breathe. At length, she spoke to me, in a soft voice, “Carl, we need to leave with Shane, now.”
She grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back slightly, crouching so as to be at eye level, and stared expectantly in to my red, dripping eyes. I didn’t want to leave, not without my dad, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t find my voice to convey this to her anyway, and so I merely gave her a weak nod, raising a hand to wipe at my tears in a failed attempt to dry my face.
“Go pack a few changes of clothes, alright?” she said after a moment. Trying to hold myself together so as not to appear weak, I simply nodded again, going to my room in a haze. I felt unstable on my feet, and everything seemed somehow foggy. I wasn’t fully aware of what was happening, of what I was doing, but I caught sight of my Science Dog shirt making its way into the bag I was packing. For a moment after filling it, I just… stopped.
The things we had heard and seen on the TV had been horrible enough. This sickness, whatever it was that was bringing the dead back… it was terrifying, if I was honest. Who wouldn’t be terrified, given the circumstances? But now, on top of that, to hear that my dad was gone? I felt numb, achy… and more than anything, afraid. That’s the only way to describe whatever was happening inside my chest. It was the most powerful fear I had ever known. Things had been normal, but now, in such a short time, the world had changed into something horrible. I didn’t know how to process it, what to feel, so all I felt was emptiness… and terror. It all felt like a bad dream. It had to be a nightmare.
At length, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and casting my gaze behind me, met my mother’s concerned eyes. She took notice of the bag I’d packed and gingerly hefted it from the floor, taking one of my hands in her free one. Her sad eyes held my own for a moment, saying so much to me. I don’t know what to say to you, son. This isn’t what I wanted. I’m so sorry that this is happening to you. I wish your father were here. Until she spoke aloud, saying simply, “Come on, Carl.”
I don’t remember leaving the room, or the house. I don’t remember anything after that, except a ringing sound in my ears, a sense of disorientation, and disbelief, until I came to my senses again in the moving car. For a moment, I had a feeling of having woken up from a nightmare, for a moment I thought none of it was real… until I realized that in the driver’s seat was Shane, not my father. Being hit so forcibly by that realization that it was not a dream seemed to cripple me. I felt as though I were collapsing inward—this shouldn’t be possible. Nothing made sense. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, but it hurt… I was hurting. That may be all I knew in that moment.
***
We’d been in the camp here for a while now. I had accepted our new life; Shane had been very good to my mother and I. He almost felt like another father, but I didn’t let myself think about this much, because I didn’t want to miss my real father. I liked to distract myself from that. The adults of this group were good at providing for us; they hunted, fished, and went on runs down into Atlanta to scavenge food from abandoned buildings. My mother and I stayed in the camp almost always, just like the other kids and their mothers did.
It was a day like any other; I was practicing a knot Shane had taught me, and nearby I could hear him arguing with my mother—this wasn’t uncommon, but I never said anything to either of them about it. I didn’t talk much at all, really. Today they were discussing putting up a sign to warn people away from Atlanta… and not for the first time. I’d heard all these things more than once before.
“Shane we can’t just let people go into the city knowing what’s there,” she was saying. He wouldn’t have any of it.
“Lori, we don’t have the time. We have too much to do to take care of ourselves, and I’m not gonna jeopardize this group like that,” he retorted harshly.
Most of the arguments about this were just reiterations of those same two ideas, my mother saying it needed done and that we should make the time to do it, while Shane told her it couldn’t be done, nor could we make the time. I tried to stop listening and kept working on my knot. My dad would have known the best solution, I told myself, giving up on the difficult knot and instead beginning to tug at blades of grass. I tuned them out, acting on pretty much autopilot as the day went on. At one point we heard someone trying to contact us on the radio; someone heading into Atlanta. My mom and Shane had the same fight again. I wished they wouldn’t.
Then my mom decided she wanted to go stop the person. For a moment I panicked, but Shane told her no, and she stormed away. As my mom returned to our tent, I started to follow her, but Shane stopped me and he went instead. I waited, impatiently, rather unhappy that she’d even thought of leaving me like that, with dad gone and all. After a few moments, I headed for the tent anyway, and called out to her. Shane was leaving as I drew close, and spoke to me very briefly, telling me she was inside. Once he was gone, I entered the tent. My mom met me in the entrance, crouched and taking my hands. She assured me she wasn't going anywhere, and I nodded eagerly. We stayed there for a while.
“Mom I don’t want you to ever go,” I said at length, “You don’t need to go near the city, right? I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re right. Shane’s right. I won’t be going out there, okay, Carl?” she said, crouching a bit before me and brushing my hair back a little. I nodded and she hugged me close. When she broke off the embrace and returned to tending things that needed doing, I went off to find something else to do, but as usual, it was very mindless. Nothing really interesting happened until we were radioed by the team who were on a run in the city and learned that they were trapped; Shane told my mom and Amy that we couldn’t send anyone to save them or we’d risk the rest of the group. This world was so harsh; it scared me. Those people wouldn’t be coming back alive, just because we’d have to risk ourselves to save them…
Or so we thought. It wasn’t long before a loud alarm could be heard blaring out and echoing through the valleys. The sound, it turned out, was emanating from a red sports car that raced back to our camp and parked, one of our runners, Glenn, emerging from it. Some of the other adults berated him for the sound, saying it would draw the walkers to us, and they silenced it. Amy demanded to know where her sister was. I stood with my mother, simply watching. At length, a truck came up behind the red car and parked. Our runners began to emerge and reunite with their families. Thinking about my father, and how we’d never reunite with him, tears came to my eyes. My mother crouched down in front of me and took my hands, trying to comfort me, but it was still hard. Why was it so hard? It had been so long now since we’d lost him…
“How’d y’all get outta there anyway?” Shane was asking the group.
"New guy,” Glenn replied, “he got us out.” Shane inquired further, and another runner confirmed, calling out to the newcomer and telling him to come say hello.
“Guy’s a cop like you,” he was saying to Shane. I heard footsteps, and everything got quiet.
I was still looking at my mother, but at the silence, I turned to see this guy. The figure that had emerged from the truck was impossible. It couldn’t possibly be who it appeared to be, could it? That didn’t make sense. My mind was doing flips, and saw no reason to this; nor any reason to try to comprehend this very thoroughly. That figure, it was one I knew well, one I recognized with ease. He looked just as surprised as I did and began to run towards my mother and myself. Hesitating no further, I broke free from my mother and ran towards him eagerly.
“Dad! DAD!”
We collided in a hug, the purest joy filling me as my dad and I fell to the ground for a moment before he lifted me up, kissed my head, and hurried towards my mother. When he reached her, she joined the embrace. I didn’t know how he’d come back to me, nor did I care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. My father was back. That was all that mattered for now.
