Dawn of the Yeti Read Free Page B

the dying fire, hissing with each breath.
I shift positions and see sunlight spilling through the cave’s mouth. It isn’t
that deep of a cave, and the light fills the majority of it. Even Meredith is
lit up, and she’s pressed against the back wall.
    There are a total
of five sleeping Banjankri, a small group, one that we should’ve been able to
avoid, or overtake. What was I thinking, going to open the Spire’s door? I
deserve to be in this position, to be captured. But not Meredith or Angelo or
even Charles. The sudden remembrance of the rest of my pack makes me search for
them.
    Propped up, close
to the wall, is a shape resembling a human, but there is something not quite
right. It looks ragged, rumpled and unnatural. I squint. It doesn’t help, the
back light from the snow and sun makes it too bright and I can’t tell if it’s
Angelo or Charles or neither.
    Turning back to
Meredith, I become acutely aware of the silence. She should be snoring if she
is asleep—as she appears to be. And I fear the worst. I whisper her name,
trying not to wake the slumbering enemy. She doesn’t move. I whisper again, a
little louder, and her tethered legs pop off the ground for a small second. I’m
not sure if she’s giving me a sign or if she’s just twitching in her sleep.
When I open my mouth to speak again, her eyes shoot open. The color washes over
me in a powerful wave, warming me and sweeping the pain from my head, my limbs.
She stares at me for a long time. She never blinks. And I understand the
meaning of her eyes, the sentences of her iris, the words of her pupils.
    They tell me to
wait. That everything will be okay. To sleep. And before I realize what’s
happened, the world has gone dark once again, though this time I’m eased into
the darkness, lowering myself into the midst and finding a warm place to curl
and dream. 

Chapter Six

 
    The world is a
lush green. Snow is a thing that merely comes in winter, and even then, it can
be avoided.
    I’m in the middle
of an open field, green hills, green grass, and green weeds surrounding me, the
overwhelming greenness broken by the spattered flecks of the wild flowers, the
constellations of white and purple and pink and yellow buds. The sun shines
high in the sky, playing a soft duet with the breeze for a perfect concerto of
warmth. I turn to take the whole place in, memorize the softness, the safeness,
the sanctity of   this world. But
when I survey the land, I realize that I am not alone.
    On a nearby
hillock, a figure stands, a woman dressed in a translucent robe that wraps
around her body and lets me see every facet of her womanhood. The only thing
shrouded is her face, hidden by a dark hood.
    “Come to me, Tom,”
she says. But I don’t know for certain whether or not it is her. I can’t see
her lips. “Come to me.”
    I do, taking my
sweet time, letting my bare feet slide across the blades of grass.
    The closer I get,
the more beautiful she becomes. Every inch of her smooth skin, glows in the
light. My pulse quickens and I long to embrace her, to let her embrace me, to
wrap me in her arms and choke the last breath from my body. She doesn’t say
another word as she lets the thin shroud of cloth drop from her shoulders. It
wavers to the ground, floating too smooth and too slow for air, as if it’s been
dropped into a pool of water and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. I watch the
ripples it makes, the fluid folds. And she pulls me to her.
    My clothes have
vanished and we stand, holding on to one another, naked, but for the hood still
covering her face. Her hands slide down my back, up my stomach then congregate
at my crotch, where she starts to pull and tug. Soon, she’s wrapped around me
and I’m lost inside her.
    But then she
disappears. I can still feel her, but I’m no longer in the middle of an open,
grassy knoll. I’m hovering in darkness, flames and screams filling the air. I
can still hear her whisper. She tells me that the world will not end in