CHAPTER 45: CH 45: THE MOUNTAIN.

’RUN!’

But not yet. He waited just as long as they did, the flare still alive in his hands like it was the only star left in the universe.— without a doubt, they could see him.

The Hollowmen didn’t charge. They didn’t twitch. They just... waited. A stillness so unnatural it felt staged.

His quadriceps. Hamstrings. Glutes. Calves. Every muscle and tissue in his legs were ready to break out into a full sprint but he waited.

Why? Because everything felt like a trap. Running would be what they wanted but he couldn’t defend himself for long— the hollowmen around him were just the ones already close.

They could see him. They knew exactly where he stood.

’This feels like a damn trap.’ His heartbeat thrashed in his ears.

’They want me to move first. They want the chase.’

’And I only took a handgun. Fuuuuck!’ He cursed internally as he waited for a sign, a distraction, something that’d confirm his theory to run.

The flare hissed. Embers spit from its tip. Shadows jerked and wavered across the whiteout, but the Hollowmen didn’t flinch.

A storm brewed above the tundra. Flashes of light and thunderbolts fighting far above the surface like a divine occurrence.

Krrr-ack!

A bolt of lightning flashed around the terrain just before the defeaning boom shook the ground beneath their feet.

’That’s my cue.’ Using the lightning as a distraction he bolted through them, dropping the flare and gripping onto the straps on his back like his life depended on it.

"Hhhhh-hhhhh!" He panted as his legs pedaled forward.

He launched into the mob, dropping the flare. His feet pounded against the snow, deep prints exploding behind him as he tore through the gap the lightning bought him.

"Hhhh—haahh!"

His breaths came out ragged. Frost burned his throat.

He didn’t dare look back at first. Forward. Forward. Forward.

Just keep moving— that was the law of the tundra.

But the silence, save for the howling storm, behind him...

It felt wrong.

Too wrong.

He risked a glance.

Nothing.

Just fog. Just snow. Just the empty pale abyss stretching behind him.

His sprint slowed without permission, legs growing heavy from adrenaline crashing through his bloodstream.

He swallowed hard. "Did I— outrun them?"

He bent over, pressing his hands to his knees, fighting to steady his breath. His muscles trembled. His mind spun.

Then—

"GRRHHHH—"

Right behind him.

"SHIT!" Aegon twisted just as a Hollowman hurled itself out of the white curtain of snow, jaw unhinged, breath reeking of things too foul to name.

He fumbled for the canister on instinct— the Aether capacitor — but his fingers caught nothing. The pack was too far behind him, straps bouncing against his spine. He couldn’t reach it.

’Damn it, damn it, damn it—’

The Hollowman slammed him into the snow, claws scraping across his jacket. Aegon’s hand closed around the knife’s hilt on instinct—

And he drove it upward.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

He didn’t stop. Not until the body went slack. Not until the glow in its eyes flickered out like a dying ember.

He shoved the corpse off him, chest heaving. Frost clung to his eyelashes. His fingers were shaking so violently he almost dropped the knife.

Its blood— if that was true— smelled even worse, black as tar and as sticky as rubber. It clung to his arm and the blade of the knife no matter how much he tried to wipe it off.

Then he heard it.

More footsteps. Dozens. Too close. Too coordinated.

Aegon staggered upright, spinning—

They surrounded him. Encircling him like starving wolves.

He took a step back, knife raised, instinct clamoring over logic.

"Come on then!" he screamed like a madman, voice cracking. "I’m already freezing, might as well die trying!"

The first one lunged.

He sidestepped — barely — and sliced its throat.

Another pounced from the left; he ducked and jammed the blade into its chin.

A third collapsed at his back; he twisted and stabbed upward blindly, feeling the blade crack bone.

He fought like an animal. He fought because stopping meant dying. And in the snow, survival meant murder.

But for every Hollowman he dropped, two more crept in through the storm, silhouettes forming in the fog like a nightmare redraw.

He wasn’t winning.

He wasn’t even close.

"Sht... sht—!" He stumbled backward, knife shaking in his hand. His breath came out in panicked clouds.

Lightning exploded again.

~KRAA-DOOM!~

A bolt speared straight into the snow beside him — no more than five meters away — and the blast heat brushed his cheek as the Hollowman closest to it ignited like paper soaked in oil.

The thing screamed a guttural, horrid wail and collapsed into a charred skeleton.

Aegon blinked at the smoldering remains. A laugh cracked out of him — dry, hysterical.

"Okay... okay, guess, the Gods are on my side."

Then another bolt struck. Then another.

Random. Violent. Reckless.

Like the sky was trying to murder everything on the ground.

He froze.

’I spoke too soon...

This is killing whatever moves.’

His stomach dropped.

The lightning wasn’t protection.

It was extermination.

The tundra lit up again as another bolt tore the earth barely twenty paces away, blasting a crater into the ice.

"Fuck."

He bolted.

Snow kicked up behind him as he shoved back into a sprint, lungs burning, legs threatening mutiny with every step.

The thunder followed him. Lightning stalked him.

~KRR-BOOM! KA-DOOM! KRACK-THOOM!~

Bolts slammed into the ice around him in brutal bursts, showering him in shards of frozen shrapnel.

"Ghhhhh—!" Aegon shielded his face with one arm while running blindly through the storm. Every impact rattled through the ground, vibrating his skull, shaking his teeth.

He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know if he was running toward safety or straight into another herd of Hollowmen.

He just ran until his lungs squeezed into knots and his thighs threatened to tear open.

Then his foot snagged something under the snow.

He toppled over.

Hard.

The world spun, sky and surface blurring into one endless swirl of white.

Aegon rolled onto his back, gasping, chest rising and falling like it was about to detonate.

Above him, the sky flickered — furious, electric, wild.

At this point, even the thought of standing up was even torture death felt inviting.

Another bolt fired.

This time, he didn’t move.

He just lay there, staring up, defeated.

His body shook uncontrollably from cold and exhaustion. His muscles had crossed some invisible boundary and simply refused to obey him anymore.

"Fine..." he whispered, voice cracking. "Fucking do it already."

The next bolt cracked down — close enough that the heat brushed past his cheek and lit up the snow like daylight.

That’s when he saw it.

Barely visible through the chaos.

A shadow rising through the storm.

No... not a shadow.

A slope.

A jagged cliffside.

Aegon blinked hard, breath stuttering in his throat.

He could see it.

The foot of the mountain.