Читать книгу Werecat Choice - Enrike Fluence - Страница 3

Marianne did not notice the cold. The strong gust of wind felt like a light breeze on a hot day. Probably half of the werewolf imperceptibly took over the human. He did not even think that something was wrong with him, that something was changing, mutating in his body. Although, having been alone with yourself, running away from your past and from yourself as you knew yourself, you will involuntarily begin to reflect on the most terrible and impossible. And now Marianne thought of himself. About what kind of monster he can become, what will change in him.

He didn’t feel sick or tired now. Rather the opposite. But he attributed the lack of loss of strength from a long journey to an emotional upsurge, and at first he did not think about it at all.

So the first hour passed. Wandering in the forest and in his thoughts, he did not notice the increased physical strength, although he walked straight ahead, on impassable roads and without special equipment. This path will exhaust anyone.

And Marianne easily overcame uneven slopes and ascents. Sometimes deep pits and bumps, tree roots or frozen bushes appeared under the snow. Stumbling, losing a step, falling into deep snow, the young man walked forward.

The snow crammed into his shoes, melted and now gave Marianne unpleasant sensations. He stopped twice, leaned against a tree and hurriedly shook the ice out of his shoes. But my legs only became even more chilled. Annoyed Marianne began to think about a warm shelter, where you can warm up and dry your feet. Fatigue nevertheless crept up and began to shackle the body. Now Marianne was looking both ways, trying to listen and wondering where to hide for the rest of the night. There were only dense forest and snow around.

Twice he distinctly heard footsteps behind him and another rustling sound. And the second time is very close. Anxious Marianne immediately looked around, but saw no one. He was still here alone.

There were no indentations from footprints on the velvet smooth surface of the snow. Only those that he left. Between the trees, the figure of a pursuer or a wild beast could not be discerned. It seemed that there was no one but the only traveler in the whole area. “So it seemed to me.”

Marianne continued to walk forward, blaming his fears on the rustle of his clothes and the echo of his own breathing. Suddenly a shadow slid along the ground on the right hand, overtook Marianne by several steps, but then just as quickly darted back and disappeared.

Marianne was frightened. Shadow? The moon has not been shown for a long time. Not a single star is visible overhead. Twilight reigned everywhere. Then what is it? And this time it was seen? Marianne immediately stopped, looked around more attentively, with suspicion of everything he could see. Something or someone was or was near. It should be here. There is no doubt about it this time. And it is now invisible, perhaps lurking among the black tree trunks. It followed Marian for a long time, because the first time he heard an extraneous sound half an hour earlier.

– Who’s here? Marianne asked loudly, trying to firm up his voice. But the sound of his own speech seemed uncertain.

Silence and loneliness suddenly surged in a wave. Fear was born in the lower abdomen, so light and weak that it could be mistaken for anxiety. And all around, it seemed, there was only an indifferent winter landscape.

Marianne hurried away. You need to leave this place as soon as possible. Ahead, the trees thinned and opened up a spacious lawn. Marianne headed there.

Twenty steps later, the trees parted, and behind them was a steep descent. Blue immense clouds hung low above the ground, sheltering the fantastic landscape from the silver light of the Moon. The cozy valley seemed to be a reflection of the shadows of the wavy sky. Underfoot in the twilight was a perfectly flat curve of the railway. A little to the left was a small yellow light. Marianne looked closer and recognized the house almost covered with snow to the very roof. He must have been standing right next to the tracks.

Marianne decided not to waste time on a detour, but to go down the mountain here.

He stepped carefully onto the snowy slope. Another step, and Marianne lost her footing. The snow was slipping from under my feet. Falling and tumbling down the slope, Marianne rolled down. A few seconds of falling – and he felt a blow from his shoulder to the ground. In addition, the top was covered with a dense snowdrift. Unwittingly, he caused a mini-avalanche, disturbing the loose and unreliable snow of the slope, and now scolded himself for indiscretion.

Out of breath, Marianne, lost in direction, with sticky snow behind the collar and on his face, stood up on his throbbing legs. But he was stuck up to his waist in a loose snowdrift. My shoulder ached. After a dizzying descent, it took a while to recover. The rumble in my ears subsided. The cackling of anxious birds spread in the sky. There was anxiety and anxiety in him. Marianne himself has not yet seen a single night bird in this forest. Maybe it just seems to him? The unnaturally ringing clatter of hooves overlapped a displeased croak. He was walking right up to Marianne. No! It is a metallic rumble, frequent and sonorous. A second ago, barely perceptible, now he stood up as a loud curtain, an impenetrable wall for other sounds. A bright light emerged from the darkness, hit me in the eyes. Marianne, unable to escape, fell into a snowdrift again and, floundering in the snow, saw danger. He lay very close to the rails. Just a couple of meters and it would all be over. The train roared past with a roar, lifted up a whirlwind of small, sharp snowflakes and hit Marianne with a gust of wind. The iron giant had already fled far away before the youth could see it.

Something made me look up. And his breath stopped. Above him, at the very top of the hill from which he had just rolled, a black figure could be seen. Immobile. Surely this one was looking at him.

Marianne hastened to get out of here as quickly as possible. Having got out of the snow onto the rails, I again noticed a dim light of light in the distance, and now I was almost running towards it as fast as I could, turning around every ten to twenty meters. But I saw no one behind.