Chapter 21: Hold the Rope
The evening came quickly. Too quickly.
The sky had already turned dark, not normal night dark, but storm dark, a heavy purple-black that swallowed the forest. When the first strong gust of wind swept through the forest, it didn’t sound like wind. It sounded like something large moving through trees.
Snow flew sideways between the trunks, not falling anymore, flying.
Danny looked up from where he was trying to melt snow in the broken tin cup. His eyes widened.
The storm was here. The one the grey-haired man had warned about.
The grey-haired man immediately turned toward the others, his injured arm now wrapped tight, his face hard.
"Get inside! Now!"
They rushed toward the small tent they had built earlier in the afternoon. It wasn’t much. A few pieces of cloth from the caravan, pine branches they had tied together, and whatever materials they had managed to recover. It leaned against the overturned caravan wall, looking pathetic.
But it was better than standing outside. Outside was death now.
The wind grew stronger in seconds. One moment it was wind, the next it was a wall.
The tent shook violently, the cloth snapping like a whip.
"We need to secure it! It’s going to rip!"
The grey-haired man grabbed several ropes they had saved, long caravan reins. They had tied some of them around the tent frame, with the other ends secured around nearby thick trees, but they hadn’t finished.
"Hold these! One each!"
He threw one rope to Danny. Danny grabbed it with both chained hands, the rope icy.
The thin prisoner took another, wrapping it around his waist immediately.
The grey-haired man held the last one, bracing his legs.
"Don’t let go! Whatever happens, don’t let go!"
The wind suddenly slammed into them, a full body hit. It was not air, it was force.
Danny’s feet slid across the snow a foot, his boots having no grip.
His eyes widened.
The rope pulled against his hands with tremendous force, burning his palms even through cold.
"Hold it!" The grey-haired man shouted, but his voice was half-lost.
Danny gritted his teeth, snow hitting his face. "I’m trying! It’s too strong!"
Another gust struck, stronger than the first. The tent’s cloth billowed and nearly lifted from the ground, one branch cracking. If the tent went, the fire inside went, and they went.
Danny’s body was dragged forward another foot, his arms straight now.
He wrapped the rope around his arm twice and pulled with everything he had, leaning back, digging his heels in.
His fingers began to hurt, then go numb, then hurt in a different, deeper way.
Then the cold began biting into his skin where the rope rubbed. Snow struck his face sideways, blinding him.
He couldn’t see properly. He couldn’t even feel his hands anymore, just the pain underneath the numbness.
"Don’t let go!" The grey-haired man shouted again, seeing Danny’s knees buckle.
"If you let go, we’ll all be blown away! The tent is our only cover!"
Danny clenched his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.
His arms were shaking violently. His legs trembled beneath him. He had not eaten real food in two days.
The rope, wet and icy, dug into his hands, cutting through his thin skin.
Then his skin split. A thin line first, then wider.
Blood appeared between his fingers, dark red, instantly freezing on the rope, making it even more slippery.
Danny winced. It hurt. A sharp, stinging pain that the cold couldn’t kill.
His entire body hurt. His chest hurt from breathing cold air. His eyes hurt from snow.
But he didn’t let go.
_Don’t let go._
He repeated the words inside his head like a prayer, like the grey-haired man was speaking for him.
If I let go, we’ll all die. If I let go, I killed that man for nothing.
The thin prisoner was struggling too, screaming now. He had wrapped the rope around his body and was leaning backward with all his weight, his face red.
"How long is this going to last?!" he screamed at the sky. "It’s going to kill us!"
"I don’t know!" The grey-haired man shouted back, blood coming from his own reopened arm wound now. "Just keep holding! Storms don’t last forever! They pass!"
Another powerful gust hit, the worst yet. The sound was a scream through the whole forest, trees bending.
The thin prisoner nearly fell face-first, his rope burning his coat.
Danny’s feet lifted slightly from the ground, his whole light body in the air for a second. He slammed them back down and pulled harder, a guttural noise coming from his throat.
His injured, bleeding hands were now slick with blood and frozen. His body was exhausted beyond anything he had felt fighting the worm.
He wanted to release the rope. Just for a second. Just to rest his hands, to wipe his face. The thought was so sweet.
But he couldn’t.
Danny looked toward the tent, squinting through snow. The structure was shaking violently, the branches creaking. If the ropes failed, there would be nothing protecting them from the storm, and the storm would bury them in an hour.
He tightened his grip, blood squeezing out.
I won’t let go.
He remembered everything in a flash, because when you think you’re going to die, you remember.
He remembered the burning village. The monsters taking his family. The caravan chains. The giant worm coming from under the snow. The eyeless wolf. The Awakened man lying beneath the snow, looking at him, and the blood on white snow.
He had survived all of that. He had killed to survive that.
He wasn’t going to die here holding a rope.
Not now. Not like this.
The wind screamed through the forest, a constant, high scream. Snow covered everything, the tent, their heads, their shoulders.
For hours - it felt like hours, though it was maybe one hour - the three men fought against the storm. They didn’t fight monsters with claws. They didn’t fight people with swords.
They simply fought to remain standing. And that was harder than any monster.
And Danny held the rope. No matter how badly his hands bled. No matter how cold his body became, how his legs wanted to fold. He refused to let go.
Then, slowly, so slowly he thought he was imagining it...
The wind began to weaken. The scream became a moan, then a whistle.
The snow stopped hitting them with the same force, started falling straight again.
The grey-haired man looked toward the sky, his hair white with snow.
The storm was finally passing. Moving east.
Danny remained where he was, frozen in his leaning pose, not daring to move yet.
His hands were bleeding, frozen to the rope. His entire body was exhausted, shaking from head to toe.
But he was still standing. The rope was still in his hands. The tent was still there, shaking but there.
He looked down at the rope, red and white.
Then at the others, both collapsed to their knees but alive.
They had survived. Again.
For tonight, at least.
Danny slowly, painfully, released the rope. It took effort, peeling his fingers open one by one. His fingers were stiff and trembling and white and red.
He stared at his blood-covered hands, breathing hard, steam coming from his mouth.
He had awakened something inside himself yesterday - the System said Echo. But he still didn’t know what it was, how to use it. It hadn’t helped him hold the rope.
And tomorrow...
They would continue walking into an uncertain future, with a broken tent, bloody hands, and a storm that could come back.