Chapter 27: A Little Hope
Danny continued climbing.
One step.
Then another.
His legs felt like they were made of stone, not flesh. Each lift was a battle, each placement a negotiation with gravity. The muscle that had once let him run through his village fields was gone, burned away by starvation and chains.
Damn it...
He breathed heavily, the sound loud in his own ears, fog bursting and instantly freezing on the dead man’s coat collar.
This is so fucking hard.
Every step felt like torture. Like the mountain was personally offended he was trying to climb it. The cold wind hit his face, sharp and constant, but he barely noticed it anymore. His body was too exhausted from the climb to properly feel cold. His throat was becoming painfully dry, cracked, a desert inside his mouth.
He was running out of water. Running out of everything.
Danny looked down at the small water sack hanging from his side, bouncing against his hip with each step. He had hidden it inside his coat earlier, but now it was back out because he needed to know it was still there.
There wasn’t much left. Two, maybe three sips if he was careful. If he was selfish.
If that guy cares so much about me...
His eyes moved, bitter and tired, toward the grey-haired man walking ahead, five steps ahead, never looking back now.
He should carry my stuff too. If he’s the leader. If he’s so concerned.
Danny frowned, his childish thought surprising even him with how petty it sounded.
I’m already carrying enough. This coat, this bag, my own legs. What more does he want from me?
He adjusted the weight of his small, mostly empty bag on his back and continued walking, forcing his shoulders straight.
His breathing became heavier, a wet rattle in his chest. He wanted to stop. God, he wanted to stop more than anything he had ever wanted.
He wanted to sit down right here in the snow, on this narrow ledge, and sleep. Just close his eyes for a minute. The snow looked soft.
But he knew that if he did, getting back up might become impossible. That was how people died on mountains. They sat down "for a minute" and never stood up again. He had heard the grey-haired man say it to the thin prisoner yesterday.
So he kept moving.
Just a little farther. Just to that rock. Just to that turn.
He looked toward the mountain peak, which was still hidden in low clouds. Somewhere up there, hidden under snow and time, was the old path the grey-haired man had talked about.
If they found it, they could reach the imperial road.
If they reached the road, maybe they could finally escape the forest. Maybe they could see something that wasn’t white and grey and dead trees.
And if he escaped...
Danny’s expression changed, without him realizing it.
What am I going to do after that? Where do I go?
He thought about his village, unbidden. The memory came sharp and cruel.
The burning houses, smoke black against the sky.
The screams of his mother, his little sister.
The monsters with too many teeth, and the men in armor who laughed while the monsters fed.
The people who had destroyed everything he knew and then sold the survivors like cattle.
His hands slowly tightened into fists, the scabs on his knuckles cracking open again.
If I survive...
He didn’t know where the monsters had gone after the village. He didn’t even know if the ones responsible were still alive, or if they had moved on to burn another village, another Danny.
But one day, he would find them. He had to. What else was there?
And when he did...
Danny’s eyes hardened, the soft boyish fear in them replaced by something cold and old.
I’ll get my revenge. I’ll kill every single one of them. I’ll make them feel what we felt.
The thought gave him a strange feeling. A heat in his chest that was not from climbing.
Not happiness. Not exactly. Happiness was for other kids.
But something close to hope. A reason to lift his leg one more time.
Then he remembered something else, something that had kept him alive in the darkest moments in the cage.
His awakening.
The strange messages that had appeared before him that night after the worm, flickering blue text that only he could see.
[ DoD Bloodline Awakened ]
His Echo.
Danny didn’t know what his ability would be. The grey-haired man said DoD echoes were always cursed, always death-related. He didn’t even know when it would fully appear. The system had said "dormant."
But he had awakened. At twelve years old, in the snow, half-dead, he had awakened.
That meant he wasn’t completely powerless anymore. That meant he wasn’t just baggage to be sold.
Soon.
He smiled faintly, a real, small smile for the first time in months. Cracked lips stretching.
Soon, I’ll get my Echo. Soon, I won’t need them to protect me. Soon, they’ll need me.
For the first time since leaving the ruined caravan, since the worm, since the wolves, Danny felt a little hope. A tiny, fragile flame in the wind.
The thin prisoner, trudging right behind him, noticed the change.
He glanced at Danny, wheezing.
The boy was smiling. Smiling while climbing a death mountain with no water and no food.
The thin prisoner’s eyebrows lifted, his exhausted brain failing to understand.
Is he... smiling? What the hell is there to smile about?
He stared at Danny for a few seconds, watching that weird, distant smile. The boy had been freezing, starving, and climbing a mountain for hours, carrying bloodied hands.
Maybe the cold had finally gotten to his head. Maybe his brain had frozen.
He’s gone insane. The curse finally broke his mind.
The thin prisoner looked away, unsettled, and opened his mouth to say something, to snap at him to keep moving and stop daydreaming—
THUD!
Something suddenly struck him directly in the face. Hard. Fast. A chunk of loose ice and rock that had been dislodged by the grey-haired man’s boot above.
"AGH!" The impact was square on his nose.
His head snapped backward violently.
His hands immediately flew up to his face on instinct, letting go of the mountain wall.
The thin prisoner stumbled back, blinded, blood bursting from his nose, mixing with snow.
"What the hell?!" he shouted, voice muffled by his own hands.
His feet, in worn, smooth-soled shoes, slipped beneath him on the icy crust he wasn’t watching.
His eyes widened as he felt nothing under his heel.
The ground disappeared beneath his feet. There was only air.
And he fell, sideways, over the edge of the narrow path.
"AHHH—!"
Danny’s small, fragile smile vanished instantly.
His eyes widened, horror replacing hope in a heartbeat.
"Hey!"
The thin prisoner disappeared over the edge, arms flailing.
Danny rushed forward on instinct, dropping to his knees at the edge, reaching out a hand despite everything, despite hating him.
But before he could reach him, before his fingers could find grip—
A cold, desperate hand grabbed his ankle, claws of fingers digging through his wraps.
Danny’s eyes widened in horror as his whole body was yanked forward toward the drop.
"What are you doing?!" he screamed, grabbing at the rocks.
The thin prisoner’s terrified, bloody face appeared below him, hanging over the abyss, nose broken, eyes streaming with tears of pure terror.
"Please!" he sobbed, voice cracking, all his previous arrogance gone. "Don’t let me fall! Please, kid! Pull me up!"
His fingers tightened around Danny’s leg like a vise, dragging him inch by inch toward the edge.
Danny froze, half his body now over empty air.
The thin prisoner was dragging him down with him, weight and panic too much for Danny’s exhausted arms to hold.
And the mountain waited beneath them, hundreds of meters of cold, sharp, indifferent stone.