The Skin Thief

Chapter 6

How could so much change in the space of two days? In one moment, I am partying with my friends and family. Now, the rain hammers against me, seeping in through the thin rain jacket they had given me. I shiver violently. There isn't any part of my skin that isn't soaking wet. I swear, my bones are turning to ice. Mud squelches beneath my boots and puddles of water leak in through the seams. My teeth chatter and my body trembles. Still, I must keep going.

"Come on!" Connor shouts, a few strides ahead of me. I grit my teeth and speed up. My heart races in my chest, my lungs burn, and my breath comes in heaving pants. We move as fast as we can, despite the wind and rain thrashing against us and the boggy ground trying to suck us into its depths.

We can barely see ahead of us. To put it frankly, we are both lost, in an extreme storm, with faulty equipment. If we don't find shelter soon, hypothermia may kill us off before our pursuers have a chance to capture us.

Connor and I have done escape and evasion training multiple times. Being dropped off in some random part of Athaine, in the middle of nowhere is hardly new. For our exam at the academy, we had to make our way through the Serntora Mountain range undetected. For two long weeks, we waded through thick snow and lived off the occasional snow hare that we managed to snare. It was brutal. I had never been more exhausted, hungry, and cold in my life.

Suffice to say, if I can live with minimal equipment for two weeks in those mountains, then I can survive one fucking rainstorm. I grit my teeth in determination and push myself on. This isn't the first time I've taken my body to its extremes, and it won't be the last. I just have to put my head down and get on with it. As difficult as it is, I just need to try not to think about the cold, the rain, or the aching in my tired muscles. One step after another. Just think about that, and nothing else.

Connor pulls me down by a rock. We sit with our backs to the wind. The rain still hammers against us, and water soaks through our trousers as we sit. We remove our coats and make a makeshift shelter above our heads. For heat, we cuddle into each other, trying to share whatever warmth we have. Connor shivers as violently as I do. His skin is pale and his lips blue. We've been out here for at least ten hours. It was the early hours when they drove us along the dirt roads in the loud, shuddering trucks with their uncomfortable benches in the back where you could feel every single vibration and bump. At certain points in the journey, without even stopping the vehicle, they kicked us out with only one instruction.

Run.

"I should have known it would have been the Fairfall Moors," Connor hisses, his voice shaking. I nod my head in agreement. The Fairfall Moors are the most open, flat, exposed lands in Athaine. They span for hundreds of miles and a lot of it is nothing but sticky bogs. There is no shelter and nowhere to hide.

The rain starts to ease. As we hold each other tightly, I slowly feel sensation begin to return to my fingers and hands. My feet aren't so lucky. The boots, which are purposely bad, like the rest of the equipment they had given us, stay soggy and heavy.

"We should get moving," Connor says.

"I know," I say. When I pull my body from him, a chill spreads over me in the gap where his warmth was. I pull on the wet raincoat and we take off running again. We keep an even pace, lucky to have found some less boggy land. The slapping of our feet on the wet ground provides a rhythm for to two of us to run to. As we run, there is only one thing on my mind.

One step at a time. One step at a time. One step at a time.

I'm barely focusing on anything else. The world around me has disappeared and my mind is blank but for my constant repetition of those five words over and over again. I let out a shout as Connor suddenly rams his body into mine. We go crashing into the mud. The breath leaves my body and Connor covers my mouth before I can let out a shocked scream.