Vas and Fem trudged side-by-side through the snow. They stepped into the footsteps of the Scouts in front of them, but walking was still an arduous process.

Their small procession was on its way to the Scout barracks.

“Maybe this is the way they haze new recruits,” Joust muttered.

Vas snorted in amusement and Fem let out a laugh.

Joust’s walking partner, Alex, shook her head. “The Scouts don’t haze people. They need us in the best condition possible.”

Jade poked Alex’s back. “He was joking, Lex.”

Alex blushed, “Oh.”

The group had been walking for hours.

Vas glanced back and gave an encouraging smile to Joust.

Joust was almost as tall as Vas, but he was far thicker. It was as though his bones were made bigger. He looked like a bodybuilder.

In contrast, Alex was a short Latina girl.

Kara and the three other Scouts who were in the front of the line suddenly stopped walking.

Vas almost ran into the man in front of him, but stopped just in time.

“Do you hear that?” Kara’s voice was muffled through the scarf she was wearing, so the people behind Vas were unable to pick up on her words.

Fem repeated the words to those behind him, and everyone became very quiet, listening.

“Whistle. I hear a whistle being blown.” Vas affirmed.

Kara turned back to Vas and nodded.

The Scout next to Kara turned to Vas. “Sure that ain’t the wind?”

“No. Two of us have heard it now. We need to investigate.”

“They don’t even have snowshoes.”

Kara shrugged and eyed the new recruits. “The snow’s not that deep. Let’s go.”

Kara turned back around and started sprinting across the snow. The other Scouts were quick to respond and followed immediately.

Vas and the others were quickly winded and outpaced, while they watched the Scouts creeping out of their collective field of vision.

Vas fell over while attempting to run, and the act gave him an idea.

Keeping his weight distributed evenly, Vas bounded across the snow with improved speed and balance.

The others watched him for a moment before following suit.

While they were unable to catch up to the Scouts, the distance between the two groups now remained about the same.

After a few minutes, Vas could hear the whistles clearly along with screams and shouts.

Kara shouted something and the Scouts with her drew their weapons, proceeding with caution as they rounded a large rock.

They were now out of Vas’s line of sight, but he could hear the clang of metal and the sound of blades ripping flesh.

When his group neared the large rock Vas stopped. Fem drew his sword and pulled his shield from his back, and nodded to Vas before leading the group around the rock.

There were large blood spots all over the snow, but no bodies. About ten paces away, three Scouts were facing seven snarling people.

No.

They weren’t people anymore, the seven were Risen.

When the epidemic had first started, Vas had asked his father how to recognize Risen. His father had refused to tell him, saying he would know.

The day Vas encountered Risen for the first time he had panicked and run for his life, leaving his father behind. His father had killed the thing, but died later from an infection.

When Vas’s father became a Risen, the first thing the creature had done was the first thing every Risen did. It had ripped out its eyes.

Vas clicked his sheath open and fell into stance, laying his sword across his back. His eyes went wide and he smiled.

He dashed past Fem and almost tripped, but was able to recover his footing at the last moment. One of the Scouts turned and said something to him, but he wasn’t listening anymore.

Vas would never run away from anything again.

The scout tried to grab him and Vas slipped past the man with animal-like litheness. The closest Risen pointed its face toward Vas, signaling that it was “looking” at him. It smiled back at Vas.

Vas let loose a roar of rage and swung his sword.

The Risen brought its own sword up in an attempt to block, but Vas’s swing knocked the sword aside and pierced flesh.

Vas cut the creature in half with his first swing, twisted his wrist around and decapitated it with another.

He brought his sword up just in time to deflect another Risen’s attack. With that same swing, he used his momentum and curled into a roll, bringing his sword down hard enough to decapitate the monster that had just attacked him.

The next closest Risen hesitated for a second before attack, and Vas used the time to set his sword into his starting position.

He jumped forward, and the Risen moved to protect itself from being cut in half like its first brother.

Vas smiled wider. He’d expected the shift in tactics.

His swing took off the Risen’s hands and, consequently, its defenses. Vas brought his blade around in another strike that took the monster’s head.

Vas looked up for his next target, only to see the remaining four Risen already dealt with. The final creature was decapitated by Fem as Vas had looked up.

Shaking, Vas took breaths to calm himself. He shook the wet blood off his sword then wiped it with his sleeve.