Two months have passed since our duo trip to the village. After their return their life continued, as usual, the old man was scavenging near old battlefields while Elliot was doing the chores, reading, and trying to think about ways to make their life easier.

Today he was doing exactly that, he was standing on a small field connected to the shack, digging up the cold hard soil with a crude shovel.

The ground was hard as stone, each hit with the shovel would return a strong vibration force through the handle to Elliot's small hands.

His body was still small and weak, he was gasping for air with each hit but he still persisted and worked in this harsh weather, just to bring a little bit more food to the table.

Near Elliot, there were already a few patches with a few different plants that could survive in this cold environment.

Elliot finished digging up the hole he was working on and fell on his butt while still heavily breathing, each time he exhaled a puff of mist would form out of his breath.

He decided to rest for a few more moments before continuing, a few minutes passed and his breathing returned to normal, so he stood up and was about to return to work when he saw a silhouette appear from the forest.

Elliot was warry for a moment but he recognized the silhouette to be his grandfather, he raised his hand to say hello, but the hand didn't even have the chance to fully extend as his grandfather collapsed to the ground.

He froze for a second before rushing towards him, he had never run so fast in his life. Before he even knew it, he was already trying to help him to stand up. With his help, the old man stumbled into the shack and fell onto his bed.

For the first time in his life, Elliot didn't know what to do, they had no medicine and nowhere to go to get help.

“Water…” Mumbled the old man, Elliot immediately returned from his stupor and ran to bring him a cup of water.

After drinking the old man was breathing a little bit easier but his state was still not good, and he still couldn’t even sit. Elliot placed his hand on the old man's head and found out that the old man's temperature was unbelievably high.

He ran to the kitchen and brought a basin full of water, after soaking a towel in it he placed it on the old man's head.

Thinking for himself for a moment Elliot stood up and ran to the cabinets he opened the one with the herbs and roots. After looking for anything useful but finding nothing, despair slowly started to crop into his mind.

But before he lost all hope he remembered, “The journals, there was one that talked about plants.”

After digging in piles of books he found a partially burned small green booklet, he immediately picked it up and flipped through its pages, stopping abruptly at a page with a crude drawing of a blue flower that had a shape of a bell.

“Snow Bellflower - although this flower is from the Bellflower family, its medicinal purposes are not only good for clearing a sore throat it will also reduce fever and relieve some pain. Great for use for colds and other illnesses. Smash three roots and…”

Elliot's eyes lit up as he read the description, not only did he recognize this flower he even knew the location of where to find it in batches, not so long ago he saw some in the passing when he helped his grandpa to collect some woods.

“Yeah I just go and get some, surely it will help with grandpa's cold.” Elliot reassured himself as he wore back his thick rabbit fur coat and went to check that his sleeping grandpa was in stable condition before leaving.

Elliot mentally reviewed the path that he should take and went on his way the fastest he could. The distance that had to traverse wasn't that huge but for Elliot, with his small legs, it would be a challenge to do it in a short time.

Each step Elliot would take would sink his leg halfway into the snow, and made his journey a lot more difficult than it should.

After walking for fifteen minutes Elliot started to feel a familiar feeling that would sometimes call for him, it was the feeling of death, as he felt it his face became ashen and he immediately turned his head in panic at the direction of the shack but found that the feeling wasn't coming from there, he took a sigh of relief and continued onward.

As he did the feeling just continued to get stronger and stronger. The feeling itself wasn't unpleasant per se, it was always the same as if a calling from someone he knew from birth but had never seen or met.

After walking for another twenty minutes Elliot arrived at a small field of flowers, he hurryingly started to harvest as many flowers as he could, not even taking his time to remove the dirt from the roots.

He swiftly filled his side pouch with flowers and was just about to run back to the shack as he noticed something weird. The feeling that he was feeling was already beaming as if a beacon of a lighthouse in the night, and it continued to get stronger even though he hasn’t moved a step in the last few minutes.

Elliot moved his gaze towards its direction as he did his body completely froze, in front of him was standing a wolf or more precisely a bag of bones on four paws, calling this wolf malnourished would be a compliment.

Its hungry eyes were moving in and out of focus, as it looked at its prey, which was no other than Elliot. The poor beast was driven insane by hunger and was standing by its sheer will alone. Little did it know that most of its organs already were shutting down and even if it filled its belly it wouldn't change a thing.

Elliot saw a big scar on the wolf's nose, it reminded him of his encounter with another wolf, where his grandpa hit it with a branch. Most likely it was the same one, he thought that it was some kind of nasty fate for them to meet once more, before it perished into the world of eternal rest.

Elliot pulled out his knife and held it in front of the wolf, “You are already dead, don't make it harder on yourself, and go away!” He shouted at the wolf but of course, the beast couldn't understand the human language, and even if it did it most likely wouldn't care.

The wolf's body shrunk a little bit and its thin muscles tightened as he prepared himself for a jump, when Elliot saw it he immediately held the bluish knife with both of his hands in front of his chest, preparing himself for the attack.

The wolf tried to release a growl but no sound came out of his throat, only foam was released from its mouth. It pounced at Elliot with all the strength it could muster, its jaws were wide open as he did.

The rotten smell of flesh filled the air, as Elliot's face was just a few centimeters away from the wolf's mouth. Everything slowed down for a moment in front of Elliot's eyes, but that didn’t last for long.

He tried to dodge the beast's bite to his right but that didn't go as planned, the wolf's jaws closed down at Elliot's left shoulder, and a strong burning sensation assaulted him. He fell on his back while the beast's jaws were still closed around his shoulder.

Something warm was flowing down Elliot's hands, as the beast struggled to pierce deeper into his flesh, thanks to his thick coat of fur it was quite the challenge, especially when the beast was malnourished and weak.

The wolf’s struggles got weaker and weaker, and in the end, it completely stopped moving. As it did a weak blue light came from Elliot’s knife, but he hadn't noticed it at all because he still was in shock.

A weird fading feeling woke him up from his stupor, he glanced at the wolf that was currently laying on him and he pushed it to the side.

Elliot's heart skipped a beat as he saw himself completely drenched in blood, but thankfully it wasn't his. He pulled the knife from the wolf's chest and after cleaning it in the snow he returned it back to his belt.

He looked at his small shaking hands that were smeared in blood and clenched them into fists. After taking a big breath he started to walk away, but after taking a few steps forward he looked back at the corpse of the wolf with hesitation. Elliot ran back to the wolf and buried him under a pile of snow before departing once more.

Walking back took him a little bit longer, mostly because of the pain that was coming from his left shoulder. He had already checked the wound and found only a swallow bite mark and a big blue bruise surrounding it.

It was already evening when Elliot returned to the shack, he checked his grandfather's condition in a hurry and found that his fever hadn't eased at all and even got worse. He immediately changed the wet towel and gave him some water to drink, afterwards, he went to heat up some water for the herbal tea following the instructions that were written in the green booklet.

After making the tea and giving it to his grandfather Elliot continued to change his towel and look after him till the next morning, sometimes giving him another douce of tea when needed, eventually the fever got lighter but never really broke.

Elliot was completely drained but he still persisted and didn't even take a minute of rest, always sitting in front of his grandfather's bed looking after him not sparing even a moment for himself.

Only in the morning when his grandfather opened his eyes and looked at Elliot with his never-ending smile did Elliot take a breather.

Elliot lowered his head and gripped his pants with both of his hands. “You really worried me there, grandpa.”

“Hehe, sorry for that Elliot.” The old man raised his body to sit up.

“Grandpa, rest you are still weak.” Elliot said with concern.

“I am fin...*cough**cough**cough*...” The old man entered coughing fit and couldn't stop, after a few coughs he started to cough out black blood.

Elliot ran to bring him a dry towel and gave it to his grandfather, he continued to cough a few more times, and only then did he fall back onto the bed completely exhausted.

After taking the bloody towel from his grandfather Elliot understood that it wasn't just some common cold, fear and concern could be seen in his eyes as he looked at the towel.

“Don't think about it too much…” The old man averted his gaze from Elliot not wanting to see his concerned eyes.

“I am fine now Elliot, go take some rest I will be alright.”

Elliot shook his head left and right.

“What good it would be if you collapsed here with me, go take a rest. It's not like your bed is so far away from mine, I will wake you up if something is wrong.”

Elliot stood for a minute but the old man still pointed to the bed until Elliot gave up and laid down to rest just a meter away. As soon as he closed his eyes he had already entered into the world of dreams.

“Well I didn't expect something like that to happen so soon, now what should I do…” The old man looked at Elliot with worried eyes. He knew that if he died right now Elliot would have a hard time surviving, even going to the village and asking for help would be a dangerous challenge for him.

But given the circumstances he had no other choice, thinking it through he decided that he would send him to the village with the pretense of getting help, but in reality, he would send him to the village so he won’t die from starvation while trying to take care of him here.

“I guess I will do that when he wakes up, but for now I will take a rest, I am so tired…” The old man slowly closed his eyes and fell asleep as well.