A Second Chance (Marco x Fem Reader)

Chapter 7

Year 849: Snow training

The wind was howling, the strong gust whipping snow straight in your faces.

'I would never have thought that those little, tiny snowflakes could hurt that bad!'

Two years of hard bone breaking training was over, only one more year to go before you could officially call yourselves soldiers. Even though it was only one more year left it didn't mean you got cut any slack. If anything, training got harder from this point on, difficulty increasing as your abilities got stronger. None of you had foreseen a training exercise this horrible, however. During these past two years you had been put through a lot in the name of becoming soldiers. These experiences strengthened your friendships, and you truly felt like you were one big family, especially since you had no one else.

Now you along with the whole southern cadet corps marched your way through snow filled woods in groups. You had been walking for seven hours already, everyone freezing to their very core.

"Ahh!", someone yelled out as they collapsed to the ground. The hood of the thick winter jacket prevented you from seeing who it was without stopping and turning around completely. You really didn't want to stop because you felt like once you did you could never start walking again. However, your curiosity and compassion got the best of you. You turned around and saw a person laying face down in the snow, only a black braid indicating who it could be.

"Mina!", you exclaimed, hurrying over to her limp body as fast as you could. "Thomas, stop for a second, come help me!", you called out for him. Thomas was the group leader, in charge of deciding breaks as well as route. Your group was the last one to venture out, and you silently envied the first group for being closer to the destination than yours, even though that didn't mean they had to walk any less than you.

"What happened?", Thomas said as he assisted you in getting Mina up in a sitting position, leaning her back against a tree. The other people in the group joined you by the tree.

"I don't know, I just heard her fall", you said frantically. "Maybe she tripped and collapsed, or maybe she just got too exhausted?".

"Okay, it seems like she is still conscious. She is shaking and trembling but that's a good thing, it means she's not entirely refrigerated", Thomas said calmly, thinking about what to do next. "Y/N, remove your gloves and hold onto her cheeks while I think. The skin-to-skin method is always the best way to warm someone up, and I can see her cheeks are developing white spot's, which is concerning". You quickly did as he said, first breathing on your hands to warm them up a bit before touching her, since they were already very cold.

"Henry, Mia, Lara and Oscar, use your bodies to create a wall so we can shield her from the wind!", he then decided, while tucking Mina in using the little blanket he had with him on his backpack. The others quickly did as he said. You all looked at Mina with worried faces.

"It doesn't seem like she has got a fever, which is a good sign", Thomas then said.

After a good five minutes of you and Thomas trying to warm her face up with your hands, Mina finally opened her eyes. Her trembling had decreased during those minutes, which could be both a bad or a good thing. All you could do was watch her, hoping for the latter. You thanked the gods that she didn't fall unconscious and flung your arms around her.

"Mina!", you exclaimed, backing up, eyeing her worriedly.

"Hey Mina, we suspect you have a mild case of hypothermia, but managed to warm you up a bit. How are you feeling?", Thomas asked her.

"Uh... Cold?", she answered with a weak smile. The lot of you snickered.

"Can you walk at all, how's your legs?", you asked her.