Sabertooth

Chapter 3) Silence

Atsuki and Raika were miles away by midnight. The letter Raika wrote was also miles out of thought.

"How far are we now?" Raika asked, sweat dripping from his brows steadily just as they had hours ago when he was chopping wood.

"Maybe twenty minutes till we hit the periphery. Then a few more minutes." Atsuki murmured.

They were climbing a steep incline. The harsh white light of the North Star blasting at them with its harsh light. The area was almost a perfect protection from the elements.

With the wooded areas facing diagonal areas and the incline climbing skyward. It was something beautiful to behold. Raika wondered how he didn't remember such a sight when they were children.

As they vaulted up onto the plain Raika stopped. The wind had just began to pick up, and they both wore only jackets and shorts.

"Is where were going gonna be warm?" Raika cussed.

"We can make it that way, yeah." Atsuki murmured back.

Behind them the eerie sound of twigs snapping asserted their attention. Raika turned, remembering what Atsuki had said about the yellow-eyed beast.

"Was this where you...?"

"No, it was over there I saw it." Atsuki pointed off further into the distance where a separate periphery of trees sat. "But I did say it moved..."

Raika cussed under his breath. If Tessa were with them her screams would lure the beast onto them. Thank the heavens she hadn't tagged along suddenly.

But what about them?

"I have an idea.." Raika started forward a little. "I'll grab its attention, you run for it."

"What?" Atsuki breathed.

Raika gazed at Atsuki with confusion intertwined with his mind.

"You-you just got back! Now you wanna go and get yourself killed!" Atsuki screamed in a hushed tone.

"Do you know how many times I visited your house just to check up on your family? How many things I helped them with just to keep things going for them? I don't even know!"

"In these times, you're days away from poverty if even something tiny like your absence is initiated. You know that!" Atsuki raged, smoke metaphorically piping from his nostrils.

"Sorry." Raika grumbled in a mutter.

Atsuki didn't say anything. Suddenly Raika could hear the energetic sound of the frigid wind. He could hear the great beating and buzzing of the forest insects. And the howls of the wolves atop the forest cliffs.

Another stick cracks beneath a puddle of weight nearby. Atsuki bites his teeth and rolls down the hill they'd just cleared. Right towards the sound of the snapped twig.

"Atsuki, you asshole!!" Raika hissed silently.

But he was already gone, blanketed into the darkness. More twigs snapped and the sound of bush clawed at the silence. He could only picture both those sounds being the beast tangling with Atsuki. His heart thrummed erratically.

Silence went on, then bushes shaking and twigs snapping again. The beating of Raika's heart didn't stop. Heat accumulated all over his face. Nervousness, anxiousness, and fear, all twirled into one. The emotions were real, not imaginary.

Raika heard the scuffle of feet against leaves then Atsuki's hard breathing. Was he dying of blood loss?

Raika had to laugh at himself at that very thought. Just moments ago he was ready to risk it all for his friend's safety but all was dead in his body. All his nerves had frozen. Yet his heart still drummed erratically.

"Raika.." Atsuki murmured, sounding frightened.

That was the moment Raika floored through his bodies mental weights. He found the courage and walked through the darkness. He skidded down the hill, the moon's brilliance at his back.

He hoped he wouldn't find a corpse. He hoped and yearned for that. And when he turned a corner in the patches of blacks his stomach kicked in on itself.

There, under the darkness of the tree limbs.