Point of View

Point of View 2-3

"Come on come on come on!" Rudinn rushed his Hathy partner, slithering over the tree trunks as fast as he could with him in tow.
Seam shifted to his fours, holding the lantern's handle in his mouth. As much as he hated to do this, he knew he had to. The light and sound of the lantern made it far too hard for him to lose them. No matter how much he pushed himself to go faster, his body has limits. His claws dug into the frost, as he couldn't afford to sink his paws into the snow for traction. He leaped around trees and greenery frostbitten by cold while the lantern's metal clanged loudly as it was swung back and forth, the slippery slush of ice threatening to make him fall once more. Making his way up what he made out to be a very large hill, he pulled himself up rocks and a steep incline. His paw sunk into a loose patch of snow near the top, and he knew internally that he had made a mistake. But alas, it was too late. The sliding snow sent him tumbling down into the guards who caught him but in turn was snatched away by the rolling avalanche. The blizzard had made out the mountain to be just another hill, taking the lives of three who had yet to live.

Or, so you may think.

A pounding headache and a warm dribble of bleeding cotton slowly draining down his face greeted the patch doll into consciousness. Buried beneath the snow, he writhed and pushed his way to the surface much like if he was underwater. He gasped for breath and saw light and found his way to the surface. He looked around, and remembered what had happened. He immediately began to search for the bodies of Rudinn and Hathy. "Rudinn! Oh my, oh God, what have I done..." He rambled desperately. The sun was setting now, throwing off his sense of time as he found his lantern and lit it up before digging into the snow and finding his paws meeting scales. "Rudinn." He muttered upon his realization. "Rudinn! Come on, wake up!" No response.
His paws began to scurry along the surface, slowly pushing the snow off of the body where he then checked for a pulse. His heart sank in his chest as he realized there was nothing. The cold blood of the Rudinn had frozen over in the cold, making its heart unable to function properly. "... He's dead. He's dead. He..." He stopped. He couldn't believe what he had done.
He was in shock, but he didn't cry. Rather, a sense of emptiness took over as he wordlessly took up the lantern and lit it once more, wandering into the depths of the forest. "Jevil!" He called once more, but he would do so countless more times as he continued to get lost while searching. Hours which felt like eternities were spent in the dark cold. The blizzard died down but the fierce cold never did. "Jevil, please! I'm getting weak! Just come back."
Two yellow eyes peeked out from behind a tree. "Jevil!" He ran over, but his numb paws finally failed him and he tripped, falling flat on his stomach and quickly pulling his face out of the snow. He heard Jevil's trills to his right as the imp approached on his toes.
Seam turned onto his back, setting the extinguished lantern to the side and surprisingly, not making an effort to get up. It was pointless, to him. He was too far gone even to himself. "So this is where my reckless determination leads," he mused. "... I give up." He sighed defeatedly. "It's not like I was going anywhere all too important. It's funny to think that in an hour or two, I'll just be another figure in the Keepers' yearly death measure."
Just like that, he'd accepted his fate. He refused to think of it as abandoning hope, rather just making things easier for himself.
"Oh. I wonder if I've my journal and pen somewhere on my heavy cloak, still," he wondered aloud, digging around in his pockets, finding his pen and book in his inner right pocket where it always was. "Delightful. Hmm..." He took a deep breath, and began to read aloud what he wrote.

"December 22nd. 18XX." He paused, lighting the lantern. "I'm writing this in hopes of leaving my memory behind for someone to find. You see, I've always had a terrible fear of being forgotten, my whole life. And perhaps, maybe I can make some peace with myself before I die." His pen made a small scratching noise as he dotted it, and then began on the next line. Jevil sat against him, listening intently.
"It's a shame I'll die before Christmas, but since my family is away from home, I would've spent it alone anyway. It doesn't really matter. As for my cause of death, it's a long story. The imp that I have allowed to live in my house leapt out of a window that I so foolishly forgot to close during the blizzard. I won't blame it on him, it's in his nature. I've wondered for a long time since I've been out here, why have I gone to this much trouble? And it's only now, as I lay here dying from the cold, that I remember what happened when I met him. His eyes were bright and full of mischief, not unlike a young child on the first of April, but that is not where I found what I was looking for. Instead, something in my mind simply clicked," he continued to write, dotting the end once more as he noticed Jevil was cold and trying to get warmer by pressing himself against him, which was quite a fruitless venture. "I felt okay with him being beside me. I felt as though we were going to be friends for a very long time. I'm aware it's in his nature to stay warm to survive, and is the reason why he is pressed up against me as I write this. My reckless determination failed me and pulled me to success at the same time. That's why I'm asking that, if you read this, to please give him a warm, kind place to stay, even if only for a week. Give him a glimpse of the life I wanted to give him."
He finished, and with that, he closed the book and stowed it and the pen away in his coat pocket. "I'll be honest with you, I don't really feel the cold any more. I can hear my mother, too..." he mused calmly, drifting off. "S... Seam. Seam." Jevil shook the cat's shoulder as he drifted out of consciousness. "Seam! Don't sleep!" He became more desperate. "... Hm? Oh. I thought I was with mother and father. I don't suppose I should bother to get up." He felt so unbothered. The lights he saw were brilliant. A Christmas tree had been lit, and he'd seen himself on the couch with his mother and father cooking dinner.
The sound of Jevil's broken sentences trying to keep him awake faded out as he lost consciousness once more.
Jevil stayed there with the limp cat. He was too small, too weak to pull him to safety. He found that he cared, he did, he really did. Most of the scenes in his life went by in a flash. Being what was considered a feral he succumbed to impulse far too much and often didn't consider how his actions might affect others. But now that was being slapped in his face, as he desperately shook Seam's body like a child who found their mother dead.
He stared at the body. He didn't budge from his spot except to lay over his chest, as almost an apology of sorts. He thought he could never understand the chain of mannerisms about apologies and death and everything but it was his fault that Seam died. So, he would comfort him.
Again. Hours went by. Jevil was almost certain he would see light in the sky soon, when he heard a voice call out from a megaphone in the darkness.