Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
HANNAH
I run and run and run.
Not back up the stairs to our chambers; I can’t face that space right now.
I only climb to the main floor.
Then, despite every reasonable concern about stamina or preparation or survival planning, I don’t stop.
I’m electrified with adrenaline and terror and something else I can’t name.
My transformed legs carry me racing through the castle’s ground level at speeds I never imagined possible.
Anything to distance myself from those nightmarish creatures that are only a broken chain away from pursuing me.
I’m completely naked as I burst into the snow. It’s absolutely reckless, but I’m beyond caring about wisdom right now.
I’d planned to find or fashion some kind of footwear before any escape attempt. I have calluses from my previous walking pattern, but only on the outer edges of my feet. I barely register the snow’s brutal cold—my feet are already numb from days in the unheated castle.
Am I already experiencing frostbite?
These questions blaze through my mind at lightning speed as I sprint away from everything I thought I knew.
Sunlight reflects blindingly off the snow as I head toward the lake, making conditions even more treacherous. Snow-blindness is a real danger, and I’m sweating despite the arctic wind slicing through my exposed skin.
This is incredibly unwise.
Then again, so is every single decision I’ve made recently.
The voice in my head laughs bitterly. So is every choice you’ve made since seeking miracles and finding devils instead in a house of demons.
Still, I run. I reach the lake and begin following its frozen perimeter toward that distant glint I desperately hope wasn’t a hallucination.
I’m shocked I’m not already exhausted.
Just days ago, I was winded on the stairs, and building endurance takes weeks of training, not a few days of castle exploring.
If anything, I should be a mass of strained muscles today.
Especially after last night’s... intensity.
But thinking about last night while fleeing for my life might literally make my head explode.
So I focus on placing one foot in front of the other. Pumping my arms in motions I’ve observed others perform my entire life, rather than from personal experience.
I’ve never run full-out like this before. Ever.
A wild exhilaration hits me.
I’m giddy while running for my life.
I feel like I could leap straight off the ground and take flight myself.
This is either runner’s high, adrenaline flooding from witnessing that horror, a combination of both, or my life flashing before my eyes before my heart explodes from overexertion and I collapse dead in the snow.
Regardless, I keep pumping my arms and driving my legs forward, my numb feet digging into the snow with each determined step.
The lake’s bank is mercifully clear of undergrowth.
So I run.
And run and run.
My racing heart somehow keeps beating as I push myself beyond any limits I thought my body possessed. Especially this body that was broken for so long.
I scan everywhere constantly. Should I watch the snow beneath my feet? No, that’ll cause snow-blindness. So I focus on the lake.
But if I don’t watch my footing, I’ll trip and fall.
I shake that thought off immediately. That’s old thinking. Old-body limitations. I don’t stumble constantly without mobility aids anymore, and monitoring my surroundings is more crucial right now.
Especially the sky.
I immediately look up, expecting to see him flying overhead in pursuit.
Nothing but heavy gray clouds, though.
My heart continues hammering.
I look ahead. Keep pumping my arms.
Then I glance over my shoulder to check if the multi-armed creature somehow broke free and is chasing me.
But there’s only the castle growing smaller in the distance, the tower disappearing into low-hanging fog.
It hardly looks real from here.
I face forward and continue running.
I’m only mildly tired. My adrenaline supply seems inexhaustible somehow. I won’t question this gift. I won’t question anything ever again if I can just escape.
Of course... I might be running toward nothing but endless wilderness, that glint merely my imagination playing tricks.
And I’ll run until my adrenaline crashes and I die quickly of exposure.
Unless he finds me first.
A fresh surge of energy hits—impossible considering how little I’ve eaten recently.
I don’t know how long I run.
Hope diminishes with each passing mile, and still nothing appears.
Nothing but white, endless wilderness, distant trees so heavily blanketed with snow they look like frozen monuments...
Just when my eyes begin aching from the relentless white expanse, snow starts falling.
My nose runs as tears freeze directly on my face. I can’t feel my feet. My breasts have gone completely numb. My hands cutting through the air feel like ice spikes.
I feel delirious.
I want to collapse and surrender.
But the same fury against death that drove me to seek miracles in the first place—ha! some miracle—keeps propelling me forward.
The adrenaline must finally be depleting because my sprint has become more of a determined jog. The internal heat that sustained me isn’t enough against the searing wind cutting through my exposed skin. Sweat has frozen on my forehead.
Stopping means dying, but I don’t know how much longer I can continue.
When I look skyward again, I suddenly pitch forward. I must have caught my foot on something buried in the snow because my exhausted body dives toward the unforgiving, packed surface.
Useless tears freeze as they fall while I struggle to push myself up with aching arms and block-like hands.
I won’t die in ten years after all.
I’ll die here.
Today.
Was I wrong to seek healing? To think I deserved more time? I’ve traveled enough to see people far needier than myself. Yet I kept pursuing it. Chasing life.
And look where it’s brought me.
I crawl forward a few more inches, but now that the cold has truly taken hold...
I.
Will.
Die.
But even as despair floods through me, something else stirs. That same stubborn determination that carried me up his mountain in the first place.
Not like this. Not after coming so far.
I may die out here, but I won’t die giving up.
I push myself to my knees, then somehow back to my feet.
If I’m going to die, I’ll die moving forward.
Frozen tears gather on my cheeks as I fall back to my knees.
I crawl a few inches forward in the snow, but now that the cold has got me…
I.
Will…
Die.