Through The Snow

She lost precious seconds, face down in the snow.

The dogs were so close now, she had no time to stagger to her feet.

She rolled, one hand clutching a rock, bringing it up in an arc. Yelping, the dog was knocked aside.

It shook his head, lip curling. Pained, but not incapacitated. Not deterred. It readied for another leap.

She flung one arm up to protect her face. Hot, smelly breath filled her nostrils. She thumped anywhere she could reach with the rock. The snarling ratcheted up a notch. Teeth found her forearm, hardly stifled by the tattered layers she wore, and the smell of blood was hot and sharp in the cold air.

The others (how many? she wasn't sure) were close. She loosed the rock and dug her fingers into its throat, squeezing the windpipe.

Finally, its jaw loosened. Still squeezing, a sob escaped her lips at last, because is it dead? and too late! too late! they're already upon me-

She abandoned protection of her face to scrabble at the throat and face of the next one with vulnerable fingers, red and wet with her own blood.

Another lunged for her leg; she kicked at it. Teeth met shoes that hardly earned the name; she jerked her foot back and kicked again, hard.

Before this one could sink his teeth into her arm, she thrust her fist into his mouth as far as she could. A brief flicker of satisfaction, seeing those eyes widen.

At last, her questing fingers found something solid in the snow and she brought the icicle up point first.

The first stab got his soft belly, the next hit ribs and her weapon broke in her hands. She pushed him away, and scrambled to her feet.

Now she heard the shouts of men hunting her.

The dogs hesitated, eyeing her. As long as she stood her ground, they'd stand at bay, the men getting closer. The moment she ran, the dogs would bring her down.

I'm not going back there.

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Word count: (excluding note): 366

Submitted on: 27th April at 17:34

*Quick Author's Note*

First, and most importantly: thank you for reading!

A Year of Stories: I'm writing a story every day this year. This one makes an 118 day streak since the 1st January. I can't believe I've come this far! I'm collating them all here.

The Image: The image for this was HARD to produce, because on top of the usual challenges when using A.I., every picture it spat out still just looked like a big fuzzy boi to me. No matter how scary I asked him to be, how mean his eyes or how big his teeth... To me, he just looked like his was smiling, and I wanted to pet him.

Prompts: If you'd like to have a go at my unofficial April Challenge (Fucked Up Fairytales) I've linked it at the bottom. There's just a few days left!

If you'd like some more prompts to get your creative juices flowing, I've linked to a list of prompts for April.

Thank you

Thank you again! Especially if you are one of the people who has been staunchly reading these daily scribbles since the start of the year. I see you, and appreciate you 😁

I do my best to reciprocate as many reads as possible. If you leave me a comment, that makes it much easier. I'm behind at the moment, but I will catch up!