Agent Out of Time

I stared moodily out into the heavy falling snow. It hadn't let up all night. In an hour it would be close to two feet in depth. The best thing for us to do was to stay holed up in this cozy shelter, while the storm raged outside.

That was what common sense told me anyway. My instincts were saying something completely else, keep moving. But why? I'd never doubted the instincts that I had lived by and now was not a good time to start.

"Pack up we're heading out after breakfast."

Trent looked at me in surprise and then back out at the heavy falling snow, "Is this some kind of gut instinct or something, because frankly I don't see the sense of it!"

"You could say that." I said grimly.

Trent grimaced, but moved back inside to pack up.

After breakfast we headed out into the deep snow. None of us were happy about my forced exodus from the snug cave, but I think I gave myself a harder time about it than either Trent or Deshavi were willing to comment to.

Trent did the lion's share of the trail breaking through the heavy snow. I came next with Deshavi following behind me. This excursion out into the world of snow and cold was a lot to put upon Deshavi's newfound strength of the past day, but she stuck up with it. It was good to see that the will to survive still burned brightly within some part of her.

We found no shelter that day, as darkness began to fall and we were forced to take what shelter we could in a grove of pine trees. It was well after dark before my shaking fingers managed to get a fire going and it was a pitiful one at that and it did little to warm us. We spent the long miserable night hunched around it shivering. I could hear Deshavi's teeth chattering so badly I feared all her teeth would be chipped off by morning. Trent tried to draw closer to her, but she wouldn't have it, still too intent on punishing him it seemed.

Late into the night I huffed out, "Sorry."

I'd said it to no one in particular and yet everyone, including myself at the same time. This was without a doubt the most stupid thing I'd ever done!

We started back out before it was light; out into the still falling snow. Would it ever stop? One thing was for sure, if we didn't find shelter this night, we were going to be even worse off in the morning than we were in this sorry moment.