Rasa Aškinytė

There was so much snow that the woman was sinking up to her knees. The furs wrapped around her muscular legs made walking difficult. Her shoulder had been badly wounded: blood was dripping from it slowly, the red droplets were absorbed by the whiteness even before they reached the ground.

The woman was completely alone. She knew there wasn’t a soul within the range of her senses. Otherwise, she would have smelled or heard their existence.

The camp was far away. She knew that whichever direction she took, she could orient herself perfectly, but her survival depended on finding the others. That was why the woman had been walking towards the camp for several days. She was hungry and exhausted, but she couldn’t stop. Sleep meant death.

Nothing could be seen except snow, and more snow. And wolves. For now, they were keeping their distance. But they had begun furtively making a large circle around her. The woman’s nostrils flared. She quietly breathed in the air saturated with aggression and the instinct to live at any price. 

The woman was not afraid. This land had never been hers, it had never belonged to her. Just like her life.