Survival Of The Fittest

Amos trudged through the snow, face wet and cold, eyes blinking to deal with the tears that formed, his arms crossed and hands rubbing up and down for warmth. His shoulders were covered with snow droplets that had soaked his shirt to the bone.

The snow was blinding, white wherever he could see. The snow had stopped falling for a while which had been a godsend, but it started occurring again.

The plan was the same: find Chester and make sure he was safe. But Amos could not find him, stomping through the snow. He tried, but no matter where he went it was like he was circling back. He even decided to try and look for Adam at the same time, but there was no dice.

Amos rubbed his hands together. He had left his flannel on top of Aion, to cover him from the elements and some basic respect. It's all he could do for him outside of fulfilling the plan they had set out to do, but he could not even do that right.

How many days was it? A week now? All that time taking care of him, watching out for him, noticing his feelings for him, reaching that release, and then losing him like that.

How long has it been since then? Hours?

It can't have been a day as that horrid voice hadn't blared out and it wasn't night yet.

How long had he been stuck out here? Where was he? Where was everyone?

Amos had seen traces of people around, footsteps in the snow, remnants of fights and skirmishes, even some bodies. But he did not find anyone alive.

Amos stopped and spied a particular piece of clothing that stuck out in his vision, his eyes bugging out.

Wait, was he?

No…

Amos crept closer to it, snow was covering it. He struggled to hear anything outside of his own steps towards it and his own breathing, the chattering of teeth as he unsuccessfully tried to grit them close to stop it. The tear stains on his face were so cold, it was like a pair of icicles jutting down his face.

He was back here.

Snow continued to powder down as the sun set beyond the grey clouds. For a long time, the shadow of Amos kneeling over the body and the trees that framed the scene were the only images on the horizon.

But then, from the treeline—another shadow approached. It took determined, deliberate steps through the snow, the crunch under its feet barely audible even in the whisper of winter. It stopped when it arrived several feet behind Amos. It held its hands behind its back.

"Hello, Amos," said the shadow of Shu Hawthorne. His hood was drawn, obscuring all but the hint of a smirk.

Amos almost fell on his knees as he realized where he was, a place he had no intention of returning to, yet here he was. His eyes homed in on the cloth, and he was tempted to take it, but it was the only cover for Aion from the elements, and he did not want him to be bothered.

Not any more than he already was.

A voice in the back of his head: hello, it said. Barely audible over the snowfall. Amos' head slowly turned towards the voice, his upper body twisting as he stared at someone, his eyes squinting and blinking under the snow flurry, barely able to make out the figure or hear their voice, for that matter.

How the hell did they get here without him noticing?

He took a step back and reorientated himself to face the figure while still holding his arms together for warmth, his own steps so quiet to be disconcerting. His head shook in place, and he took deep breaths as he tried to stabilize his teeth.

"Hey." He stuttered.

Shu took a few steps closer. His shadow loomed over the uncharacteristically small Amos for a few seconds before he circled around to the side of the jacket-covered mound on the ground that slowly lay buried under more and more snow. He cocked his head to the side as he looked at it and turned towards Amos's red, frost-covered face.

"You look lonely. Is your heart sick?"

Amos almost recoiled as the figure got closer, allowing him a better look at them, but only slightly as bits of their face were visible; still, Amos couldn't tell fully who it was, and they paid no attention to him.

Instead, they were drawn over to the mound that used to be his boyfriend.

He did not know what to say when they asked:

"Lonely? Sick?" He repeated quietly, almost to the point of not being said at all.

...

Amos kept his stare at them where they stood, a lump in his throat as he took his time to answer.

"I guess you could say that, but it's a bit more..." He trailed off as he looked over at the mound, closing his eyes as tears brimmed on the edges.

"A bit more than that."

Shu hmm'd to himself and said nothing. He stood in place for a moment before lapping around Amos and the body, like a shark encircling its prey, waiting. He stopped after about one and a half revolutions, planting his feet on the other side he started from.

"Did you love him?"

They were moving, almost silently around him, and if the snow fell down any harder, he might not even be able to tell that they were; soon, they were on the opposite side, away from the mound they had studied just a bit ago.

"Yeah, I did." He said while looking toward where he could barely see the figure.

"And now, he's gone."

Shu paced around for another revolution and some change, stopping behind Amos and casting a shadow over him even in the lack of sun.

"Prove it. Prove to me you love him."

"Prove?"

The figure lay unmoving where it was, despite the lack of wind he thought he could see the shirt's edges flapping away. Unsteady steps were taken before balance went away and knees into the snow once again. A hand outstretched, grasping the fabric.

His eyes stung, throat burned, fingers and toes slowly growing warm as the increasingly soaked shirt sunk into bones as ice coated his frame.

The sun was gone.

"H...how?"

Shu leaned in, close to Amos's ear. Ice and snow melted off with every hot breath.

"Tell me how he made you feel."

There was a breath biting into his ear, words flowing along with it, questions whose answers terrified him more than anything in this place.

Fingers curled and gripped at the fabric, hands shook in place. His teeth had stopped chattering, but his nose had started running; there was a struggle to breathe as if there was a hole in his chest.

He couldn't hear his own words in his head.

"He made me happy."

Shu shook his head and grunted under his breath, moving closer in front to where Amos could see him right in his peripheral vision, dead, frustrated expression and all.

"Not good enough. Try again. Tell me how he made you feel."

The shadow shifted, the close sound of crunching snow before it showed in the corner of his eye.

He finally got to see a bit more of its visage, and the expression haunted his mind.

"He...I..."

Eyes wide, but one was staring at the figure.

"I...I would have..."

The words were choking, in-between sniffling and sobbing.

"I would have done anything to have kept him alive!"

He turned his head to look directly at it as it loomed over him. A brief burst of confidence wavered under the look given to him.

"Anything..."

"And how'd that work out for you?" Shu said, stonefaced.

Amos looked down to the snow, watching the trickle of flakes drop down, along with the tears he could no longer hold in.

A lot of stutters, words dying in transit while the world moved around him, the figure, on the other hand, stood by, still.

"Well," He started and stopped, again and again.

"I'm here again." He finally said.

His face must have been completely red at this point.

"And I'm not leaving."