29. Sleep please!

I noticed that the snow wasn't actually melting from the prints of their footprints. It was just that something black had piled up on the snow.

I checked the canoe we were in, looking for something that made them interested in this. I looked carefully at the oars—we used them for paddling—if they were simply old wooden oars.

Shashin came over to me, checking in on the old wooden canoe. "I also came here last month, but it is just the same old canoe," he said.

I stared at him for a moment, thinking maybe there was something else they were looking for. "Is it possible that it is not the canoe that attracted them?" I said.

I turned my attention to two other wooden canoes covered in snow not far from us. It seemed that someone used them to come to this forest, but he never came back.

Confused and shocked by what had just happened, Shashin asked me to sit down immediately, and we'd be right back. He'd also promised to pick up the dogs before morning, and we still hadn't bought whale oil, our main reason for coming here.

…

I was still confused, also curious about what creatures we saw earlier. I was wondering if they were the same creatures. How did they manage to come here?'

"You don't seem afraid of them," said Shashin, distracting me.

I laughed at that comment. Yes, I did have something different in me, and the doctor who had treated me said the same thing. "I've been 'sick,' for a while," I said.

Shashin looks surprised. "What was the illness?!."

"Let's say it's not my body that hurts, but my mentality." After two years of treatment, I still had to undergo outpatient care, and during that time, I knew something had changed about me. I had low empathy and fear and tended to get out of control under certain circumstances. I sometimes still took sedatives and prescribed drugs, but I knew I could take advantage of my weakness.

"There is one thing, any time I remember it, it makes me hate myself " I recalled the bad incident. "My friend and I, as well as her daughter, were watching the celebrations in the town square. I didn't know when a dog came out of nowhere, then immediately bit my friend's daughter's arm until it bled. I didn't know what got into me at the time, I took a pen from my backpack and stabbed the dog to death," I explained.

I paused for a moment, then continued, "Fortunately, the dog's owner realized that his dog was at fault for biting my friend's daughter. I knew that at that moment something was wrong with me, there was a certain pleasure and satisfaction when I was able to finish something valuable. for me. I'm just confused, but honestly I don't feel sorry "I felt this feeling when I asked the Manjis to kill Antonie at that time.

We just kept quiet with each other after some time. I felt I was like a psychopath or a villain to him. I would not blame him, I also felt that I was not a good person, and I would not be angry if other people hated me.

"It was good I guess!" I gasped to hear his words. "If you didn't kill that dog, your friend's daughter might be killed, or hurt badly." He ruffled my hair.

"Everything has a different side to look at, don't look at the bad side all the time. Try to see the other side and be grateful that you chose to do that, back then," I never did, maybe because I kept fixating on the thought that I was the bad person who killed the dog.

The place we visited turned out to be very crowded. Piles of coal piled up in front of the building. It looked like a shop that supplied wood and coal. The queue of people snaked even though it was very late. I sat crouched on the overhang of the shop with the small children who were waiting for their parents in line. Shashin seemed to be someone they already knew because when he came, the owner of this place called him right away.

"We take our sleigh now," he said, coming from nowhere.

I immediately got up and followed him to his friend's place, taking the sleigh that we had left. There, Shashin immediately gave some gold coins to the owner of the place. Immediately I hid my face when he looked at me. I was afraid he might recognize me somewhere.

"Have we done?" I asked, following him closely to the sleigh.

"We still need to get the whale oil," He said, touching my nose.

Our sleigh began to slide between the busy people walking on the streets. In an alley, several people were prepared with some wooden drums. Shashin helped them transport the drums to the back of the train. After thanking them, he drove the dogs out of the city.

Heavy snow soon greeted us, but the dogs didn't seem to be bothered by it. The lights on our carriage were moving because the wind was blowing hard, and the snow was getting heavier.

"Sleep please!" Shashin's ordered me.

"No," I looked back, bidding farewell to that amazing place. When I looked straight ahead, there was only a white expanse and trees that had changed color. "They're like shaved ice, let's just pour some sweets on it. It must be yummy!" hunger made me imagine the trees were shaved ice.

Shashin simply laughed while listening to me. He spoke less, just handed me the meal box. There were some rolled eggs and some slices of apples. I looked at the food and at him, in turn, got confused. "Why didn't you finish it up?" I knew exactly what his food portion was, so I was confused when I saw the leftovers from him.

"Just eat it!" he smiled at me.

"You knew that I would be starving during the trip?!" Finally, I split that food with him. The rolled eggs that were supposed to be warm and sweet turned cold like ice, and the apples were hardened, too. It seemed like everything went frozen, not only me.

I never knew if winter could be this fierce. Perhaps it was because I came from a desert region. The snow at my place had never been this thick, and it hadn't been this cold.

…