"Signs in the snowflakes."

The cottage, once a home filled to the brim with warmth and love, now stood a charred ruin, a monument to the darkness that had claimed it. Arteus had set it ablaze, a funeral pyre to purge the evil that had stained its walls. He walked away from the inferno, his heart heavy with the weight of his loss.

The flaming cottage grew smaller in the distance as he marched through the village, now a graveyard of his past. The heat from the fire licked at his back, a constant reminder of what he had left behind. Yet, he did not look back, for his eyes were firmly set on the horizon, the only direction that promised any semblance of hope or answers.

His future stretched out before him, a vast canvas of untouched snow, its pristine whiteness a stark contrast to the crimson and ash that stained his soul. It was a future that was as open to interpretation as the cryptic prophecy of the Seven horns that had set these tragic events into motion. Would it bring redemption or more despair? A new chapter of acceptance or the final nail in the coffin of his solitude?

With each step away from the burning cottage, Arteus felt the cold embrace of uncertainty tighten around him. Yet, there was a resolve in his gait, a determination that was as unyielding as the ice that coated the trees. After Arteus had felled the beast that took his mother's life something... odd, happened.

The creature, once a terrifying monstrosity of pure black fur, began to transform. The color of its pelt bled out, seeping into the floorboards like ink in water, leaving in its wake a stark whiteness that grew brighter and more pure with each passing moment. It was a transformation that defied all logic, a shift from darkness to light that seemed to mirror the tumultuous journey of his own soul. The yeti's fur grew lighter and lighter, until it was as white as the snow that surrounded them, as if it were trying to shed the very essence of the horror it had wrought.

I mean, who has ever heard of black yeti anyway?

The room grew brighter as the yeti's fur grew paler, as if the very shadows were retreating from the purity that was being revealed. What caused this change? What magic was involved? And was this transformation the reason that the beast acted more...human?

Yetis, had always been known to be solitary creatures. They held no truck with the material trappings of civilization, living in harmony with the frozen wastes that were their domain. To them, possession was a concept as alien as the warmth of a summer's day. Their lives were simple, dictated by the harsh rhythms of the frozen land. Food, shelter, and survival were their only concerns, the pursuit of wealth and status a curiosity that never pierced their icy hearts.

So, when Arteus beheld the creature, clutching his mother's limbless body with a disturbing sense of entitlement, it was not just the beast's transformed visage that shook him to his core. It was the very notion that something so wild, so untamed, could feel the need to claim ownership over another living being.

Something was odd about this whole situation, something that tugged at the edges of Arteus's understanding like an invisible thread. As he stared down at the once-monstrous creature now lying lifeless and transformed on the floor, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to this than met the eye.

...The snow outside had been untouched by any creature, save for the tracks of the villagers in their panic. But the tracks that led to the cottage, the tracks that had brought the beast here, were curiously distinct. They were not the heavy, plodding prints of a creature accustomed to the harshness of the mountain. Instead, they were almost graceful, the marks of something that moved with a purpose, a silent specter that had descended upon the village unseen.

With a sense of dread that grew heavier with each step, Arteus followed the path laid out by the yeti, his eyes never leaving the ground. His curiosity overpowering his boundless sorrow.

And it was then, amidst the desolate silence of the village, that a shriek pierced the air like the sharpest of ice shards. It was high-pitched, frantic, and oh so human.

The sound jolted Arteus out of his introspection, his ears pricking up like those of a startled deer. For a moment, he stared into the distance, unsure if the cry had been a figment of his grief-stricken mind or a real call for aid. But as the shriek came again, more insistent and shrill, he knew that he could not ignore it. The village might be a graveyard, but somewhere within its frozen embrace, a spark of life still flickered.

Without a moment's hesitation, he sprinted towards the sound, his legs moving with the grace of a creature born to conquer the mountainous terrain. His heart hammered in his chest like a blacksmith's anvil, driving him onward, faster and faster, as if to outrace the grief that weighed upon his soul.

Arteus leaped over a fallen log, its icy bark snapping underfoot like the brittle shell of a dead tree. The world around him was a blur of white, the snow and the sky merging into an endless canvas of cold. He weaved around the stoic sentinels of the forest, the ancient trees that had borne witness to countless winters, their branches bent and twisted by the relentless winds of change.

He ran as if the hounds of the underworld were at his heels, his breath coming out in great puffs of mist that painted the air with the urgency of his pursuit. The world was a canvas of white, the snow beneath his feet a silent witness to his grief. Arteus's eyes darted around, searching for any sign of life in the frozen graveyard that was once Barley.

As the shrieks grew louder, a hill loomed before him, a silent sentinel in the endless sea of frost. It was a gentle rise in the land, one that the villagers had often climbed to watch the sunsets and celebrate the rare moments of warmth. But now, it was a beacon of hope in a world gone mad. The cries grew clearer, more desperate, and Arteus felt his pulse quicken in his ears.

Cresting the hill, he skidded to a stop, his boots biting into the ice. Below, in the hollow that the hill had cradled from the worst of the storm's wrath, lay a girl. She was young, no more than seventeen summers, with hair as brown as the earth beneath his feet. Her eyes, wide with fear, searched the horizon, darting from one threat to another, and it was in that moment that Arteus saw the pack of arctic wolves.

They surrounded her, a ring of fur and fangs, their eyes gleaming with a hunger that was both primal and eerily sentient.

The girl's voice, though trembling with fear, was unmistakable in its determination. "Stay back!" she screamed, brandishing a stick that seemed more a twig than a weapon.

Behind her, a younger girl and an elderly woman huddled together, their eyes wide with terror. The child clung to the woman's cloak, her small frame quaking with sobs that were swallowed by the unrelenting silence of the snow-covered world. She was shielding them, a fierce warrior in the face of the encircling pack, her eyes flashing with a defiance that belied her trembling limbs.

-To Be Continued-