My Last Chance [Made in Abyss Fanfiction]

00| The Dawn's Salvation

A young boy pounded at the front door to a snow-covered house, the wood unyielding under his clenched fists. He screamed out into the cold night, begging for the door to be opened, for him to be let inside, but nobody answered.

   "D-Dad, please! I won't do it again, tell Grandpa and Grandma I won't do it again! J-just let me back in, please! I'm cold, I-I'm tired, and the snow's falling harder! So please... let me back in!"

   Even as he cried his heart out, tears spilling down his cheeks, still nothing came of it. The windows of the small stone house remained dark, and the door remained firmly locked and shut. There was no key, no unlocked windows. The boy was on his own until sunrise, if the freezing temperatures and the persistent snowfall allowed him to last that long.

   As the boy's sobs dissolved into meaningless sounds, he fell to his knees, huddling at the base of the door. His thin nightclothes didn't do a thing against the cold, and neither did the blanket he awoke wrapped in. He pulled it tight around his trembling body, hoping in vain it would do something for him, only for freezing tendrils of air to snake up under it and slither across his skin. He'd heard more than enough stories of children who'd frozen to death in the cold because they got lost in the woods, and terror flooded him at the thought that the same fate awaited him.

   The wind picked up a bit more then, the snow being blown about in a flurry that half-blinded the boy. He violently shivered and cried, becoming wracked with shaking he couldn't control. It wasn't safe here, but he didn't know where to go. Everyone had locked their doors in preparation for the storm that had been spotted off the coast earlier that day, they were prepared to be snowed in. All he could think of is going into the forest on the other side of the road and hope the trees provided shelter. But he'd also heard stories of wolves and other vicious creatures with teeth, and they kept him rooted on the stoop.

   When the boy started to lose feeling in his fingers, he gave in. He staggered to his feet and trudged across the road to the forest. He didn't care about the wolves now, some respite is all he needed. The shadows of the forest swallowed him, drenching him in even more terror. However, the wind did lessen greatly, the thick pine trees taking the brunt of the storm and providing a thick cover of frost-covered pine needles to tread on.

   The further into the forest the boy walked, the more an odd sense of calmness settled over him. He and his father always played in the woods, especially during the summer. As the boy came across a familiar frozen pond, he recalled a few rare summer days where it was warm enough for his father to teach him how to swim. But of course his father wasn't here now. He was inside, likely unaware that his son had been left outside to the cold. The boy didn't understand why it happened; he only stole a single ball of thread from the yarn store. He'd stolen so many things before, so what made this time so different?

   His eyes started stinging with more tears he didn't think he could produce, but none of them fell. He was approaching the point where his father would take him to play in the forest, so this was where he should stay until morning. The bases of trees made for good shelter, according to his father.