You, the apocalypse and me! [YiZhan FF] Fantasy

Chapter 43 - The Snowplow

Then who am I now? Sure, I am still Xiao Zhan. But what makes me special? That I carry the blood of an Amore within me and thus have been "improved"? No, that doesn't make me me. That I have learned to survive? No, not that either. I just don't know who I am anymore. And that makes me sad. My greatest joy, all my love, my purpose in life, my only support, my confidant, my intimate partner, my simply one and only and someone who loves me so incredibly is Yibo. I am Xiao Zhan and my life is Wang Yibo. But that alone is not enough to be able to define oneself.

Alright, enough with the sentimental crap, let's get back to the topic at hand. Of course, we also kept an eye on our surroundings. Because the Demoids, and we were sure of this, would probably turn over every stone to find us. Raha doesn't want to just kill Bac, he wants to torture him by killing us first. Therefore, we shouldn't let them capture us again.

Just before dark, we noticed that it had started snowing again. Large snowflakes first fell sporadically from the sky and soon we had heavy snowfall again. Not good for us if we wanted to make progress. Except in the case of our tracks being immediately covered by the snow again.

Still, we had no choice. We had to keep going. So we packed our backpacks and set off again. We had really big problems to get ahead. The snow was knee high and there was more coming from above. I don't know if I had ever seen so much snow as this winter.

At some point we were really exhausted. And it wasn't even halfway through the night and we hadn't walked more than 4 miles when Yibo saw a couple of fenced garages. Curious if we could rest there, we climbed over the fence and Yibo broke one of the locks of a garage. And what did we find there? A snowplow!

The doors of the snowplow were unlocked and two keys were hanging on rakes on the wall with the papers for the snowplow. Likewise, there was a barrel of diesel and a fuel hose in a corner of the garage. "You can call me crazy, but I'm of the opinion that we fill up the snowplow and drive it as far as we can." Said Yibo, jumping into the driver's seat.

"So that means you want to leave a definite trail?" I asked, frowning, and sat down in the passenger seat. Before Yibo answered me, he tried to start the snowplow. Right at the first try it started and the tank was even full. However, I was really scared when the engine started roaring. A sound that was like a thunderclap in our otherwise silent world.

"I don't care about the track right now. You know, we can keep trying to make any progress on foot tonight. But I'm telling you, we're not going to make it. The next place is still 10 miles away, if not more. If we don't reach the next town before daybreak, we probably won't have anything to hide in during the day. With the snow plow, we have a chance. And no one is saying we'll leave it right where we'll be spending the day. And with luck, it will keep snowing like this until morning and our footprints will be covered right back up. And even if it stops snowing, we can still cover our tracks."

I realized that this is another one of those arguments where Yibo ends up being right, so I said, "All right. But on your responsibility."

Yibo smiled, kissed my hand and said, "Trust me. I'll get us out of here in one piece and you'll see, in a few hours we'll be in a safe hiding place." Then he drove off.

We turned on the heat, I watched the snow being pushed off to either side and flying really high, and at some point I got so tired that I just fell asleep. Traveling like this felt so comfortable, I just relaxed and slept until Yibo woke me up. By then it was already gray in the sky.

To my surprise, Yibo had covered a distance of about 110 miles by snowplow, taking us much further than planned. We got out of the snowplow and I immediately shivered all over. After all, I had been sleeping in winter clothes and heating for the past 6 hours.

Yibo took my hand and we stomped through the deep snow. With his other hand he covered our tracks with the help of a branch. After about 300 meters we reached a house. It had been too new for my liking. Not like the dilapidated houses in which we usually sought shelter. And it was even completely furnished.

I asked Yibo that we should look for another house, but I realized how ridiculous this request was. Outside it was daylight and we could not just walk around. Yibo had also said nothing and went instead with me through the house. At some point we stood under a skylight that Yibo opened. A ladder came down and we climbed up to the attic.

There were lots of dusty boxes in the attic, but that was all. We pulled up the ladder, locked the skylight from our side, and set up camp for the night among all those boxes. But I thought that I would not be able to sleep. I had slept almost the whole night and was wide awake. Unlike Yibo, who fell asleep as soon as he got into his sleeping bag.

I actually could not sleep. I lay down in front of the small round window in the roof and observed the area. While doing so, I let my thoughts wander, thought about the past year and became so melancholic, as can be read above. And I also got around to calculating what day it is and realized that in a few days it will be Christmas. That is, if I haven't miscounted.

And while I was thinking about Christmas, I thought it would be a nice gift if we could find our parents and be reunited with them. That would be great for us and our parents. And at the same time, our journey would be over, at least for now. And with that thought, I fell asleep. Luckily, I was lying in my sleeping bag and had asked Yibo not to connect our sleeping bags this time. Because I told him that I would be awake for a while and did not want to disturb his sleep.

In between I had woken up briefly and wondered why Yibo was suddenly lying next to me and holding me in his arms and he was not two meters away from me as before. When I asked him about it after waking up he said he couldn't even remember when he came to me. It seems he is attracted to me even while sleeping. Hahaha.

After we each ate two energy bars, we went through the house again looking for usable things. But the former tenants didn't leave anything behind that would have been useful to us in any way. During our search in the house we stopped at the windows again and again and looked outside.

In doing so, we noticed that there didn't seem to be any activity in the place. No creatures, either on the ground or in the air. No people. No animals. Nothing. I guess this little town really deserves the name ghost town. We even ventured out of the house and looked around. Unhindered we went to the snowplow, drove back to the house with it and left in the afternoon before the sun set which was shining so wonderfully. As long as we still have diesel in the tank, so long we still want to use the snowplow.

And when we were already an hour on the road, Yibo said, "Honey, it's now only 70 miles to the last known whereabouts of our parents." And at that moment I got all excited and nervous. Maybe we will see our parents again in just a few hours. Maybe!