Avem

Phylt

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Walking up the curves of the mountain, my face was hit with waves of the harsh cold winter breezes. The coldness seeps into my cheeks, blueing it even more so than it was before. It was dangerous here, it was dangerous for me to be so high up the mountain, but it was my last resort. They can't find me up here. They believe people like me won't survive up there, and I am starting to think that they might be right.

With every forceful step I take, I could feel my body shrink and shiver, my eyes were tingling with unfallen tears, which made it hard for me to see straight, but then again what am I trying to find? I think to myself as I try to blink back my sight, why am I in this situation? And why in lroz sake am I in so much pain? Before I could give myself a pitiful answer, exhaustion took over my body and my senses becomes dull, I sag down onto the snow, light flashes as I try to pry open my eye. Why am I here? I asked myself.

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A week ago, I was just a poor naive 18 year old phylt living with her mxio parents struggling to get by with the little coins we make by selling walnut bread at the market corners.

" Maydam buy some of our walnut bread, ours't are easy on the teeths unlike Doris's over d'here"

My mother said, while tipping her nose at the wagon next to us, earning her a nasty glare from ole Mrs Doris.

"If you can't handle a good hard bread, how are yah suppose't to handle life, yah wussy"

Mrs Doris spitted while waving off a fly that landed on her bread.

" Life might be h'ard, but your bread can knock k'it soft"

My mother said while chuckling, which made Mrs Doris crackle along.

"Yah right Jilly"

My mother jilly, was a hard woman. She was raised in the woods as a youngling,

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The Meyi cave is just a few walk away from here, at least that is what the anicent map I am wrestling with is telling me. Close or not, I don't think I can make it to the cave without knelling over from exhaustion, like I had earlier in the beginning of my trip.

I stopped and look around, rolls of pine trees were all covered with new layers of silky snow. I walked over to the nearest pine and leaned my back on it. I rumbled through my rucksack and pull out a piece of stale walnut bread.

"I should have pack more food" I mumbled while tearing apart the bread like a savage, and forcefully pushing it to the back of my throat with the little water I had left. I need a refill, I think to myself.

Nearby pond

.

The sky is getting darker and the wind is getting colder. I have to find a more suitable place for me to spend the night.  I grudgingly rise up from the trunk of the pine tree I had been burdening with my weight, and started walking deeper into the mountains.

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"Freosan are not welcomed. I learned that when I was five. Freosan are feared. Feared by people with no knowledge of them. People who are armed, armed with weapons of lies. Lies that as killed countless of Freosan."

- Varkand lock

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