Chapter 8: Winter Wonderland

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We huddled close to one another.

It was another winter of the year.

Crazily cold.

Freezing cold.

Trembling cold.

We didn't have to get conked out by the high pitch sound.

We were already blacking out by the coldness.

Sitting up, I took a look around.

The arms factory is covered in a thin layer of snow.

I got up and did a run about.

True it was cold.

The only way to counter this is to run about.

Running should generate some heat right?

I placed my fingers on the keyboard.

The keys were a little frozen, I think.

This would probably slow down the decoding process.

Time for a switch.

I decided to slap the machine.

Slapping sometimes work with the decoding. I mean technically it does, right?

''God, this is heavenly cold....'' Kreacher ran past the cipher machine without stopping.

I mean, if he was planning to kite the hunter, he should at least touch the keys once, or his crow friends would probably find him.

Oh wait...

If the weather is unbearably cold, the crows would have migrated...

Meh.

A click resounded through the woods.

Something came to life.

A bright flash soon followed.

''What?''

A tripod stood with a picture of Ellis.

Huh?

Why would Ellis even do that?

He'll just give away his position to the hunters.

Something wasn't right.

A bong, and Ellis' health bar appeared to have taken damage that was more than usual.

A little more than half-way, and lesser than full blow.

''Yowch!''

I bit my fingers as they got zapped hard.

I hadn't triggered a single callibration.

Why did I get shocked?

Oh wait, frostbite. Right.

I trembled as I fiddled around with the keyboard, which definitely seemed harder to push than usual.

Despite all that, the beeping of the cipher machines continued doing their job.

I wonder if they have a mind.

It would be cool anyways.

''KYA!''

Triple bongs of the church bells, and I could sense that Vera is down, which is very unlikely of this very cautious girl.

Finally, a hiss and a click, the machine reached it's own independant decoding stage.

I pulled out my device, a device given to survivors to check the status of team mates.

As expected, Vera was tied to a balloon.

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