Set against the backdrop of an enchanted castle, Beldon clashes head-on against a cursed
Beldon sat slumped against the old, rotten tree, snow up to his hips melting through his clothes and chilling his skin, creeping towards his core as he tried to force his eyes to focus, his mind to concentrate on the scene before him.
Blood.
He was bleeding.
His back... damn his back. It was the only part of him that was even remotely warm as blood poured from the claw marks that were now torn through his back.
He blinked as a dizziness caught him off guard, his hands flying out to catch himself as he slipped from the tree trunk. Sweat streamed down his face and he felt sick, pain and fear twisting his stomach so tight he could have thrown up.
Movement nearby made him look up.
A monster stood before him, a shadowed mass against the white backdrop.
Tall, broad, wretched in face and temperament.
A Beast looked down on him. A monster, unlike anything Beldon had ever seen, unlike anything that should have ever existed.
Blood dripped from its huge claws, staining the snow by its feet – claws that were usually covered by gloves that should have been worn by a man.
But that was no man.
Beldon looked at the monster before him.
Was he going to die here? In the depths of a forest, never to see his family again? All he had wanted was to go home. Was it so wrong of him to want to go home?
He had taken a risk leaving his family, playing the hero, running from his reality, he knew he'd taken a risk... but this wasn't how he'd imagine things.
A horrible, biting wind tore past them, pulling at their hair and clothes.
The monster reached for him.
Beldon started violently, the movement snapping him from his daze.
He needed to live.
The wounds on his back were survivable – they had to be survivable.
He didn't want to die.
Pushing himself up, pain and cold jarring his movements, fear and desperation pushing him on, he turned onto his knees and reached for The Beast.