December 28, 2162
Time 0935

Six enemies stood between me and their hostages.

My enemies held their hands out, as if waiting to grab me once I made my move. Their long, spindly fingers beckoned to me, wanting me to come closer, just so they could tear me limb from limb. But I knew better.

I stood, ready in my battle stance, wielding my knife.

Before they could do anything, I rushed the first one, doing a side-spin and stabbing him in his side, angling my blade upwards just enough to pierce his lung. In one smooth move, I pulled out the knife and slashed at the stomach of my next enemy, tearing through his abdomen.

Mid-arc, I turned the blade in my hand so that I now held the knife backhanded. As if giving my next enemy a deadly right hook, I sliced his face with the knife, and spun around behind him, stabbing him in the back. I pulled out the knife, and went on to the next enemy.

The next enemy I grabbed by the face, pulling myself closer to him. I stabbed him three times, once in each lung and once in the heart. I did a spin again, slashing my next enemy in the stomach and chest.

The last one I decided to attack from above. Using the now falling body of the enemy before, I hopped his shoulders, and pounced on the last enemy, bringing my knife down into his chest, ripping out the heart.

I looked upon one of the hostages, and untied his furry feet, as his little body fell to the snow covered ground, crunching the snow underneath. I untied the other two, and slung them over my shoulder.

Those trees I cut up before checking my snares will have scars left in the bark. They're dead trees, anyways.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I had only been gone an hour from my home when I returned to find bootprints in the snow at my doorstep.

The three dead rabbits hung from their snares over my shoulder as I inspected the bootprints at my feet.

Size 11, made by Sierra Recreational, I thought to myself, looking carefully at the tread pattern created by the boots' owner. They were pretty deep, as if the person simply let his feet drop into the snow with each step. Someone's in for a major ass-kicking when I walk in, I said to myself.

I carefully stepped onto the porch of my house, making sure not to step on any of my squeaking boards - the second, third, fifth, and ninth ones away from the door were the loudest. I kept my hand over my knife, preparing to draw it if I needed to. I put my hand over my door knob, and gave it a quick twist, pushing the door open.

As soon as I entered, I immediately noticed just how much warmer my house was now than when I left an hour ago. Apparently, my intruder wanted some warmth.

I carefully stepped in, keeping my hand trained on my knife should I be attacked. I turned to the left, and entered my living area, and noticed the lit fireplace. A man in a blue jacket was leaning close to the fireplace, his hands held out to the fire. I stepped closer to him, silently moving, making sure he didn't hear me. My hand grazed my knife's knurled handle, as I unconsciously began to wrap my fingers around it. Suddenly, I accidentally stepped on a squeaky floorboard, making my new guest turn to look at me.

There was a very short delay between him noticing my presence, and him jumping up in fear.

"WAAHH!" He screamed, jumping up with his hands up. He instantly tried to back away from me, but he only put himself into the corner of the room, leaving him open to any of my attacks. I drew my knife, holding it with the blade pointed to me.

"Please don't kill me!" He cried.

"Who are you?" I demanded, standing in my fighting stance.

"Don't kill me!" He cried again.

"Who are you?!" I shouted at him.

"Don't kill me!"

"Tell me now!"

"Let me live!"

"Tell me! Who are you?!"

"I'll give you anything you want!"

"Tell me who you are!"

This didn't go too well.

I rushed him before he could make a move, using my free arm to hold him against the wall by his neck, while I planted the tip of my knife towards his abdomen. "Identify yourself."

"Evan Jacobson!" He cried. "Please don't kill me. . ." he whined, tears welling up in his eyes. He clutched at my arm while he struggled against me.

"What is your reason for being here?" I asked, putting more pressure on his neck.

"I. . .I-I. . ." Evan started.

"Tell me!" I shouted.

"Please don't hurt me. . ." he whined.

"State your reason for being here. Now," I demanded. I put more pressure on my knife, pushing the tip closer to the point of breaking his skin.

Evan simply fainted in fear of me.

I let his body fall to my floor in a heap. He didn't move as I nudged his arm with the toe of my boot. I sheathed my knife, and went to the kitchen with my three rabbits to slice them up into a stew.

Evan woke up a few hours later, as indicated by his yawning and stretching coming from the living room. I sat at my kitchen table, reading an old classic from the bookshelf in the hallway: The Great Gatsby, an old story from the early 20th century. He seemed to freak out when he saw me sitting at the table.

"You were out for quite some time," I said, not looking up from my reading. He didn't make a sound, only staring at me. I glanced over at him, watching his eyes look at me. When my eyes met his, he looked away.

"I won't bite," I said, flipping a page of the book. "Talk."

"Uhh. . ." Evan started, but seemed to trail off.

"What?" I said, putting down the book and crossing my arms.

"W-who are you?" He said. He seemed to tremble slightly, seeming to be still scared of me.

"Funny. I asked you the same question when I found you in my house," I said, looking away from him.

"But you attacked me, and I was scared," Evan told me.

"Because you entered my house," I countered.

"I was lost! I just needed shelter!" Evan said, raising his voice.

"Wouldn't a big tree have made a good enough shelter?" I responded, sitting up in the chair.

"This house would have been better than any tree out there!" Evan responded.

"So you had to break into someone's house to find some damn shelter?" I said, nearly shouting.

"How was I supposed to know you inhabited this house?!" Evan yelled.

"Wouldn't the fact that there were already a person's belongings in here have given away that someone already occupied this house?!" I yelled, louder than Evan. "Besides, you broke in!"

"You didn't need to try to kill me for that!" He shouted, waving his hands around. He hit one of my vases off a nearby table. It shattered into tiny shards on the floor.

"You were an intruder! How the hell do you think anyone would have reacted to an intruder?!" I said, standing up with enough force to knock my chair backwards. "You think I would have just said, 'Oh, hello there! Want a drink?! How about some nice, relaxing music and a goddamn foot massage?!' "

"That just means you're crazy!"

"That just means I can't trust you until I know you, goddammit!" I shouted, slamming my hand down harshly on the table top. A long crack formed in the surface, stretching from my hand to about halfway down the length of the table, revealing unstained wood underneath.

Evan just looked at me with an angered expression in his face. "You have serious issues, lady."

I was left speechless, stewing in my own anger. I turned, and went to check on my rabbit meat boiling in a pot on the stove. While I added a few spices - though I think I overdid some, because the meat was a little too seasoned when I tasted it - I heard Evan busy packing his things. Plastic items clattered on the floor, papers rustled, and zippers and clasps were closed up as he went about his way.

The last I heard of him were his heavy, harsh footsteps on my creaking floorboards, and the thunderous slam of the front door.

I turned down the stove's heat, to let the meat simmer for a while. I returned to the living area after a few minutes, and saw the broken glass from the vase he knocked down. He must have left in a major hurry, because he left a few papers on the floor. I picked up the papers, and was about to throw them into the fire before something on the paper caught my eye. The way he wrote his name on his papers.

Evan's handwriting had a sort of gracefulness to it, swift, but neat. The capital "E" of his name looked like a backwards number 3, that flowed into the script forms of the "v," "a," and "n" that formed his first name, ending with a long tail that almost touched the first letter of his last name. The "J" of his last name was like standard script, but had an elongated arc that formed the top, with a long, narrow loop that formed the bottom of the "J." It flowed into the rest of the letters, that seemed to be scribbled along the rest of the way, but could still be made out as the letters that forms "Jacobson."

Only after reading and analyzing his name and handwriting did I realize that Evan was the first human contact I've ever had ever since December 18 of last year.

I gathered up the rest of his papers in my hand, and quickly dashed for my front door. I opened it, and saw that Evan was nowhere to be seen in the distance. Even his footsteps had already been covered up by snow that was blowing in. Looking out at the mountains far away, I could barely make out their outlines. A blizzard was about to come in from the south.

A heavy feeling of regret settled upon me. I shouldn't have treated Evan like that, I thought to myself. Because of my actions, my first human contact in a little over a year has now come and gone, within the span of a few hours.

I walked back into the house, and sat at my kitchen table, staring at the long crack in the table top. I fingered the crack lightly, getting a couple splinters in my finger tip. I picked them out, and laid my head on the table, as I began to cry silently.

Time  1633

I don't remember what time it was that I ended up falling asleep on the table. However, I did wake up to the sounds of desperate pounding on my front door. Looking out the kitchen window, I noticed just how dark it had gotten outside. The holographic clock on the stove said it was already 1633, and my rabbit meat had been simmering for a while already. I got up and turned off the stove before turning my attention to the door. I grabbed my knife, but held it blade down, just in case it wasn't who I was assuming to be at the door.

I opened the door, and someone fell in, landing on his back over the threshold.

His lips were blue, and he had frost gathered in the fringe of his hair and in his eyebrows. His skin felt colder than the gusts of the blizzard outside. His breathing and heart rate were growing slower by the second.

It was Evan.