Cole bolts into the woods and looks around for traces of Lock. Cole sees faint steps in the snow that's rather hard to see. Seems Lock’s own paws are great snowshoes. They are quite a ways into the woods. Cole follows the steps in the snow as he yells out , "LOCK, LOCK, WHERE ARE YOU?"

As he follows there an occasional pile of snow stacked up. He eventually hears something like scratching in the snow ahead. Cole follows the noise of scratching as he keeps yelling out, "LOCK, LOCK, GOD DAMN IT WHERE ARE YOU?"

Cole faintly sees the reflection of the back of Lock's eyes in the dark, "Oh hey Cole!"

Cole swaps to night vision and groans, "What are you doing still out here?"

Lock is holding an arm full of snow "I'm making men!" She smiles.

"Lock it's dangerous out here, we gotta go back inside"

"What do you mean? It's just snow and trees out here," Lock drops the snow and starts patting it into a stack.

"Lock it's 8 o'cLock at night, something is bound to be out here and looking for something to kill,"

Cole sighs and leans on a tree.

"Night? I thought it was morning" Lock squints in thought. There's a slight breeze.

"It's night Lock, I’m sorry but it's time to go inside," Cole looks slightly panicked at the breeze. Lock dusts her hands off. There's a faint feeling of bad luck.

"Lock it's time to go," Cole sounds urgent as he draws his revolver and puts his head on a swivel. Cole gets a glimpse of a Slinger divulgar, a horse skull with long black hair, slinging itself towards him with its jaws open.

Cole rolls out of the way and fires at it with his revolver "LOCK RUN BACK HOME, NOW!"

The slinger divulgar flies past him. Lock's eyes widen as she sees the slinger. Lock sprints out of sight. Cole regains his footing and shoots at the slinger again. The slinger whips itself around a tree and flies at Cole again, aiming for the face. The gun fire does nothing to the skull. Cole ducks as frost forms on his hands as he stands back up and waits for it to come back as he keeps his head on a swivel. It flies out of sight. There's a short pause before flies out at him from the side. Cole puts his hands out in front of him as he tries to catch it. The horse skull hits him with great force from the momentum. Cole has the skull by both the upper and lower teeth. It starts trying to bite down. Frost quickly forms on the inside of its mouth as it creates small pillars that try to keep the jaw from closing. Hair starts trying to wrap Cole's arms. Frost spreads to Cole's arms as he plunges one of his hands into the skull and fishes around for a soul. He feels a soul as the skull tries to thrash around. Frost spreads to Cole's feet then to the ground as Cole tries to grab the soul. Cole yanks the soul out and quickly closes the hand with the soul in it. The skull and hair goes limp. Cole feels like he's holding a wad of moving hair. He quickly lets go of it. The soul looks how it feels. Just as repulsive as it slowly starts to drift in the breeze. Cole shivers as his eyes turn blue as he looks around for where Lock could have gone

"LOCK?!"

The footprints are even harder to see considering she was running. It's rather quiet.

Cole groans as he struggles to follow the footprints, "LOCK?! WHERE DID YOU GO?!"

The steps went into a more dense part of the woods covered in tall bushes. Cole swaps to infrared as he looks around for Lock as he keeps running. The bushes and foliage is dense making it hard to run. the trail runs under it all. Cole shivers again.

"Fuck I'm cold," Cole's eyes flicker to gray then back to hazel, "I need to go back to the house." Cole turns around and starts heading back to the house.

Cole walks inside with snow on his shirt, pants, and shoes as well as having deep blue eyes, "Who knew that lock could get lost in the forest so easily after a scuffle." Cole shivers as walks over to Chris and Isaac.

"I'm sure she'll be fine, Cole. Lock's strong as heck," Luna reassures him.

"Yeah, I'm sure she'll be fine," Cole snaps as the snow disappears off of him.

"Wait, where was she?" Isaac asks.

"In the forest, the trail went dark after she ran into some deeply brushed areas," Cole sighs as he sits down between Chris and Isaac to warm up to normal temperature again.

"You said something about a scuffle?" Spider raises an eyebrow.

"Actually yeah, what was that about?" Luna asks as well.

"I..." Cole shakes his head, "it was just a wild animal."

"...be honest Cole. Please," Luna pleads, "If you had encountered a random wild animal, you wouldn't call it a scuffle."

Isaac looks concerned.

"...it was a wild animal," Cole visibly tenses and Isaac can feel Cole slightly shaking. "that's all it was, it was a wild fox"

"And since when do foxes attack people?" Spider adds.

Luna grumbles and shakes her head, "Whatever."

"It was a rabid fox," Cole crosses his arms.

"You know you can be honest with us right? We're in the same group of survivors and all this is doing is stressing us out further." Luna complains, "Telling us you got into a scuffle, a strong term for a fight, and then saying it's just a fox isn't helping us!"

Cole huffs as he snaps to look at Luna, "Well you know what! fine! it was a horse skull with fucking hair! It didn't bleed or fucking show any pain!" Once done speaking, he stares at the floor.

"...did it have a moon pattern on it?" Spider asks.

"Slinger Divulgar," Luna sighs, "But wait, no bleeding... that's new. Thank you Cole."

"No, no it didn't," Cole keeps staring at the floor as a soft clicking and clacking comes from Cole's chest.

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