After the events of the football game and preparing the house for the winter storm, Jacob was exhausted when I woke him up. I told him I was going for a walk, and he went right back to sleep afterwards. He barely even remembered the interaction, let alone what I told him I was doing when I left. When he abruptly woke up a while later, he thought it was a dream. He looked back across the room and realised I wasn’t sleeping in my spot. It wasn't a dream. He sat up and looked around, the shelves on the walls lightly shaking and the sun shining through the windows. The snow was thick outside---almost impossible to see through---but there were gaps between shadows moving through the sky. It was the silhouettes of helicopters. He didn’t have to wake anyone up by the time he realized what they were. The noise was loud enough to shake everyone awake. Phoebe stood up and looked out of the window. There were hundreds of trucks driving down the road, and men with guns in their hands inside them. They were pulling up to the houses along the street.

  “Get in the basement! Hurry!” She yelled. “They’re coming!” By default, when you came across someone new, it was common knowledge that they were dangerous until proven safe. Everyone grabbed their weapons with no hesitation and started running to the basement door, but it was too late. Bullets sprayed the vehicles outside and the side of the house, the glass shattering all around them. Everyone took a moment to duck and shield their head before trying to continue on their way. Andrew and Emma were in the back, closest to the door, when men came pouring inside. Andrew immediately shot, but one more shot rang out, and he fell to the ground. He wasn't moving. Another shot rang out. Emma couldn’t get a bullet out before she clutched her stomach and rolled to the floor. Breelyn screamed, reaching back, but Colton kept pulling her towards the basement door. He yanked her body to the side, the bullet missing Breelyn and hitting him instead. His grip loosened on her, and his body slammed on the wall behind him. He became motionless, half of his body up against the wall and the rest draped to the side. Breelyn took a step back, but there was no mercy. It wasn't even a second after Colton was shot that she threw her arms up to shield her face. She felt an immediate burn in her chest as her body hit the door frame, and she collapsed to the ground. In a matter of seconds, half of them were gone.

  Jacob slammed the basement door and pulled down a wooden block attached to both sides of the frame. It wouldn't stop them, but he used it to slow them down a bit. Peter and Phoebe ran downstairs, Jacob close behind them. Down in this room was a bunch of storage boxes and random items, but nowhere good to hide. “Get back behind the boxes,” Jacob cleared a path for Phoebe to get through. She stood at the bottom of the basement stairs, scanning for the best place to go. There was pounding at the door. Phoebe turned back, and the wood block clambered down the stairs. She tried to run, but she was right in their line of sight. Immediately, before she could even scream, her body fell back into the boxes. Jacob and Peter held up their weapons, firing at the first movement they saw. The first soldier fell to the ground, but the ones behind them had shields. They were outnumbered. “Fuck!” Jacob yelled. They stepped back, firing at the shields and at the soldiers' feet, but in an instant, Jacob watched Peter's body go limp. He folded in half and landed face-first on the concrete. Jacob dove behind some boxes as they fired towards him, bullets flying past his head. There was a small tunnel hole in the back wall that led to the second portion of the basement. He climbed through, holding his breath as he pulled a box in the way so they wouldn’t find him. He could hear them firing as he got out into the next room and ran for the cellar stairs. He didn’t waste time to look back and see if they were following him. He ran up the stairs and shoved the doors open, then ran off into the woods. He didn’t know if anyone had seen him, but he didn’t waste time. He just ran and ran, not looking back until he found his old deer stand on the far side of the woods. He climbed the ladder and locked the door behind him before falling into the corner, clutching his chest with his hand. He was incredibly out of breath. He looked down at his thick-bottomed boots. There was a bullet sticking out of it. They had almost got him when he crawled through the tunnel. He reached down and took out his pocket knife to pry it out. He held it in his red, cold palm. It wasn’t a bullet, it was a dart. He put it on the ground and leaned his head back. He needed to catch his breath, then go back when it was safe to see if there were any survivors. He could still feel the treestand vibrating from the helicopter blades. It wasn’t going to be safe any time soon. He brought his hand up to his face and rubbed his eyes. His face was cold to the touch, and the space under his eyes was swollen and dark from the weather change. He hoped that the wind would eventually cover up the prints that led from the cellar doors to the deer stand. Just in case, he opened the door and pulled up the ladder, then closed it again and started to dig through some bins.

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  He got out some old hunting gear—a thick camo coat, camo overalls, and even found some gloves, hats, and face masks. This would give him the warmth he needed. He scooted the bin to the corner and climbed inside, then put the lid over the top to try and preserve as much heat as he could. Until the helicopters were gone, he couldn’t go anywhere.

  Hours passed, and he slept very lightly. He heard men yelling beneath him at one point, but they never thought much of the deer stand. At every noise fluctuation, he became a little more alert, but eventually the noises were gone. He slowly climbed out of the bin and stretched his aching arms. He would rather be aching than halfway frozen to death. He stood outside and stared into the woods from every direction until he finally decided it was safe enough to leave. Lowering the ladder into the many inches of snow, he climbed down and wearily approached the house. He stopped in the treeline to observe for a moment, his gun in hand, and then he heard a gunshot. He dropped to the ground and stared in the direction it came from, but nobody was there. He couldn’t see any movement from the house. He looked to the yard, and that's when he saw it. A figure staggering towards the woods. If there was one gunshot and a victim running, there had to be a second person. Unless the person running was the shooter, and someone was in the house?

  He stayed low and went quietly through the cellar doors. He skidded the box out of the way and climbed through. Phoebe and Peter were gone, and there was a dead soldier on the ground by the bottom stairs. The soldier he had killed. He walked up and felt in his pockets. There was a gun next to him, so he slung it over his shoulder, then took the knife he had and the radio that was turned off. The soldier had a lot of winter gear on him, too, and beneath it was a bulletproof vest. He looted most of what he could when it came to clothing and carried it upstairs. He laid it in the hallway and looked around the house. Bullet holes were in the walls, blood on the ground, and nobody to be seen. They left the soldier, but took the rest of the bodies? What would these people want with a bunch of dead kids and not one of their own?

  He saw some gunpowder on the ground and knelt to rub it between his fingers. Above him, he saw the hole where the power had come from, and a very thin clear wire was attached to it. He followed it with his eyes and traced it to the door. It was a trap for anyone who walked through, and clearly it had worked. That’s when he realized that the person stumbling towards the woods wasn’t a soldier. He snipped the wire with his knife and walked into the yard to find the tracks in the snow. He saw a couple of droplets of blood, and then some marks slowly being covered up by the thick snowfall and heavy wind. They were defined footsteps at first, but the farther he followed them, the more it seemed they were dragging their feet. Something was wrong. Amongst the steps, he saw another dart in the snow, the same one he had found in his boot. He picked it up and put it in his pocket with the other one.

  He followed the tracks into the woods, and that was when he found me lying there in the snow, with a very thin layer of snow accumulated on top of me. He cursed under his breath and dropped to his knees, pulling the collar of my clothes away so he could check my pulse. It was very slow, but I was alive. He tried to shake me for a few seconds, but I wasn’t coming to. He grabbed my arm and pulled it over his back, then lifted me over his shoulders and carried me to the hunting cabin on the back of the property.

  By the time he got there, he was exhausted. He sat me in the snow and unlocked the cabin door, but it was just as cold inside. He opened up the old wood stove and shoveled old coals out into an empty ash box, then poured it outside. He hadn’t burned much in it for a long time. He reached up into the piping and cleared it out the best he could before walking out to the far side of the cabin. There was stacked wood in a box covered by a tarp, but also under layers of snow. He took the bungee cords off the corners and ripped the tarp off, revealing chopped cedar logs underneath. Perfect. He carried a few inside and put them in the wood stove, then ripped up the cardboard box to light it with. There was an old lighter on the windowsill, but it took a few tries before it would light. He held it up to the cardboard, and finally it lit up. There would be smoke, but he needed to get some warmth for us. He pulled me inside and put me on the floor beside it.

  He sat by the cold window and watched the house in the distance. He knew that the trip wire had to have alerted someone somewhere, so he couldn’t have the fire going for long if the smoke was obvious. He walked outside and halfway to the frozen lake, then looked up at the top of the house. The snowfall was so thick, and the wind was blowing so hard that it was hardly even noticeable. He went back inside and sat on the ground next to the woodstove, his head resting against his knees. He didn’t know how long he would have to wait for me to wake up. He didn’t know if I ever would.