The Mantis Variant - Book One - 6. Chapter 6 - Ilya, Part Two

With her bare feet on a thin layer of freshly fallen snow, Ilya stood swirled by the flurries that fell onto the mountains. She knew her ability of flight was somehow connected to the unique gland that she and all Shifts possessed, but she did not understand why her gift also came with a resistance to the cold. Naked in those early-wintery woods, Ilya was grateful for the added benefit. The snow brushed against her skin and the wind whipped her hair, but she remained unaffected by the chill.

She closed her eyes and pictured the many people that she loved and already lost over her short life. Tears began to burn her eyes, and the droplets were chilled and fell without warmth to the frozen ground.

The boy who Ilya smothered inside of their shanty was not the first life she took, but then the faces of her parents flashed into her mind, and her tears ceased. Ilya was not even sure that the images in her memory were what her parents looked like. Their cruelty was seven years in her past, and in that time without them, she grew into a strong young woman.

Alone on that mountain with nothing, Ilya did not know what she should do next. She did not know where she would go, and she began to walk aimlessly through the pathless tracts of forest. With her bare feet crunching along frozen ground, her thoughts spun with painful memories, like the snowflakes that swirled around her. Every friend that she made in her short life was now dead.

Ilya was without food or water, and she tried to convince herself to return to the city. She needed to make a new home, but she did not feel that she was up to the task. Starting her life over, yet again from nothing, it felt to her like this repetitive cycle would never end.

The high mountain forests were home to predators, and in her despair of that moment, Ilya thought she would be grateful for one such beast to appear and end the misery that was her life. She may have been impervious to the cold, but being slaughtered by animals seemed like a good way to die.

She did not view her abilities and powers as a gift. She did not ask for them. Of course, she did not even ask to be born, forced into life against her will by the two heartless individuals who just happened to be her parents.

Ilya only ever remembered feeling unlucky✪