[sfx: rustle…]

Claude frantically flicks his emerald gaze from side to side whilst passing by ruined, moss-jacketed buildings, his dirty frost tail stuck stiff behind his legs as he clung onto the fire axe in his paws rightfully as the saving grace of his life.

“Huff…”

The samoyed kept his breaths shallow and steps deliberately muted, trudging on to scavenge the faintest chance of a settlement, some food, a safe house… anything. Anything.

His heart raced with awareness of his mortality, but it never found a finish line to quell his grief-stricken fatigue.