Well, it's late and I'm a bit board and feel like writing,

>>723535029
Bump

>My teammates and I decided to split up, go silent, individually hunt the enemy, and return to jail.
> We say our farewells, and I am left to my own devices among the piercing silence of the cold air and crackling snow.
> I sneak throughout the neighborhood for a bit, hiding in bushes at the slightest possibility of being spotted by anything or anyone.
> I decide to use the backyard of one of my neighbors as a shortcut and it works. I vault over the fence, bolt across the backyard, and make it across on the other side of the house.
> Across the street, I notice a dog, a Golden Retriever if my memory serves me correctly.
> He stares into me, and I into him. I remember at that moment fear, pure anxiety, with the focus of my mind being refined by the chill around me.
> I walk down the street, keeping my eyes on him constantly, making no sudden movements.
> I hardly breathed, and in retrospect the dog had a wireless collar, but at that time I saw a dog about twice my size with no leash I could see, alert, confrontative, and then, when the moment was through, dismissive.

Continue?

>>723535431
Only if it gets good

> I make my way down the road, having finished my confrontation with the hound.
> I notice another house with a small enclave of bushes next to it, near a pathway I would use for biking around the neighborhood. I hear sounds, breathing, then voices, familiar voices.
> I immediately drop prone on the ground, putting my face down, and rolling to the nearest bush. I try to cut as much breathing as possible, to appear as a corpse to the passive observer as my ears lustfully gather their eventful speech.
> I hear the voices of the enemies on the team, and most notably their leader, whose was Noah.
> Noah talks for a bit at someone I could not see, and then darts off into the distance.
> I crawl across the snow, and then get up to crouch walk.
> The cold air breezes my face, and the blissful chill cools my sweet from the prior encounter as I enter the enclave to find a horror

Keep going

> The silence I had so indulged within those bushes, across that backyard, in front of that dog was not only thanks to the death heralded by winter frost, but also of my team's capture.
> I stood there in shock for a moment, that somehow all of my teammates had been captured except for me (note that I was the type of kid who hide in hide and seek for so long without being caught that I missed two classes after recess).
>Sam and Chris were kneeling there, and they looked at me.
> Chris bit his lip and immediately raise his eyebrows, nodding his head upwards to silently order me to free them.
> I looked around, anxiously, barely breathing to hear as much as I could.
> One by one I freed them, they all got up, and dart in respective directions, then suddenly, the crackle of a branch, the chuckle of a boy behind me, let's call him Frank.

> Frank was not too bright, as he did not shoot me right then and there with the snow around us, but he was amused at my rather heroic act that had just taken place.
> I turned around, and in the instant I realized who he was I pushed him with all the force I could muster.
> He was flung backwards, his body bouncing on the hard dirt and snow.
> He was staggered, shocked and the intensity of my action. He barely gathered himself together as I ran as fast as my legs could carry me back to my house.
> I knew I had to make it to my house, the backyard, the hiding place among the bushes that I knew so well, the little crack amongst the terrain that with silence and stillness I could find sanctuary.
> I ran, and ran, barely looking at anyone, hardly wondering of anyone else, I was trying to survive, I was flying.

Then, when I was passing the drive way of the house right next to us down the street, from the bushes that separate the two houses, he appeared.
> Noah, with a snowball, he was smiling the little bastard. He knew what was going to happen, or at least he thought he did.
> He was expecting me to stop. I stared into his eyes as I ran. His expression went from cocky, to mildly confident to "Oh Fug".
> He stood between me and my house, my sanctuary, at this moment in time, in the heat of the instant, of the encounter, he was all that mattered now, and getting through him was all that I cared about.

Still here

> I tackled him, and I ran into him with all of the momentum I had built up, grabbed him around the waist and pushed him into the cold, hard Earth.
> I would've gotten up and continuing running, but all of that adrenaline, all of that blood pumping through my heart from that run, from that flight, all came bursting out inside of me.
> I was not thinking anymore, I was only acting.
> I pinned him with my left hand, grabbing him by his jacket's collar and pushing him even harder than I thought I could into the Earth.
> Then, with my right hand, I grabbed a handful of snow, pushed harder with my left hand, and proceeded to smother his face, his mouth, his noise in the white frost.

> I was choking him with snow, and he realized it.
> In retrospect I would joking say I was baptizing him in the frost.
> Noah was struggling, begging for me to stop, and eventually, when I came back to my senses, I did.
> He was laying there, even more shocked than Frank, as I bolted towards my home, my backyard.
> I ran without thinking, jumping over the fence, and as I ran into my backyard, I made a bee line to the nearest bush, and hid, not breathing for moments on end, waiting, hearing.
> Then, from my flank, I heard a rustle.

Holy fuck finish the story

> It was Sam. He happened to hide in the backyard of the house I passed while giving Noah's baptism, and heard the commotion.
> He lied next to me, and said that there was something red on my head.
> I stroked my forehead and noticed blood, apparently when tackling Noah I had done the maneuver so arrogantly or forcefully or both that my forehead hit the pavement, but with all the adrenaline I did not feel anything.
> Sam took some cloth that was lying around on top of some nearby bricks, cleaned it with snow, and gave it to me, saying "You should wrap that up."
> I wrapped the cloth around my forehead, tying the end at the back of my head, and me and Sam decided to find out where Chris was.

> I told Sam to stay here, saying, "Once I get back with Chris, we can enjoy some Hot Chocolate, I have some Cardboard Boxes we can play with in my attic, it's a bit chilly but I have some fort ideas." (We were heavy into building things back then, sort of explains my engineering studies...)
> I left my backyard with the cloth wrapped around my head.
> I knew where Chris lived and made my way there, again avoiding suspicion and sneaking amongst the bushes.
> I arrived at Chris's place and couldn't see him.
> Where was he, I heard a noise, it sounded like his voice. It was stuttering, loud enough to hear it, but muted enough to be obviously suspicious.
> I went to his backyard, and arrived at his tree.
> I saw his body laying there, against the tree, still hearing the stuttering.