Speaker 1: Every first snowfall of the year we ran. It was
in a festival. We were running to survive. The date
was never a mystery, they told us weeks in advance.
It was printed on billboards, blasted on the news, scrawled
across the bottom of television screens in red lettering, the
first snowfall will arrive on November twelfth. Prepare. People marked
it on their calendars. We didn't question it anymore. The
day before the snowfall, the entire town shut down. Schools
closed early, businesses locked their doors, no deliveries, no flights,
no traffic in or out. It was as if we
were preparing for a storm. But the weather wasn't the problem.
It was what came with it. Everyone had their own preparations.
Some packed light bags just enough to keep moving. Others
mapped out faster roots, cutting through fields and back roads
to avoid getting stuck. People checked their shoes, making sure
their laces were tight, their soles weren't worn down. There
was no ceremony, no speeches, no sirens, just an unspoken understanding.
We waited, and then when the first snowflake fell, we ran.
I can still feel it even now, the burn in
my legs, the cold, biting at my skin, the rhythmic
pound of footsteps all around me, A thousand bodies moving
in perfect unison, breathless, desperate. There was no pushing or
care us. We didn't shove a trample. We moved like
a flood, one after the other, single file. There was
no greed or malice from society to be found. Everyone
had one mission, the same goal, because stopping meant you
would be gone. My first real memory of the run
is blurred by time, but something's never fade. The cold,
the fear, my mother's hand crushing mine in a grip.
I was five years old the first time I remember running,
too young to understand why, old enough to know not
to ask. We waited inside until the first flake fell.
The moment it did, my mother wrenched open the front
door and pulled me into the street. The entire town
was already moving, a single file line of people. Shoulders hunched,
breath clouding in the cold, feet pounding against the pavement.
It wasn't like running in gym class or playing tag
with the neighborhood kids. There was no laughing, no stopping
to catch your breath. You moved or you didn't make it.
I remember crying, tripping over my feet. My mother yanked
me forward so hard my arm nearly dislocated. She never
yelled or scolded me, just squeezed my hand tighter and
kept running behind us. Someone screamed, I didn't look back.
No one ever did. By the time I was old
enough to ask why, I already knew the answer. What
weapens if you don't run? No one ever answered. They
didn't need to. Every child knew the stories. The tales
were as old as the town itself. We had no crampus,
no bogeymen, no ghost stories passed down to keep children
from wandering too far into the woods. We had the
wolf walkers, and we didn't tell their stories to scare people.
We told them so people would live, because people that
were caught would die and disappear. And I know this
for certain because my father was one of the ones
who got caught. I don't remember much about him, just
the smell of whiskey on his breath, the heavy thud
of his boots as he staggered through the house. He
was drunk the night the snow came. My mother had
tried to sober him up, but he wouldn't listen. By
the time the snow came, he was too slow. We
had to run anyway. I still remember the sound of
him calling after us, slurring my mother's name. His voice
got smaller and smaller, swallowed by the sound of the wind,
the endless stampede of footsteps. My mother never looked back,
and we never saw him again. By the time I
turned nine, running had become a part of life, just
another routine in the changing of seasons. I no longer
tripped over my own feet or begged my mother to
slow down. I'd learned the rhythm, the pace that let
you breathe just enough to keep going, but never enough
to get comfortable. Comfort was dangerous. We knew that better
than anything. That year, the first snow came late, the
cold had already settled deep into the bones of the town,
and when the flurries finally started to fall, it was
like a held breath finally releasing. I remember feeling something
new that night, a thing I'd never felt during these runs. Curiosity.
I'd never seen what we were actually running from. Sure,
I knew what they were called, and brief descriptions passed
around the community, but I didn't know. We were told
not to look back so that night I did. At first,
I thought there were people, figures moving between the snowflakes,
just out of focus, man in thick furred coats, their
heads covered by wolf masks. But then I looked closer,
and I saw their arms thin, rotting human arms stretched
too long, the skin peeling in places, revealing raw, dark
and muscle. The hands dragged at the sides, fingers twitching.
Their legs were bony, discolored, bent strangely at the joints,
as if their bodies had forgotten how to be human.
The heads were fully wolf, but wrong, too broad. The
snouts cracked and split in places where they shouldn't be.
The mouths were packed with rows of teeth that didn't
fit together properly, overlapping, twisted, and their eyes some entirely dark,
hollow sockets leaking something black. Others were too white, too wide,
reflecting light in an unnatural glow. They didn't run, not really.
They seemed to be one with the snow, more so,
phasing with the falling snow, rather than actually moving. Their
forms blurred with the snow, like they were being dragged
forward by something unseen. They moved as fast as the
snow fall. I must have made a sound, a gasp,
a sob, or something, because one of them turned its
head toward me. Its snow split open even further, and
I saw something pulsing inside its throat, shifting, writhing, as
if it was struggling to hold its shape. I turned
forward and looked back again. Years later, the snowfall was
predicted weeks ago, November seventeenth. The warnings were everywhere, once more,
news tickers, radio broadcasts printed on every store front window,
a reminder, a deadline. People were already preparing, packing light,
mapping their roots, making sure they had the right shoes.
I had always done the same until this year, until
I realized my mother wouldn't be running with me. She'd
been bedridden for months. Her body had withered beneath the
weight of sickness. The strong woman who once pulled me
through the streets now barely able to lift her own hand.
Her voice had turned small, brittle, like something that could
be carried off with the wind. But even through the weakness,
she still tried. She still begged me to go. You
can't save me, she whispered, run please. I sat beside her,
gripping her cold fingers. I packed my bag that morning
out of habit, but I had never slung it over
my shoulder because for the first time in my life,
I couldn't leave. I couldn't run without her. I couldn't
leave her behind like that, not when she dragged me
with her so many times. She saw it in my face.
She knew, and she cried. I won't leave you behind, Mom,
I can't. Outside the sky was turning gray, the temperature
had dropped. Tomorrow the first flake would fall, and for
the first time in my life, I wouldn't be ready.
The first flake fell at five forty six PM. I
watched it drift down from the sky, weightless, delicate, beautiful
if I didn't know what it meant. Then came the sound,
a deep, rolling, home like wind moving through a hollow place,
but heavier, thicker. It wasn't wind. And then the city ran.
The streets irrupted into motion, doors slammed open, People poured
onto the sidewalks, sprinting into the fading light. The stampede,
a flood of bodies moving in perfect rhythm, breath steaming
in the cold, no hesitation, no second thoughts. I turned
to my mother. She was so small, now, so light.
She looked up at me from the bed, her eyes
filling with something I couldn't name. I lifted her into
my arms. She barely made a sound. Her body felt fragile, weightless,
like she had already started slipping away. I stepped outside.
The cold hit me like a wall. The wind sliced
through me, sharp and unrelenting. Snowflakes swirled in chaotic patterns,
dancing through the air, hiding the shapes of those running ahead.
I took my first step, then another. Then I ran.
It was different, this time, harder. I wasn't running for myself,
I was running for both of us, and it was
my first taste of what my mother had gone through
when I was a young child. My legs burned with
every step, the weight of my arms slowing me down.
Every breath was a gasp, sharp and ragged. Ahead, the
crowd was already disappearing into the white. I tried to
keep up, but behind me, I could hear them closing
in the change in the air, the way the cold thickened,
like the temperature had dropped tender grease in an instant,
just moving, a sound so smooth it was almost soothing,
like something gliding over the ice. Then came the other noises,
a soft gnarling, and then the first screamed from behind us,
an elderly couple. I didn't stop, but my mother, weaker
than she'd ever been, lifted her head just slightly and whispered,
they're here a head. The last of the runners vanished
into the snow. The line was gone. It was just me, me,
my mother, and whatever was closing in behind us. The
city had vanished behind me, swallowed by the storm. I
could barely feel my feet any more. My muscles were screaming,
my arms ached from carrying my mother's weight, but I
held on. I had to. The snow pounded against my skin,
wind howling through the trees as I stumbled on to
an old, bare visible path leading into the forest. I
didn't know where it led. I didn't care. Slow labored, rattling,
frostbitten lungs fighting for air. Too close, too close. I
kept moving, but the snow was deepening. My boots sank
into it with every step, making each movement harder, slower.
I was losing. I rested a glance at my mother,
her head rested limply against my chest, her breath coming
in cold shivers. Her eyes opened halfway then she whispered,
put me down. I shook my head, the words burning
like a bullet from a gun. No, who can't run
with me? I won't leave, leave you you have to.
Her voice was weak, but I could hear the desperation
in it. I held her closer, No, not her. The
gnarling grew ever louder. I could hear them now, moving
through the snow. I looked behind to see how much
distance stood between us and them. One of them stood
closer than the others, smaller, perhaps younger, but it sered
in on us. That much was clear. The snow bent
around the thing, like the world itself was trying to
look away. I snapped my head back forward, then up ahead,
the structure barely visible through the white out, an old shed,
broken and sagging, its wooden door hanging open. I pushed forward,
forcing myself to move faster. The moment we crossed the threshold,
I kicked the doors shut with my boot and collapsed
onto the wooden floor, clutching my mother to my chest.
The cold was inside my bones now, I could barely
feel my hands. My heart slammed against my ribs. The
wind howled outside. The gnarling slowed, then silence I pressed
my hand over my mother's mouth, covering both of our breathing.
I didn't know if the walls were enough, if they
could see us right now, if they could smell us,
But we had to stay quiet. The shed was falling apart.
The wooden walls groaned with every gust of wind, the
roof sagging under the weight of ice and time. It
smelled of and damp wood, of something old and long forgotten.
The only thing between us and them was a thin
sheet of splintered timber, and they were right outside. I
pressed my back against the wall, cradling my mother in
my lap, my entire body trembling with exhaustion. She was
barely conscious now. Her breathing was weak, her lips pale,
her arms draped over me like a dead weight. I
could feel her heart beat against my chest, faint, sluggish.
She wouldn't last much longer, then neither would I. The
whispers started slow. I never heard them before, never been
close enough. At first, they sounded like the wind, but
then the words took shape. Oh weak, not fast enough.
The voices shifted, changing in pitch, in rhythm, some too high,
some too deep, And then one of them spoke with
my father's voice, you should have run. The door creaked,
my breath caught in my throat. I barely moved, just
my fingers tightening over my mother's wrist, as if holding
on to her would keep us both anchored in place.
Something was coming. I couldn't breathe, and beyond the doorway,
through the swirling snow and shifting shadows, I saw it.
It stood just outside, its massive shape, barely visible through
the storm. Not quite a man, not quite a wolf.
The body was too long, too hunched. Its fur was wet, clumped,
hanging off its frame like peeling skin. Its arms were
wrong human hands, but stretched too thin, the skin splitting
around the knuckles, revealing blackened veins pulsing beneath. It tilted
its head toward the open door. It knew we were here.
Then suddenly my mother grabbed my face, her fingers pressed
into my skin, tilting my head down, forcing me to
look at her. I expected her to whisper, to tell
me to run, to beg me one last time to
leave her behind, But she didn't. She just smiled, soft, warm,
like she wasn't afraid in anymore. Then she moved with
the last of her strength. She pushed herself up onto
trembling arms. Her entire body shook, her legs barely able
to hold her weight. She stood not for long, but
long enough, and then she screamed. The sound tore through
the shed, loud and raar, echoing through the trees, cutting
through the wind and the whispers. Her cry of defiance.
The creature turned toward her. I thought she was the
only one there. I stayed frozen, cowering behind overturned furniture,
my hands clenched over my own shaking body, unable to move.
I wanted to reach for her, to grab her, to
stop her, but I couldn't. I was too afraid. The
last thing I saw of my mother was a silhouette
in the doorway, small, weak but standing. She was gone.
I woke up, clutching nothing. My hands were frozen into stiff,
aching claws, still gripping the air where my mother had
been for a moment. My mind was stuck in the
in between, the space where I could still feel away
to my arms, still hear the echo of a scream
in my ears, still believe that when I opened my eyes,
she would be there. But she wasn't. The storm had passed.
I felt it before I saw it, the stillness, the
silence that came after the first snowfall. No wind, no whispers,
just the slow, peking crawl of sunlight through the cracks
in the broken shed. I pushed myself up onto nominal legs,
my body sluggish, like it didn't belong to me anymore.
The door stood wide open. The world outside was white
and empty. I stepped out into the snow. The air
was crisp, cold in a way that no longer burned,
just settled into my skin like a layer of ice
beneath the surface. The sky stretched above me, bright, endless blue.
Nothing moved. I turned back toward the shed, half expecting
to see something, footprints, a trail, some sign of what
had happened. But the snow was undisturbed, no footprints, no bodies,
like no one had ever been here at all. I
started walking. There was nothing else to do. The pressure
in my chest weighed a million tons. By the time
I reached the edge of the city, I already knew
what I would find. The people would be back in
their homes, the streets would be clear. There will be
no talk of those who didn't return, like they had
never existed at all. I have run every year since
that night, even when my legs burned, even when my
lungs screened for air, even when I wanted nothing more
than to let the snow swallow me whole. I ran.
I ran for my mother, and for years I ran
for others too. I reached out, pulled strat glass forward grips,
shaking hands, forced people to keep moving when their bodies
were ready to give up. Some I saved, some I didn't.
But I am old now. My body is not what
it used to be. The years have stolen my strength,
my speed. My breath is weak. My leg's barely able
to carry my own weight, much less someone else's. And
the first snowfall is coming. The announcement came last week.
It scrolled across the bottom of the television screen as
I sat in my chair, hands resting in my lap,
bones aching in the cold that never really leaves you.
After that long November twenty third, first snowfall expected is
not a warning, not for me. I lay in bed now,
beneath blankets that do nothing to warm me. The night
is quiet still I know what comes next. The air
will shift, the first flake will fall, and the world
will start to run. Without me, I turned my head
toward the window, waiting. The glass is dark, a reflection
of the room behind me. My own eyes stare back,
hollow and sunken. Then a shadow passes across the glass,
not fast, just moving. It stops lingers, as if waiting,
and then a warmth settles over me, a presence I
haven't felt in decades. I close my eyes, I smile,
and I say nothing.