Chapter 6: Ravine
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Athas POV

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     When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was numbness. Numbness to the point of not being able to feel anything and not being able to move anything. I looked down to find my body heavily battered, evidence of the avalanche that slammed into my body a while ago. Heavily bruised and my right arm broken (I realized because I couldn't move it), with much effort I managed to prop myself up against a wall of thick ice. As I looked around me, I realized that there was only ice. Ice as far as the eye could see. Then, I finally looked up. Two ice walls thats' sheer height would intimidate even the most nimble and experienced mountain climbers. I felt trapped. How am I ever going to be able to get out of this icy hell when I'm heavily injured and have no experience climbing anything but a tree? "Big Sis, what do you think? How do you think we can get out of here?" I asked. No reply. "Big Sis?" I called again, slightly more worried. And then it struck me. Since I shoved her into the snow, there was a slight chance that only I was carried away into the ravine, while she managed to stay on the surface due to being buried in snow. Clinging onto the hope that she survived the disaster, I decided to create a makeshift splint with some sticks I collected along the way to start a fire.

     A few days passed, and I finally managed to stand up and move around, albeit very slowly and painfully. Limping while using the ice wall as support, I explored my surroundings. But it seemed no matter how far I walked, the ravine seemed to go on endlessly, the scenery never changing. Until finally, there was something. As I kept exploring the ravine, from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of something orange and furry? stuck in the ice. Taking a better look at it, it seemed to be some animal that was unfortunate enough to be stuck in the ice, maybe during an Ice Age. Having nothing better to do, I used a scrap-metal axe to slowly chip away the ice, until finally the creature was free. It appeared to be a cat that walked on two legs. Covered in head to toe with orange fur, except the ears and tail where they were blue, it also had a skull adorning its head, almost like a crown or trophy of its conquests. Over the course of the next day or so, the ice around it started to thaw, and I could finally poke its body with a stick to examine it in closer detail. Until one day, the two eyes that always remained closed opened.

     In a state of panic and shock, I scrambled backwards, away from the now alive animal. "Gnar?" It seemed to speak in a gibberish or language that was completely foreign to me. As it looked around, it finally set its eyes on me. "Shoogi shoogi! Gnar gada!" It quickly approached me, and before I could react, it jumped on top of me, and started sniffing. It then started unceremoniously scavenging through my backpack until it found the last of my food reserves: the wolf meat, and started munching down on it. But knowing that in my current state, I wouldn't be able to fight a raptor, much less some unknown furry creature from the Ice Age. After devouring a majority of the meat, it turned its head towards me and yelled "Ganaloo mo, ovagarava Gnar!!!"  Making gestures with its paws as if beckoning me to come with it. Out of options and out of ideas, I followed, until it finally led me to a place with a steady incline, probably the closest place to the surface. And then, it jumped. "..." At first, it made a confused look as if wondering why it couldn't just straight up jump out of the ravine, and then the confusion quickly turned to anger. It started getting red, and its eyes turned from the usual shiny black to a pale white. I backed away, thinking it was time for me to take my leave. Until finally, it roared "GNAR!!!" Its small body expanded five fold in size, with each of its limbs growing more and more muscular, until it finally turned into a reddish-brown lumbering monstrosity of a cat. Even though I say it was a cat, it was more like a full-on elephant. Its mouth adorned with two tusks and its back and limbs ripped with muscles, thank gods I didn't try to fight it. It looked at me, patted its back, and then crouched down. Interpreting it as it wanting to give me a ride up, and discarding courtesies, I got on and it leaped. Real high. I screamed, clinging onto its fur for dear life. As it scaled the ice ravine like it was nothing, with one final leap, we managed to climb out of the ravine. "Thanks, Gnar?" I said, grateful that it carried me with it. "GNAR." It replied, then stomped its way into the distance. 

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