(Meanwhile)
(Stefi's POV)
The cold chilled through my clothes, and soaked into my skin. The whipping wind and snowflakes bombarded my face with tiny stings. My hearing aid was useless, broken. I honestly didn't know what happened, but I know that now I couldn't hear anything.
I clutched my blankets closer to me, and shuffled in my mind who would be dead at this time period, so I could pray. Not Buck, not Roshan. Oh! I got it! My twin and my namesakes.
As I trudged through the snow, I spoke the prayer under my breath. "May the departed help, guide, and protect us. Stephanie, Gavin, please. Help me. I know you're listening. Stephanie, Gavin, I know you used to love and still love my father, but he'll be brokenhearted if I died. Please. Stephanie, I am asking as your stepdaughter, and Gavin, I ask as your half-sister. I'm begging you."
I dug through my bag a bit more thoroughly, and almost cried with relief. A candle, and a book of matches!
After whispering a quick prayer of thanks to Stephanie and Gavin, I hastily lit the match, and lit the candle, to see around me. But, it was tricky to keep the candle lit. I had to hold up my hand next to it, and that kind of decreased the amount of light it let out.
"Peaches!" I yelled for my older sister. "Peaches! It's me, Stefi! I can't hear well, so please come to me!"
Looking back on it, screaming that with my translator on was one of the stupidest things I've ever done in my life. A saber tooth tiger or some other carnivore might have heard, and could have been stalking me right after I said that.
Soon, I just gave up. I fell on my knees, and lit another match to keep warm. I smiled, as it reminded me of the story Mom used to tell me, what was it called? Oh, right. The Little Match Girl.
As I held the match as close as I could without being burnt, I thought I saw a dark shape in the distance. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light, but I held up the match and painfully stood up. I still saw the shape. I walked a few feet. The shape grew a teeny bit. I nearly jumped and shouted with joy. If it was a rock, with a cave, then YES! I have a safe haven! If it wasn't, then, well, I didn't want to think about it.
I ran as fast as my legs could carry me (which wasn't far in these boots) and when I got too tired to run, I walked as fast as I could. Looking back, I honestly shouldn't have used up so much energy on merely guesswork, because I didn't have any food with me, but I was excited at the time, okay?
I saw where I was, now. I was at the base of a giant cliff. Before I was about to curse, and cry and scream at how useless this was, I saw a small cave in the cliff. This time, I said it out loud. "THANK YOU STEPHANIE AND GAVIN!"
But, just as I was about to go inside, I noticed a pile of rocks a few meters from where I was standing. I crept to the rocks, and I looked at them.
They were normal rocks. The same stuff people would make stone houses with, or grind up to make cement.
But, I looked closer, and I noticed the bloodstains, long dried, on some of the rocks.
A cold fist wrapped around my heart. My safe haven was the place Stephanie and Gavin died.
(OOOOOOH! Cliffhangers! And, let me assure you, people, that I am a devout Christian. I am as loyal to God as Stefi is to the Ancestors. I'm not one of those pagans (no offense to those who are!), but I just thought that ancestor-worship is more fitting to the daughter of animals than Christianity is, because the events of the Bible hadn't even happened yet in the Ice Age.))