Window shutters bang loudly, as the wind screams an unsettling warning, and Dan tosses and turns underneath his thick, heavy blankets all throughout the night. The weighty, nearly suffocating fabrics, do nothing this cold winter night to ease the chill, as his body releases cold sweats of fear that cool his body and lower his temperature even further, causing his hands to moisten until clammy and wrinkled. The cabin releases low groans and creaks in response to the battering from the viscous winds. From outside you catch glimpses of what appears to be a figure stalking around your place, but the thick snow and bickering winds heavily obscure your sight, making it impossible to tell what the creature may be.
Straining your ears every time the winds break allows Dan to just barely discern the sound of crunching snow and ice around the cabin, occasional bouts of intense scratching can be heard, and you huddle under the covers leaving only the top half of your face sticking out.
"I feel like a darn kid, what am I even hiding from? It is not like it's some freaking Boogeyman! But... It COULD be a Bear or a rabid Moose or something, and that is absolutely the Last Thing I need in the middle of such a creepy and freezing cold night!" Dan worries to himself.
His imagination swirls and thoughts and pictures begin to form in his head, of an angry bear seeking out a warm meal of hot human flesh, and eagerly pacing around trying to find some weakness for it's claws to infiltrate his only source of sanctuary. Then, scenes of a large, thick bodied, rabid moose, eyes wide and wild with insanity, and body covered in mangled patchy fur, with huge deadly antlers sharpened to savage spear like points that it rakes against the cabin wood. Dan slams his eyes shut and tries to force the terrors from his mind and focus on only comfy and warm thoughts. The sounds seem to continue for what feels like at least a couple of hours, by the time he begins to nod off he can just barely make out the sound of what may have been a howl, just as the first rays of the light of day are trying to peek from behind a solid wall of clouds.
With this, a rush of relieving warmth seems to flood back into both the room and his bones. An unnatural sleep consumes him quickly, and with that, he falls into a heavy slumber for the first several hours of the day. By the time he wakes from his nightmare filled dreams, his sheets are covered in sweat. Shakily he pulls himself upright and glances out the window, thankful to see the light still spilling in from outside. He clambers unsteadily from his bed and heads to the bathroom to relieve his full and tortured bladder and run the shower for a quick wash to relieve him of the sticky, gross sheen of sweat covering his body.
Finally fully awakened, Dan decides he does not want to spend any more time lingering in the cabin, lest the terrors of the previous night return. Upon opening the front door however, a good nearly 2 feet or so of semi solid crunchy snow greet him, and span far off into the distance as far as he can see. Not only is that a factor, but walking out and taking a look back at everything allows him to get a full scope of the bigger picture. Large distorted animal tracks run in a messy circle all around the house, animal prints notedly bigger than your hands can be seen leading up to the place, and then back away into the nearby surrounding woods. Startled by the sheer size of the prints and tracks, he decides to do a once around the cabin, discovering multiple sets of large, deep, clean scratches in the recently pristine wood. Awkwardly now he attempts to flee, trying to make his way to the car parked just 30 feet away, even though he can clearly see that it is nearly totally engulfed in the snow. With more effort than he expected to have to use, he manages to make it there, and then clear the snow from the entire top of the car as well. However, nearly all his energy is shortly expended trying to use just his glove covered hands to dig the car free of the surrounding snow.
A sudden high-pitched howl shatters what Dan now realizes had been an eerie and unnatural silence, no birds have chirped, and now, the distant sound of crunching snow and ice, followed by the sight of an unnaturally large white blur of a creature seemingly barreling his way, sends a hair-raising chill shooting up his spine. He wastes no time in turning and taking off back towards the cabin, however running is not even possible with the depth of this snow, and frantic, desperate stumbling is the best he can manage. His exhausted limbs are at first fueled with the energy of sudden fear, but by the halfway point the return of that unnatural cold has once again drained his bones of warmth, and with it, also most of his energy. The creature however, sounds just a few yards away now and the crunching of its steps judging from the loudness, indicates just how heavy it must be.
