Please Forget Me - Chapter 218

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Three dogs appeared below the slope, blocking our path. When I finally looked back, we were already surrounded by a pack of more than ten wild dogs.

‘Are they hunting us too?’

Each one was skinny and gaunt. After starving for so long, even living humans looked like prey to them now. If we tried to run recklessly, we might end up like Joseph, who was lying inside the cabin.

“Damn it…”

As one of the three dogs guarding the front lowered its body and started approaching, Killian quickly hid me behind his back. At the same time, he aimed his gun at the dog but didn’t fire.

The dog, unafraid of just the gun being pointed, kept stepping closer, and now the whole pack was advancing at once, tightening the circle around us.

Cornered by the wild dogs, we retreated back to the cabin’s entrance. Inside, the man slammed the window shut and shouted,

“What are you doing? Get inside and close the door now!”

“Dana, come inside.”

Killian, gritting his teeth as if he wanted to kill himself for saying this, pushed me into the cabin with the rotting corpse. Just as he followed to close the door—

Tat-tat-tat!

From all directions, dozens of small paws pattered toward us. Two wild dogs charging from the front glinted with madness in their eyes.

Clack! Click!

Killian shut the door and locked the latch just as the rabid dogs lunging toward us vanished from sight. I sighed with relief but suddenly froze in the pitch-black darkness.

The cabin, with all its windows and doors shut tight, was pitch dark except for the faintest light coming through the cracks.

‘Where exactly was the corpse again?’

I dared not move further inside, afraid of stepping on it or tripping. The stench of decay was so overpowering with the windows and door closed that breathing became difficult.

I pressed myself against the wall, trying to breathe in fresh air that might seep through the loose planks, when…

Creak. Squeak. Grind.

I heard a strange noise at my feet. When I looked down, the faint light that had filtered in vanished, and something slipped through the gap. Only when I heard the sharp panting did I realize it was a dog’s snout, and I gasped.

Scrape-scratch. Crack. Grind.

To my horror, it was the sound of the wild dogs clawing at the cabin’s wooden planks and biting through them.

“Gasp…”

“Come this way.”

Killian pulled me back behind him, alarmed.

“Argh!”

I nearly tripped over something in the dark—surely a corpse.

Thanks to Killian holding me tight, I didn’t fall, but as my foot caught and disturbed the blanket, the stench became unbearable. At the same moment, the dogs outside began howling wildly.

Bark! Bark!

The frantic barking echoed outside, and inside the cabin, the dogs were persistently thrusting their snouts through every crack, their harsh breathing reverberating.

I felt like I might lose my mind alongside the maddened dogs. Maybe that was how the man had gone insane.

“Huff…”

Terrified, I clung to Killian and burst into tears. Killian shouted in a voice trembling with fury, about to explode:

“It’s because of the corpse! Throw it outside right now!”

“You’re a devil himself. Joseph is terrified of dogs…”

Even as the madman covered the rattling wooden window that was threatening to fall off its hinges, with his bare hands, he was still losing his mind.

“Then chase out the one making the hole!”

Killian shouted, stabbing the snout of a dog biting the plank at waist height with his dagger. The wild dog whimpered and withdrew its snout.

The man jabbed dog snouts with the bayonet on his rifle too, and seeing the dogs hesitate, I gained courage and swatted the noses of the ones trying to squeeze through with a stick Killian handed me. They faltered, but only for a moment.

Crunch. Scrape. Grind.

Ten or so dogs attacked all at once, and three people couldn’t hold them back. While I dealt with two snouts in front of me, I heard the sound of planks splitting somewhere behind.