Cold
This was an entry for a friend's "Prompt King" writing contest on Furry Amino a while back. The prompt was "We were told to hold on, but we couldn't". It was the first post I was featured for and it won. It was a good challenge at the time and I got a lot of great feedback from it. To be honesty it's not inherently furry, this was before I was attempting anthro writing.
"We were told to hold on, but we couldn't."
Every gasp for breath feels like fire when your lungs are frozen. You feel like dying every time but ironically it's the only thing keeping you alive.
It's also the only thing telling you you still hold your grasp on life.
Specks of light blossomed before my eyes as I rolled my head to the side to find my sister.
Ice still clung to her hair, her usually rosy cheeks colored blue, her lips an unnatural purple.
She should be dead. We both should be.
We ended up in this situation after a house fire destroyed everything we ever knew... and loved. I don't know if anyone will ever understand the dilemma we faced when it came to searching the frozen woods for help or staying by the smoldering remains of our home to keep warm.
Either way surviving the wintry storm was a long shot.
After slogging through the knee deep snow for what seemed like hours any part of us that wasn't numb with cold stung with a bitter pain. Juliet only complained a few times at the start when her feet got wet. Though she seemed to try and remain strong there was no mistaking the frozen tear droplets on her cheeks.
Being the older brother it pained me that there was nothing I could do to comfort her. We both bled from the same wounds. With an insufferable mess inside my own head no words came to mind that could ease hers.
Eventually we could walk no more, our feet blocks of ice. We sat down to rest, awaiting the inevitable cold death that had trailed us for so long.
Juliet cuddled up to me, seeking the last bit of warmth I could provide her with. In no time at all a cold sleep consumed us.
I awoke only once, my head knocking against the hard wood of a carriage, long enough to see we had been saved if not, perhaps, a bit too late.
The carriage jostled harshly sending more flecks of light across my vision. After they faded I realized I could hear a voice over the racket of the wheels and the horse hooves.
"...-just hold on," a hooded figure at the reins called back to me.
It was the only thing I could make out before the world went dark.