9:30 – Day 2

Olivia has possibly had one of the worst nights of her entire life. Having to bundle her sore, cold body into the tiny dip into the mountain was already painful, not to even mention being stuck in there for hours to come.

Luckily she was safe from the storm outside the entire night, as the tiny cave went deep enough into the mountain and made a slight dip to the left. But, having no door to shut, Olivia certainly didn't feel safe.

Throughout the entire night she could hear wolves howling in the distance, only just about able to make out their deadly calls through the violent gusting of the wind.

It was incredibly cold inside the cave, so Olivia refused to let her mind even think of sleep. Every time she felt a yawn rising in her throat, or every time her eyelids began to even remotely feel heavy, Olivia would force her mind back awake, rocking herself slightly back and forth in the tiny gap.

Despite how extremely cold Olivia felt in her tiny hide-out, it held through and kept her alive until morning came around – no wonder caves made such good animal dens.

As the sun only just began rising outside, Olivia had lost the fight to exhaustion, falling into a restless sleep. She jolted awake with a gasp a few hours into the day, looking around herself in confusion and horror.

While Olivia couldn't see outside the cave, she could hear another storm raging, wind howling loudly. She was shivering quite badly, starting to feel colder than she did the previous day.

Olivia struggled her sore body slightly over into a crawling position, moving slightly forward to peek out of the cave. She could see nothing but white outside, the landscape hidden beneath a thick blanket of fog.

Shuddering, Olivia crawled back into her hiding spot, returning to her former, hunched up position. She shivered again, wrapping her coat more tightly around herself and pulling her yellow beanie down to cover the tips of her ears.

Just like many times throughout the night, Olivia felt tears prick her eyes, trying to quickly blink them away. She was only barely holding on in this tiny cave... How was Axel going to make it out in the middle of nowhere?

"D-Don't even think such things." Olivia scolded herself, wiping her eyes on her red sleeve.

She wanted to stay confident. Axel's mind may be chock full of jokes and games, but he wasn't stupid. He'd find a way to make it through the night, he... he had to.

Olivia lowered her head slightly, hating how she could steadily feel her hopes sinking. A single tear drop rolled down her cheek, dripping down and quickly seeping into the fabric of her red coat. Olivia silently reached up, wiping her eyes with her mitten.

She leaned her head back down onto her knees gulping down a rising sob. She was parched, she was ravenous, she was absolutely freezing. It didn't feel like she could possibly find a way out of the situation.

If only Jesse was here. Olivia thought to herself. I need her optimism, her guidance right now...

Sitting slightly up, Olivia slipped her hand into her coat's pocket, feeling around slightly. A few hours ago, in the night, she had stuck her hands into her pockets for warmth, and found that she actually had a photograph tucked inside one of them.

Olivia carefully pulled out the small picture, gazing down at it. It was a picture of them, the Order. All five of them were together, grinning broadly at the camera. Dressed up rather formally, a night sky in the background with the faint silhouette of a fading firework.

Jesse was in the middle, her long chestnut hair pulled back with some sort of ribbon, dressed in a teal dress that only about reached her knees. She had one of her arms around Olivia's shoulders. The engineer was also dressed up in a long red dress that reached all the way down to her ankles.
On the other side of Jesse was Petra – Quite understandably not wearing a dress, but still dressed in much more formal clothes than Olivia had ever seen on the warrior. A blue button-up shirt, with a plain pair of black jeans, her signature bandanna on her head looking incredibly out of place.

Axel and Lukas were there too, standing behind the girls. Lukas had his one hand resting on Jesse's shoulder, the other tucked in behind his back. Dressed up in dark maroon, long sleeved shirt, the rest of his outfit hidden behind the girls in front of him.
Axel was probably the least-formally dressed, wearing a grey button-up jacket over what looked like merely a T-shirt. Black hair standing out in just about every direction, his big arms crossed over his chest.

Despite the fact that Olivia had never seen the picture before – or couldn't remember seeing it before – everything about it felt so incredibly familiar. She could almost hear herself scolding Axel to at least make an effort, or telling Petra to please take her bandanna off for the occasion.

Olivia slowly turned the image around, eyes resting on the neatly scribbled numbers and words on the back.

2019/01/01

Happy New Years

After Olivia had first read those words, she had sat for most of the night, digging into the back of her head for memories, trying to unearth the last date she could remember.

She had felt herself go cold, remembering that in fact one of the last things she could pin point, were the five of them trying to come up with some plans for a New Years celebration, only a few days after Christmas. After that, it was a complete blank.

The photo proved that the new year had already rolled around, and clearly they had been to some sort of celebration. But if anything, it left Olivia with even more questions.

Olivia leaned her head back down on her knees, holding the photograph close to her chest. It was the closest thing she had to her friends at that moment.

Another small sob broke through the engineer's lips, fresh tears welling up in her eyes. She'd give anything, anything to wake up from that horrid nightmare.

Olivia lifted her head, shakily wiping her tears away. She carefully slipped the photograph back into her pocket. What was she going to do? She needed to find help, but the storm wasn't ceasing, trapping her.

She briefly thought back to the blood that she found, not far from her little hide-out. Probably long buried beneath the fresh powder, but still worrying. Olivia had heard several howls of wolves, what if something had been taken down there?

For the first time Olivia really thought of the fact that a wolf could very easily corner in the tiny cave – she'd be lunch on the house!

But she couldn't just leave, could she? Where would she go? Was there any other hiding places nearby, buildings perhaps?

As if perfectly timed, Olivia's thoughts were all of a sudden cut short by a distant howl of a wolf.

And, decision made in a moment of sudden panic, Olivia left her tiny cave.

Bursting out into the blizzard, completely running on adrenaline. And, without knowing it, she began fleeing in the exact same direction as the person who's blood had been staining the snow the previous evening.

___

Yay, I remembered to post on time! I'm glad I screwed up here out of all place considering we just finished what I believe is the two shortest chapters in the book. Larger word counts ahead!

Anyway, we had an update on Olivia's situation! A bit of a filler, but there's still a very important clue to the past here. That photograph Olivia found is merely a snippet - as the title says - from the blank part of the past, but its the most they have to go off of right now.

I'll be honest, I'm nervous for eventually reaching the chapter that reveals exactly what happened in the past xD Kind of the same type of nervous I was, back all the way in SBTl, when I was revealing the mysterious villain. Guess I'm paranoid of disappointing the readers or something, lol-

Anyhow, if this clue sparked up any new theories for anybody, please let me know! I love hearing your predictions for this story!

And with that, I'm all out of things to say. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

I'll see you in five days with chapter 12!