Eternal Winter

Broken Ignorance: Part I

The wind roared around us, pitting sharp stabs of snow against my face. The air only grew colder as we hiked higher and higher, even as my breaths grew shorter and quicker. My lungs felt the sharp edge with each step and yet, no amount of persistence had Jakob give me a direct answer on our target destination. Instead, we moved in silence. Silence except for the wind that followed this endless trek.

A short, muffled cry came from beside me and a blur of motion fell out of sight. My hand shot out and immediately latched onto Sammy's flailing wrist. The swirl of snow nearly masked my vision, but I could see the gray of his hat bobbing as he pulled himself upright, tightly gripping my hand all the while. Instead of letting go, I kept hold of him.

From up ahead, I could hear Julian's voice fade in and out. I shouted, "What?!" into the swirling void—my own voice immediately silenced.

A vague shape started to become clearer, and along with it, snippets of Julian's voice, "Careful of—We're almost—the storm—worse."

I looked to Sammy and repeated the message as well as I could. The dark smudge of his gray hat bobbed once in understanding. Together, we tucked our heads down and moved farther into the storm.

With each subsequent step, I could feel the wind resisting—it felt more than a winter storm, and more than a mountain one. It was almost like...a barrier?

Without a conscious thought, I had already moved my free hand to press against the dense wall of wind. A tickle at the back of my mind beckoned me. A tingling in the tips of my fingers signaled a far distant reminder. My breath came out slowly, the faint whistle immediately picked up by the roar.

I took one more step closer. Then, my feet were slipping out from underneath me. A harsh tug came from my hand connected to Sammy and I was pulled down and away from my position.

We tumbled. Suddenly, nothing in my already limited vision made sense. Up spun into down and right and left whirred passed before comprehension. The one tether was locked in a vice, as I gripped Sammy's hand—then, a shot of pain through my wrist. My eyes winced shut and the pain was pushed away. With clenched teeth, I dug my heels into the deep, too soft snow.

"Sammy! Brace!" I yelled out, my voice snatched up in an instant and snow flung into my open mouth.

There was the minute tightening on my hand. The next moment, I screamed, "ICE," my voice running raw as a pulse sparked through my veins. A pulse through the snow, and it hardened. Hard enough for my boots to scrape against, to grind us to a stop. A too sudden stop.

The momentum threw Sammy still farther. My wrecked hand still hung tight. My shoulder was wrenched forward and a twinge of pain travelled down to meet my wrist, but braced against the hardened ice, I kept myself steady and dragged him back up to me.

We both panted as we caught our breath and leaned heavily on the ice to our backs. My eyes opened to stare up at the gray-blue stained sky. With a groan, I righted myself up, only to immediately snap my head up once more as I took in the suddenly clear surroundings. My eyes were drawn to movement coming from farther up the slope. Julian and Jakob were hurrying down to us, both closer and farther than expected. I glanced down, passed my ice marker, and into a smattered grove of trees another steep hundred yards away yet. With a thin trail of melted snow slithering down my back, I shivered.

I moved to help a dazed Sammy up, but found I couldn't stand up myself. My eyes travelled up the tiresome path we travelled along only minutes ago to see Julian and Jakob hurrying down towards us.

Julian met us first, his breath fogging up the air around his head with frenzied pants. He flung his pack to the ground and stomped through the knee-deep snow to us. His hand stretched out once he reached the edge of the snow-ice. Gingerly, breathing through the pain, I helped Sammy move to meet him. The two of them made it back to the trail where Jakob waited.

Slowly, I swung my feet off the ice and plunged them into the soft snow. Julian was at my side in another second. "Is it your arm?" he asked as he carefully helped me along.

I nodded mutely, tense as the pain grew to a throbbing wave of heat radiating down the entirety of my arm.

His lips pressed into a firm line. He motioned for my pack and I shook my head, giving him a weak smile. A bead of sweat was shivering at my hairline, and still, I hiked the pack higher onto my shoulder and headed for the trail again.

He cursed under his breath as he followed me. "How much farther yet?" he shouted.

Jakob pointed up to the summit, easily in view. "Right there, my friend. Let's help these two up there." 

The four of us trekked back up to the spot where we had fallen from. I tentatively reached out my hand but met nothing except open air. "What happened with the barrier?" I asked quietly.

Jakob gave me a wry look. "I thought it was your doing—before I even had the chance to announce our arrival, it was already down, just as the both of you went tumbling."

I gave him a tight, skewed grin. "Air's one of my specialties."

His eyes sparkled with a strange light, and then he turned away and continued on.

The moment I stepped forward after him, a wall of warmth hit me. Another few paces and we were cresting onto the summit, faced with an impossible view: a clear blue, blue sky with a blindingly bright, white sun. It was too much for my eyes, but I could not look away. Too used to the gray-blue sky mangled with darker gray clouds, I stood frozen, transfixed at the sight.

A hand fell over my eyes, blocking the view, but giving my straining eyes a welcome reprieve. I batted it away, but the dark hand did not move away. "If you continue to stare you may go blind, madam," he said with a gentle, lilting tone.

I gave a soft sigh and gingerly removed Julian's hand. "Fine," I stated. I looked to him, but his face, as well, was upturned towards the sun, albeit with eyes gently closed. His brows were pinched ever so slightly and a tension ran along his jawline. My mouth closed with whatever words I was about to speak, and I instead took in the rest of our surroundings.

A stretch of land bare of any snow laid before us with every free inch of soil teeming with life. The plants bore plump fruit and bright flowers and the trees were full—leaves, the word whispered at the back of my mind. They were a deep green neither like the dark wintery evergreens or the vines of pale, hard plants that sprouted along forest floors or even the faded green-brown of dead grass if you dug far enough under the snow. These were a lively, vibrant green, rustling their smooth, wide, heart shapes ever so lightly with a warm breeze that brushed along and curled around a tender, blue flame in the center of the summit's clearing.