Hypothermia

Prologue

The journey over to Antarctica was long and quite dull if we're being honest here. Despite knowing that he was given the opportunity to do something next to nobody in the world would ever dream of doing, David was still dreading going to the south pole for the next 4 months. From the moment he boarded the plane he felt a sense of dread and anxiety. He glanced at his soon to be crewmates and sat in his seat and kept to himself for the beginning of the flight. He had been up for the last 20 hours just to get onto the plane; he was in no mood to socialise with other people at the time. He instantly went to sleep. He saw three other people on the plane when he woke up. Two women and one man so all in all including himself, there were going to be 4 people in this research station. He had joined this research team, which was looking into the biodiversity of the arctic and how climate change is affecting these animals and the overall environment, yet he didn't have a massive interest in the research goal himself. You see, from a young age he had been forced into science as a career by his parents, who themselves were both physicists. Out of all the sciences, Biology was the only science he himself could tolerate. That being said, he certainly didn't enjoy it. He supposed he joined this team in order to escape his troubles and stress whether it came from his unhappiness with his career or the overarching control from his parents but that's a topic for later anyway. He put on a pair earplugs and fell asleep.

3 hours later into the journey he decided to speak with his soon to be crewmates in a decision made purely due to his boredom. He edged his way over to the midsection of the plane where the rest of the crew were conversing.

"Hullo" He said.

They turned their heads and he was greeted back with polite nods and small "hellos" here and there. By surprise on his part, one of the women raised her hand and shook his.

"Hey, My name is Sam, This is Carmen and this is Jeffrey"

"Call me Jeff" He added

They all got to talking until they were told to go to their seats and watch the orientation video that would soon be played. David sat and stared at the blank screen in the front of his seat. It was the same kind of screen that you normally have on an economy plane except this screen was much larger. Suddenly the screen jolted to life and vibrant synthesizer music was playing almost as though this was a commercial flight. It almost felt like they were going to explain where the exits were in case of emergency. Everyone on board was rightly skeptical about the video. It was quite an odd choice of music to play. Anyway, A man walked into frame and gave a brief overview of their research goal. There were disclaimers that the recent blizzard that had attacked the station had caused some damage to relays across the base and whatnot so overtime they would have to work on solutions. The man further went on to explain that once they landed, they would have to move onto a boat in order to sail the rest of the way to their base area. You see, the landing stretch that they would have gone to had been rendered too dangerous to land on after the blizzard had completely covered it with snow and black ice the night before therefore, they had to sail there from a port in Argentina. The current temperature in their territory in Antarctica was -20 degrees Celsius so they had to be heavily suited up before leaving their base. But they had spent an extensive training period acclimatizing to the environment so if they didn't know they had to wear snow gear then they would be quite bad at their job. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. The video ended and David decided to get some more sleep.

He was woken up to prepare for landing so he adjusted his seat and got into landing position. Around 10 minutes later they had landed and they were on their way to the boat. Clearly Doctor Carmen didn't like boats because for the entire time that they were on their way to the base, She had a terrified and wide eyed look on her face. There wasn't too much to say about the boat ride to be honest. It was long, seasick inducing, cold and altogether quite boring. They were just floating across the water and eventually got off and walked toward the set up fleet of snowcats waiting for them on the snow. They rode for about 10 minutes until they finally reached their base, which for all the fuss it took to get there, was quite small. There was a main building, a small shed that seemed to be connected to the center and there were 4 structures surrounding and connected to the main hub in the middle. They were finally there.

Chapter 1: The Winter Wonderland

It was Nine in the morning, or so they said. During the "Winter" the sun was always down so it was impossible to tell the time without the clocks and the gear inside the base. When you're in Antarctica there isn't really a difference from day to day. Certainly not to the same extent that there is in a country like England. They had already been there for around two weeks. 16 days to be exact. Yet everyday felt bizarre to David. More so than he thought it would. He expected to already settle into his new home by now but every minute of every hour of everyday felt like he had just arrived. He suspected that it was probably because of the sun or rather, the lack there of. He got a move on and walked into the main living room, where Jeff and Carmen were playing poker. They were betting their rations of chocolate rather than money of course. David wished them a good morning and only Carmen returned the greeting. Jeff was under far too much stress trying to redeem the game, which he had absolutely no chance of winning. David moved over to the kitchen area and fixed himself a bowl of cornflakes and sat at the far end of the table keeping to himself.

After he finished his bowl of cereal he put on the snow gear and headed out. Since the late 90s, there had been multiple research teams staying in the base all researching the effects of global warming on local biodiversity. David's expertise was on the biological effects so they would constantly microchip penguins in the area. David's job was to catch penguins, scan for a microchip and update physical changes and characteristics of the bird whether they had changed or not. In the case that a penguin wasn't microchipped, it was Sam's  job to do that. She was fundamentally the veterinarian of the group. Carmen would constantly do environmental experiment's whether she would check the air or water temperature or the air pressure and whatnot. Finally, Doctor Williams was the doctor and medic. Every member of the crew was equally important and they had an efficient work flow and ethic. Despite where they were, they were strictly not allowed to explore the area. In fact, they were only allowed one mile outside in any direction. There was no real answer as to why this was a rule but the entire crew followed that rule anyway until today.

David stumbled through the bulkhead door and took in the view. There was nothing but white snow on the ground and dark sky completely surrounding him. During the Antarctic winter time, it's always dark no matter what time of the day it is. It was incredibly easy to lose track of time and location. Nonetheless he started scouting the area for penguins and scanning them. In around an hour he was able to find 4 unchipped penguins so he put them into a large steel crate and brought them to the base to be chipped. Around that time, Carmen or Doctor Lee as he always referred to her, went out in order to measure the atmospheric conditions around 0.75 miles north. David was coincidentally planning on going there too in order to scout out more penguins so they decided to go together. Carmen found this incredibly odd as she had barely talked to him for their duration in Antarctica but she thought that perhaps he was trying to open up. They advanced north together in a snowcat. He decided that he wouldn't take his chances crossing a frozen lake ahead so he decided to take a detour to the west.

There was a cringing silence in the snowcat. David had no idea what to talk about further and Carmen didn't either. The silence was eventually broken when the snowcat stopped and David said

"Alright, we're here". They dismounted the snowcat and did their research. Carmen started off with checks of seismic activity and followed by a temperature check however, this time she couldn't find water.

"I could have sworn there was a lake nearby this last time I was here" Carmen exclaimed

"Is it possible that it froze?"

"I suppose so"

Around 15 minutes later, David and Carmen were both done with their work. Carmen's findings were much more eventful than David's on account of the fact that there weren't any penguins at all. There should have been. The last 30 years had been dedicated to making the mile long diameter of the base a suitable and healthy environment. There should have been penguins there. David shrugged it off and considered it an anomaly. And that's when he saw it.