Pana: Flight from the Past

Off the Scent

Pana ran through the darkness as fast as they could, not daring to look behind, pushing their feet through huge banks of snow. The standard yorback hide boots that most villagers wore weren't enough to keep the wet chill from seeping into Pana's toes and up through their legs. As if matters hadn't already been bad enough, Pana had run out of the door before they were able to grab their warmest coat. There hadn't been any time.

It began to snow. A few light flakes floated down around Pana's head, gently falling to lay on top of the already massive snowbanks. Clouds as dense as ice fell lower towards the earth, smothering everything with their presence. After a few moments, a gust of wind nearly pushed Pana onto their back, tossing thick globs of snow and ice into their face. Pana threw their hands above their face, shielding their eyes, still trying to move forward. Were they moving? They really couldn't tell. Pana was too distracted to notice that they could no longer feel their legs.

Vision was almost useless at this point. All that existed was the white of the snow and the black of the back of their eyelids as the gale forced them to blink. Even if they were moving, Pana couldn't tell where they were moving to.

Pana fell face first into the snow. Their foot had sunk deeper into the snow than they had realized, and they no longer had the energy to lift it out. Tugging to the left and then the right, Pana tried to dislodge their foot to no avail. They leaned forward and grabbed the snow with their hands as if to pull themself out, but their arms were just as useless as their snowbound legs. Instead of freeing themself, Pana lay face down on the snow, unable to muster the energy to continue trying, hoping that suffocation was a quicker process than they had been led to believe.

And then, suddenly, they were moving again. Not walking, but rolling, rolling down the hill of snow that they had climbed without noticing, picking up speed with every passing moment, spitting out snow as they went. Pana closed their eyes. There was no point wondering how their foot had come loose from the snow. Falling down the hill didn't hurt. There were no trees to bounce into, no shrubs to avoid, no icicles that threatened to impale them. In fact, it felt good. As they fell, they let themself go limp, relinquishing whatever desire they had for control. Control was not something familiar to Pana, though they tried their best to retain some sense of it in their life, never admitting that they had none, never giving up the hope of...the hope of something better.

Pana hadn't noticed at first, but they had stopped falling. How long had it been? Maybe a few seconds? Minutes perhaps?

The wind screamed nearby, but Pana couldn't feel it brushing against their skin. Were they so cold, so utterly defeated, that they could no longer feel the sting of the wind?

Opening their eyes, Pana looked up at the ceiling of a cave. The cave may have been constructed of rock, but it had been so ensconced in ice that there was really no way of knowing what the original structure was made of. Even the walls and the floor seemed to be coated in ice, though there was a sprinkling of snow near the cave entrance.

There would be no climbing out of that entrance. It was above Pana. They had fallen through it. Vertically. A pile of snow descended from the entrance like a slide, but it was too steep to climb up. In Pana's condition, it was impossible. This cave would be the last place Pana ever saw - of that, they were certain. And, somehow, someway, that was okay. Death had been a real possibility when Pana had set out, but now it was set in stone. Knowing how their story would end and knowing they had avoided the fate that awaited them if they had remained in the village was wonderful. In a way, they were free.

The ice above appeared to sparkle. It was beautiful, really. Not unlike the waves of the ocean during the month in which it wasn't frozen. They would rise and then fall near the shore, as if they were trying to scoop light out of the atmosphere. More light would just reflect off of the top of the waves. It took a moment for Pana to think about why the ice was sparkling. Without moving their head, they glanced to the side. The icy ceiling deeper in the cave was not just sparkling, but the blue light reflecting off of it seemed to be flowing over the ice, constantly moving.