Story Scenarios

Frozen in Ice

(559)

I felt chills run down my spine and this time it wasn't from the downpour of snow. My hand shook with nerves as I raised it to the glacier of ice in front of me. I pressed my protected mitten hands against the huge ice wall, but even with the several thick layers of fabric, my fingertips still stung with the icy coolness of the blue ice. 

I could see something inside of the block, I was sure of it. The glacier was a strong blue from the frost and snow covering most of the ice. But there was a dark area, a shadow in the ice that clearly showed an object in that large glacier. Or a person as the dark silhouette didn't match anything else. It looked like an arm was reaching towards me as they shivered in their now icy tomb. 

I had to know if this was a person or was the raging blizzard causing obtuse paranoia in me. I moved my mitted hand across the ice, wiping the frost. I gritted my teeth as the wind quickly picked up and more snow dropped over me as if it was a weighted blanket. I continued to press my hand on the ice and wipe away the frost, but it was ineffective, only achieving smudges across the frozen wall.

I opened my mouth and suddenly realised how dry my lips were. It felt like they were cracking as my skin strained as I attempted to widen my mouth. I breathed on the ice, a white mist of air puffing out as my own breath became visible. I continued to breathe onto the ice, the cold mist of breath reducing in visibility each time. A window area on the ice was created were I breathed on. I pressed my face against the ice and immediately winced at the cold touch that jolted from my face to the rest of my body.

I took my face away and wiped my eye before pressing my face back against the ice. I narrowed my eyes in hopes that will miraculously let me see better. The dark silhouette now had colour and to my horror I realised I was right. The object encased in the ice was no object it was a person.

My mouth then dropped open and I felt my heart stop. I know that person, I recognise her. The woman in the ice was my mother, there was no denying it. I couldn't be one hundred percent certain; the ice made the inside blurry and the blizzard caused the usual light to be dim. But I recognise that hat, that stupid long straw hat brimmed with a blue ribbon. It was undeniably hers and the fact she was in here terrified me. 

She was dead, no person can survive a cryo-freezing. I took a staggered step back; I dropped the axe that I still held loosely in my hand and raised my hand to my mouth and covered my hung open mouth. I was in shock; this couldn't be happening. How the hell was it happening?

I saw her before I left, I waved goodbye to her, gave her a hug. I've been out here no more than an hour; how could she have gotten here and frozen? Not only that, she also said that she lost that hat a week ago.