Under the Snow

I am walking through deep pale snow. Its colour– or lack thereof– reminds me of the faces I had seen lying on the snow mere days ago. There is no visible sun in the sky but I keep track of time based on how tired I feel. I am hungry at all times. There is no food so my stomach is unreliable. I get rest twice a day. Rest of it, I trek through the snow. Right now, it is a good day; there is only light snowfall, not enough to hinder my movement and slow me down. Where I'm going, I do not know. I seek shelter, if there is any, and a way out if such a thing is possible. By my estimations, I have trudged for nearly two years in this wintry hellscape. I know not how many years it will take me to reach the end (supposing there is one).

I had travelled with nine companions before, very early on. Now, I travel alone. I remember few of their faces anymore and even fewer of their names. Annie. Annie is the one I remember the most fondly. She had been a force for good when we were depressed and losing hope. She gave fire to our cold souls. She brought us back from the brink of insanity. She was the first we lost. A snowstorm surprised us while we were climbing a white mountain. A sudden gust of freezing breeze knocked her off and pushed her tumbling down it while it blinded the rest of us. We scrambled below the top of the mountain, letting a pile of frozen solid snow shield us from the majority of the force of the wind, and waited for the blizzard to pass. We never found Annie.

My whole body is in constant pain of numbness and the feeling of being frozen. My left foot has long since forgotten how it feels on its sole to press itself to the ground while walking. It makes walking much harder than I'd like. I've sprained an ankle a few times. It does not stop me from moving, however. I need to press on. My hair is covered by a thick wool beanie and that is covered by a hood extending from my jacket. Still, I can feel that my hair is as solid as my finger, only a little thinner (I am much emaciated from starvation). I am clothed but I am not warm.

I keep walking, careful not to slip on any possible ice below the snow. Being hurt, while it would not stop me, never has, would hurt and slow me down. Thinking is not as dangerous a thing as one would imagine with as much time as I have. Most of the time, my mind is occupied by the sensation of the biting cold and simple acts of moving my feet forwards and keeping my balance. I hardly have time to miss my companions except when I rest. Then I grieve, but I do not shed tears. They would only leave freezing icicles on my face.

My stomach does not growl any longer. It has given up on food. I shovel snow and any ice I can break off into my mouth to melt and swallow it down to keep myself hydrated when I rest. I attempted to eat a couple of the fatter men in our group when they fell and did not get up but their skin and flesh were too hard for my teeth to tear off. I grow tired again. It feels as if I only just started walking. Perhaps, the periods of time I can move are getting shorter. Perhaps, it only feels that way. I can only hope for the latter.

I make pathetic camp where I stand. It consists only of me, lying in an area where I have attempted to clear off the topmost snow so that I will not sink in. I doubt the ground that I see and feel beneath me is any actual ground where, under a thin sheet of ice coating, lay soil or rock. I think there is only a very deep layer of ice and frozen snow beneath me. I cannot begin to guess how deep down it goes.

As I lie on the snow, munching on ice, I see trails of black smoke blowing across the sky some distance away. I am not attracted to start moving in the least. I know what I would find. The last of my companions had been lost to it.

We were walking through the white. We no longer talked. Not since Emmett fell. He was the most talkative in our group after Annie. I think he was a talk show host or something before. Maybe a podcast. He had plenty of stories to tell, to waste away time. Sometimes we listened but, more often than not, it only served as background noise to keep us sane. The muffled silence of the fields of colourlessness was enough to make one want to scream their lungs out at times. At least that's how I felt at the time. Even the deafening silence has lost its effect on me now.