Wonderer's Wish World 2: Evolutionary Rebirth

Ice to Meet You!

Day 14

Time: 3:58 PM

Location: Outskirts of Rime 12

It took a while, but eventually, the three found a place that wasn't quite so compact with ice that they could sink their shovels in, which they found out when Darius sunk into it himself, and Ai and Molly had to haul him out. After a bit of complaints, they got to work, sinking their shovels into the hole and hauling up the snow, throwing it to the side. At first their hole started small, width-wise, but as they dug more and more, they had quickly realized that they'd have to make it wider, enough to fit themselves in. The ground was much further away than they'd thought, and for some reason, Darius found that unnerved him. Maybe it was the literal feeling of the ground being ripped out from under him, but also... it felt almost unnatural, this much snow piled up on top of each other. It felt weird to know that they, and the base they went to sleep in every night, was much farther above solid ground then any of them had originally thought.

Darius shook off that strange thought, and continued digging, falling into the familiar pattern of pushing his shovel into the snow, lifting it up, and throwing it to the side, over and over again. With Ai and Molly, the three of them worked quickly, making the ground underneath them disappear. They were silent for long stretches of it, and though Darius frequently checked his watch, he could push back the feeling that they had gone past hours passing by, now, the days came and went, hidden by the thick cloud above them.

Darius straightened up, sighing as he stretched out his back, feeling horrible agony dance above it after being bent over for several hours. It was then that he suddenly heard a scream.

Darius and Molly quickly turned around, panic on both of their faces, but when their eyes met with Ai's, she only stood there, staring at them through goggles and layers upon layers of cloth. There was no sign of what possibly could have scared her.

"Guys..." she gasped wetly, sounding close to tears but also... happy?

"What is it?" Darius asked her, quickly.

"Are you hurt?" Molly cried. "Ai shook her head, beaming.

"No... No, look!" Ai exclaimed, and she moved aside, pointing to her plastic shovel sticking upright in the dirt. Molly tilted her head, seemingly as confused as Darius felt. They both studied the shovel closely, but couldn't see any reason that Ai could have screamed like that.

Perhaps sensing this, Ai took the shovel and heft it up for them to see clearer. Finally, Molly and Darius gasped, just the reaction she had been hoping for. When Ai spoke next, she sounded rather smug, but Darius hardly noticed for there was dirt on the end of that shovel.

"I told you!" Ai said, and Darius could hear a smirk.

"The ground," he gasped. "We made it!"

Without further delay, he started digging once again. There was only about a foot of snow on the ground to clear before, finally, his shovel hit the ground as well, and Darius could have cried in relief. He swung the rest of the snow aside with reckless abandon and fell to the cold, hard ground, relieved.

"We... we did it," Molly said. Darius looked to find her looking up to the sky in wonder, her gloved hand tightly clasped around her shovel. "I knew we could do it... I told you we could do it!"

Molly hadn't, and also neither of the other to had ever questioned it, but Darius shoveled his confusion aside, instead following her gaze up to the rolling clouds above them.

Darius hadn't realized how deep the hole had gotten. It was easily three times as tall as he was, and though the three had been careful, leaving a slope for them to climb out of and leaving them in the bottom of some sort of bowl type crater, but it was still easy to see the height of it, towing above them.