The Memories of White

Prologue

My feet thundered over the ground and the icy air was making my lungs ache. The snow was slowly, inevitably falling to the ground covering everything in white. White all around me, on the ground, on the mountains and on the skeletal trees lining my way.

It replayed in my mind, the memories of white. Of the woods and of being lost. Of screaming for help and not being heard. Of being left without goodbye.

Then the memories were replaced by the now, and the sound that shattered the silence of the quiet mountains covered by snow.

The awful grinding of metal against metal, shrieking and unwilling as it was bent into new shapes. It was losing the form of the past, and being replaced by the shape of my new future.

I looked ahead as I was running, trying to see between the tears and the falling snow. Hoping that the sound was the worst of it. Hoping against hope that all was okay. That all was fine.

I reached the crest of the hill and could finally see the scene below me. See what I had been running towards and from at the same time. See what I already knew but had hoped to be wrong about.

What lay below me was so much worse than I had feared and I felt my heart stop. Behind me I heard the thundering steps of my friends following me. They were shouting but I could not make out the words.

Pausing only for a moment before I started running again, this time at a breakneck pace. The gentle slope making my speed almost uncontrollable. The air making my lungs explode with every breath. My legs begging me to stop. I was willing myself onwards while ignoring the part of me that just wanted to turn around and run screaming the other way. Run home and hide under my covers and pretend that this was all a bad dream.

Reaching the bottom of the hill I could see it all. It was right there in front of me and it crushed all hope. It was all broken, so, so broken. We had been broken before but never to this extent, and now it would never be fixed