The Blizzard

Chapter 3

A sea of white covered the world. More snow were still falling, and it was getting heavy. I swore in my pikachu speech. The problem with Faraday's weather pattern was that snowstorms tend to occur without warning. Tropical storms tend to form in the southwest, and if they roll in during periods of cold they don't drop rain, they drop snow. This storm was dropping tons of it, which was bad because I didn't have any winter gear on me. If I started hiking my way back home, my feet, hands, and tail would freeze, and it's a long hike back home.

My internal clock told me it was roughly five-forty, I had some twenty minutes for the next check-in. Right now I needed to get warmed up. My aging frame may have enough fat and fur to insulate me, but not much fuel in the tank to burn. So I grabbed a nearby stick and poked it through the sheet of snow that covered the firepit. A fizzle of steam came out. I turned over the tinder and logs I had set out last night, the areas touching the firepit were charred black from the heat but they hadn't ignited. I went back inside the burrow and grabbed armloads of logs, then stepped out and laid them across the firepit. I dumped all my twigs on the platform and batoned more sticks into manageable pieces. Snowflakes pelt the back of my neck, melting upon contact. Through it all I cursed and swore with a mixture of human and pokémon words and slangs. My temper heated me up, but I knew that was fool's gold. Temper steals energy, and I didn't have much energy to give.

I grabbed my magnesium rod out and my survival knife's sheath. I placed the back of the blade against the rod and scraped off some shavings into the bundle. My feet and tail started going numb. I bit my lower lip and readjusted my stance, I then placed the tip of my magnesium rod against the tinder nest and scrape down hard with my knife. A flash of sparks bellowed from the rod and caught the intricate fibers of the tinder nest, I gently blow on the embers and they soon burped out a small flame. I then scooped up the smoking tinder nest and placed it deep into my pile of kindling, the flame slowly grew and spread.

From there I just kept batoning more sticks and feeding the small blaze. I felt the fire's heat begin warming my core, hot blood rushed back to my feet and tail and I was rewarded with a thousand needle pricks against my skin. When I was sure my fire could hold its own, I got out my steel bottle and poured some water into my cup. I then shook the bottle, half empty. I stuck my cup into the fire before filling it up with snow. Problem using snow as a water source is that it doesn't hold much water, since snow is mostly air. Ice would be a better source, but I had more than enough snow to boil around me. So after I filled up my steel bottle with snow, I stuck it in the fire, then grabbed my canteen and filled that up with snow as well. I took the canteen out of its sheath and stuck that into the fire. Once my water production line was up and running, I pulled out my tablet and turned it on.

The tablet felt cold, which made me worried for a moment that it might've frozen overnight. It booted up without any problems. I sent out a text message to my usual recipients. Started to become snowed in. Got a fire up and running and started boiling water. Exercising caution. I sent the message and checked the weather app. Sure enough, there was a winter storm on its way, and it was coming in fast. I grabbed my emergency beacon out of my pack and hit the caution button. An orange light glowed, followed by a loud beep. When I released my thumb, the tone went silent, it took another few seconds of processing before the orange light went dark.

The fire was warming me up like a charm, I decided to crack open my pilfered food. Getting food in me was a must, the cold was sapping my body heat and I'm burning precious calories just to stay warm. Before I started eating, I checked on my water. The snow I had crammed inside my bottle, cup, and canteen had melted and were starting to boiling. I scooped up more snow and shoved it into the bottle and canteen, I picked up my boiling cup of water with two wooden sticks and sat it aside. I reached into my backpack and pulled out some V-meat, I peeled the lid open and cut chunks of the pinkish meat out of the can with my knife and dumped each piece inside the cup. I added the cup back into the fire, let it boil for another minute, pulled it out of the fire and dug in with my hobo tools. The slimy fat and oil raked across my taste buds. I had been eating nothing but MREs for two days straight and the change of taste and texture reinvigorated my body with energy. After eating all the V-meat, I let the cup cool a bit longer before drinking down the leftover oils.