The Last Vikings

#FaceYourFears

I scuttled backwards on my bum, my heels kicking up a flurry of snow.

Oh shit.

There was no way I was going up to those dark portacabins now. I backed around Luca's body and, mewling like a run-over kitten, half sprinted, half limped, back towards the light of the hotel.

I wasn't equipped for this.

This couldn't be my reality. It couldn't.

It was.

I turned fearfully towards the mast when I reached the hotel door, like I might see a cartoon green flash or buzzing lightning strike dart out to pierce me.

Of course, I didn't. The fact that I might hit me silently, invisibly, was somehow much worse.

Reception was still deserted.

I had to get help.

For a moment, careering through the icy corridors past the noiseless bedrooms, I was stricken with the fear they were all empty, I was the only person left alive.

In fact, when I pulled back the curtain to Ruben's room, that's what I was convinced I would find.

Nothing.

Not two glossy, black sleeping-bag slugs, curled up on the ice-block bed.

"Ruben," I rasped, my voice hoarse, throat rubbed raw by running. "Ruben! Wake up!"

There was a murmur from the bed, the sleeping bags moving.

"Ruben!" I went up to the biggest one and tried to shake what I assumed was his arm. "Ruben, you've got to wake up! It's an emergency!"

A groan came from within the bag.

"Jennie?" The voice was sleep-heavy, confused, and it wasn't Ruben's.

Suzie's screwed-up face poked out of the other bag. "What are you doing in here? What time is it?"

"Some time after five," I said, still desperately shaking Ruben. "We've got to wake him up. Something—something terrible has happened. We need to do something, now."

"Is it a fire?" Suzie sat up promptly, struggling out of her bag, her panicked eyes on the door. "Are we all going to burn? Oh God, Ruben! Wake up! Ruben!"

Finally, with another groan of protest, Ruben came to.

He slurred at me from within the sleeping bag. "What the fuck, Jennie? What's going on?"

"It's happened again, Ruben," I said, tears rimming my voice. "I saw it... in the snow. Just like Sam."

Ruben grunted and flipped over, burying his face in the bag. "I can't do anything. Go tell the staff. We can talk in the morning."

"There are no staff, Ruben." My voice was rising, both hands trying to flip him over, startle him awake. "It was Luca. It was Luca, Ruben. You need to wake up!"

Finally, he sat up, making a guttural noise like he was irritated by the inconvenience of this tragedy, that it had happened in the vicinity if him.