The Blue Traveler

Melting

I wake up and I’m alone. Unlike before, everything is dark. Shapes jut out easily and things seem to be all sharp angles. Rectangular.

I breathe slowly and my breath comes out… frosty. It drifts in above me and then it vanishes. Lying here won’t do me any good so I sit up and I can’t, I’m too weak. I try again with more effort and I fall forward. I can’t get up again so this seems counterproductive.

Eventually I do and I move with small, deliberate steps. It sounds like I’m stomping all over the place.

Where am I?

Everything is frigid and blue. Stagnum’s bubbly personality would really brighten up the place. I don’t think I’ll bump into anybody here- everything is too… obvious.

But then, of course, a door from nowhere opens and out steps somebody I’ve never seen before. He stops right in front of me. He stares off into the distance, not meeting my eyes. His eyes are glazed.

“Are you Aqua?” he asks.

“Um… Yeah?” I say. Why’s he being so formal?

“I am Glaciallis.”

“That’s good.”

He doesn’t seem to understand my joke. Maybe he doesn’t know what humor is.

“This pond has been frozen over for six months. Luckily, some warmer weather came with the storm you were in.”

It was very warm up there, I thought, remembering.

“According to these Assignment Cards, you are my Melting Partner. Do you affirm this accusation?”

I try to speak in a clipped way like him. “I do confirm to this,” I say.

“Then let us go to the Ready Room. It is this way,” he says, turning the way he came.

The halls go in all kinds of directions. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left right left right left right left right left right left right-

Then we are in the Ready Room. I did not even notice; I was so busy with the hallways, how did they go? Oh- left, right, left, right, left right left right left right left-

“Melting in T-Minus 1 second.”

That was quick.

I have nothing else to do, so I think again, left right left right left right-

Then an unbearable heat that saps me out of my trance. It feels like something burrowing underneath my skin, white-hot and… familiar. The tension in my body releases, and I feel sleepy. And numb. No, now I’m itchy. Which is it? Numb or itchy? Numb or itchy, numb or itchy, numb, itchy, numb, itchy…

Numb.