Snow Man

Chapter 4 - the list of the lost

I heard a snap. I thought I screamed. I tried opening my eyes, to see why my arm felt as if it was being ripped from my body by billions of daggers all pulling at once. But, it's if my eye are glued shut. I try harder and harder to get them open, or to move a part of my body.

But I can't.

Nothing will obey orders.

I can feel my limbs, they are still all attached, but they are very distant. I feel the pain in my head and arm very clearly, I can almost see the damage to my body. It's overwhelming. I am conscious of the cold on my body. The ice. The hard ground. And then the feeling of being air-born. With arms around my legs and back. I tried focusing on that. The body heat I figured was coming from my father. With his jolting movements I could tell he was walking, and that he was hurt. I wanted to open my eyes, and walk myself so he wouldn't feel this pain. But the numbing in my legs had grown stronger, and I knew that wouldn't be possible.

I wanted more than anything to take my burdened weight from him. I wanted him to just put me down in the snow and leave me to die.

But I know he would never leave me.

Even if I died in his arms he would carry me to a safer places.

And when I do die, his soul will die with me.

He abruptly stopped, shaking me from my thoughts. I felt my body being slowly lowered again. But wasn't worried, no matter what he was my father he would always do the right thing by me.

All of a sudden I felt warmth. The warmth that you get when you stand close to an open fire. It feels better than anything.

I need this warmth.

I need to keep conscious.

I need to show my father I am alive.

I need him to know that I'm not trying to leave him. That I'm not going to stop fighting.

He needs me, as much as I need him.

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I stagger helplessly towards Annie again. White cotton shirt in hand. The bleeding and slowed to an almost stop, from a distance it looked as if it had stopped altogether. But my hope for that slowly died as I got closer and saw her pale white face and the slow dribble of blood running down her head into her hair and along the sides of her delicate face.

I knelt next to her head, properly taking in the damage I had done.

The cut on her forehead was and still is deep enough to reach her skull. I could have touched the hard bone if I had wished to. From what I could see the majority of her blood was in her hair. But looking around the car wrecks her blood is everywhere, it had dripped onto the car roof, alone the road when I carried her, there was a puddle of blood where I sat with her moments before, and lifting her head a smaller pool of pure red blood was dribbling out of her hair.

I made a list that I never wanted to make.

Of things I had to check her for.

Of what I had to try my hardest to avoid.

I made a list of the different ways she could die.

She could die of blood loss

Could catch hypothermia

Head trauma is possible

And of exhaustion.

All of these are hard to prevent with the supplies I have. And the head trauma and exhaustion I can do nothing about.

Blood loss and hypothermia are both more likely to occur in these conditions. And I can at least try to help her.

'I have to be serious' I told myself.

'I can't lose her too.'