Aurora Interval

Journey

Flashes of color saturated by darkness.

Odd reflections of light gleam off the trees.

Blur.

A ravenous cry cuts the night air.

Blood boils.

Voices .

Hunger.

Blackness.

Why does it feel like I’m sleeping inside a pinecone?

I wince from the pain as my eyes try to adjust to the harsh light of morning. It was dim where I was laying but the small opening to the outside was amplified by the reflective snow covering the landscape.

What the hell?

Memories start to trickle from their hiding places.

I was eating dinner with my mom…

My emotions caught on faster than I did as fear twisted my gut.

I started to burn…

My hands seemed to cover all of me at once as I checked to see if I was coal or still living.

A small sigh escaped me to ease my panicked breaths that I wasn’t aware I was taking. Still whole.

Wait…

Naked and whole. Naked and outside in the snow. Naked in the forest by myself…

WHY WAS I NAKED!?

I tried to remember the burning. I only got as far as the shower before my memory turned into shapes and colors.

What happened?

The only explanation that could be crafted in my still bleary mind was the complete and total loss of my sanity as I ran through the woods until I passed out. I probably tried to cool off in the snow. It made sense. I was practically cooking, what else would I have done to stop the heat?

Wait…

Why am I still alive? Yukon wasn’t known for its warm snowy nights. I had no clothes, and I had spent the whole night out here if it was morning.

I fought the terror of the idea that I had been out longer than a day.

My mother would be an emotional wreck if she survived the initial shock.

I took a more careful notice of the area around me. I was in the shelter of snow laden tree limbs. It was some sort of pine, which explained why my skin itched from all the pine needles and pine cones under me. The little points indented my skin and clung to the side of my face as I tried to brush some of them off.

I attempted to look outside, but the stark contrast of light made it difficult to keep my eyes open. I closed them sharply to see the image burned into my vision.

A pair of sunglasses would be swell right about now.

Endeavoring to ignore the prickly needles on my knees and hands, I inched closer to the small exit and poked my head out. I was hopeful that I would recognize the space since I had explored the woods surrounding my house since I was a child, but this scene looked foreign, and the field that faced me even more so with the blanket of snow covering it.

I tried to keep a grip on my alarm.

It’s ok Nirr. Just take a second to think. You’re a Conservation Officer. You’ve been trained to survive in the woods.

You were on foot so you can’t be too far from the house. You couldn’t have run more than a mile before you passed out. The woods look different because of the snow. You could be less than five minutes away from home and not even know it.