The Train To Nowhere

prologue

        "ABEL!"

The voice I recognised hit me like a ton of bricks over the sound of the bitter wind. My name. The echoing, haunting scream was quickly carried away on the howls of winter, but I would never forget that voice until my dying day. A day that had felt terrifyingly close over the last week, creeping up on me like a ghost as pale white as the endless snow that surrounds this place. I couldn't feel my body. My lungs were gasping for air, but it was too cold for me. It felt as if it was cutting my heaving lungs, after long since slicing my blushing cheeks.

I tried to call back, stumbling forward desperately to respond to the sound. The sound that gave me life while I felt on the verge of death. With every ounce of energy and breath I called back, but it was no use. What came out was nothing more than a raspy croak, which was obviously drowned out. I was so quiet, I doubt even someone standing a few feet away from me would've heard it.

I dropped to my knees. I was shaking uncontrollably, as if in a fit, my teeth chattering rapidly, my bones aching to the point of immobility. My arms, legs, even my hands that were gloved were now breaking out in spasms. The end was close - I could feel it. I tried to call again, but no more than a croak. The third time I was so desperate, I heaved my body forward, my knees sinking into the icy snow as I attempted to scream back. At least this time a crackling shout escaped my mouth, but it was still far too quiet to be heard over the racket of weather. And I knew I had pushed my vocal chords to their ultimate limit. With another call, only breath sounded, crackling and scratching at my throat like a gramophone. My lips were dry as bricks, broken and bleeding. A drop of red in a canvas of white. This was it.

I needed her so badly. The desperation was all I had now that fuelled me not to fall to the floor. Desperation to keep going. Determination to reach her, or rather, for her to reach me now. A single tear leaked out of my squinting eyes, but dried up almost immediately on my cheeks with the gust of storms. Death was near. I didn't want to die, but if that was what it felt like, it was excruciating. I was too young to die. "Please God, don't let me die," I thought. "I'm only seventeen." It wasn't just for me. I was clinging on to life for her too. If I didn't, I didn't know what else I could do. Please, Please. For her.

But Death was impatient. And the hope I had for her ever finding me - my one and only fire inside this frozen hell, had been too vulnerable and snatched away like my breath and warmth. It was so cold now, I was starting to feel completely numb. The only thing I could vaguely feel were my fingers, but they were unsupported without my heart beating blood fast enough around me. I could feel its claws, slipping and sliding down my aching spine, spilling into my brain and enveloping my body like poison. Death. I was starting to crave it. I had long since lost my mind in the chill and when I died at least I would finally be free of this petrifying hell.

My body couldn't shake anymore. She was nowhere near and I was going to die alone. I accepted my fate. I slumped over into the snow, falling on to my side. I couldn't move my legs to curl up into a ball to conserve my body heat. I couldn't even twitch my hands to rub them together and create some sort of hopeful warmth through friction. She was too far to save me. Too late. Everything was going white now. Even the sky, which I knew was a pearly grey. I couldn't breathe.

I had changed from "Please God, don't let me die," to "Please God, do let me die. Let me slip away into endless sleep so I can escape this jarring torture of hypothermia. Please, God. Please."

My brain that before felt empty of thought except death, was remembering. I heard this is what happens when people are about to die. Their mind floods with happy memories of their life, of their loved ones, flashing through like a slideshow in a movie. Warm memories. Golden in my mind. The sound of her voice entered my head. The last beautiful sound I would hold on to as I drifted away. It was getting louder. I was slipping into a blurry whiteness. Louder still. It was getting closer. Closer...

"ABEL!"