Page 2 of Jack Frost
Just a few more steps.
My foot shifts forward.
The ice creaks and gives a little—but I'm already moving my other foot forward, and I can't stop it—
My weight lands on the unstable ice, and it folds under me, slanting inward. I fling up my arms, scrabbling wildly for purchase, suddenly energized; but my pack bears me down with its inexorable weight and I crash bodily through the broken ice.
For a moment there's nothing—the sucking absence of the whirling storm, and a freefall that flings my stomach into my throat, like the hideous, thrilling drop of a roller coaster. Except this roller coaster is going to end in icy shards spearing my flesh, or in a lake of lethally cold water.
My butt skims against something—snow? My boot heels graze a sheet of hardpack and I'm sliding, too far and too fast, rocketing down into the bowels of some underground cavern. There's a faint luminescence growing around me—a teal-colored haze of light licking the walls of the chasm.
The slide ends, and I crash onto an icy floor. Something in my pack crunches sickeningly upon impact. I end up belly down, with my pack crushing my spine.
Whimpering, I struggle out of the straps and heave the pack off me. I'm not sure where I am, or how stable the floor is. It feels thick and solid, but ice can be deceptive. It's a fact Luc is fond of repeating.
I try to get up—I really do. But my muscles have gone completely liquid. They will not obey me. All I can do is flip onto my back and lie still.
It's cold down here—the kind of deep, aching cold that only the poles of the Earth possess. Cold like bones and mortality, like the space between the stars. Walls of corrugated ice stretch for stories above my head, up into the dark.
I have no idea how deep this hole is.
The realization knots my stomach.
No one will ever find me.
My gloved fingers skate across my pack, searching for the pocket that holds the walkie-talkie. A quick glance confirms what I already suspected—it's broken. I'm not even sure I'd be able to use it from this far down, even if it still worked.
My breath hisses through my teeth, fast and desperate, and my chest heaves. I'm going into a full-blown panic attack in a second, down here, alone. I can't do that. I have to breathe, and think about the good things, the true things.
I rip away the scarf, dragging in ice-sharp gasps.
At least I'm alive.
The wind isn't trying to knock me flat anymore. No wind, which makes it feel slightly warmer.
I didn't impale myself on spears of ice, nor am I an Emery-popsicle bobbing in the blue deep. That's also good.
I don't think I broke any bones. I didn't hit my head.
The air is so cold it neutralizes taste and smell. But I can feel the soggy weight of my clothes. I can see the crystallized tears on my lashes. I can feel the soreness stretching through my limbs. The pain means I'mhere. Tired, but whole.
My breathing has already slowed. I spread my arms and legs out wide, like a kid making snow angels.
All right. I need to sit up and look around. Maybe lighten my pack to the bare necessities—although it's going to kill me to leave anything behind.
Maybe I should explore first and come back for the pack later.
My hands are so stiff with cold that I have to strip off my gloves and put my fingers in my mouth for a minute before I can extract the hard-frozen energy bars from one pocket of the pack. After tucking the bars into my coat pockets, I move forward into the cavern.
It's not so much a cavern as a very long, very wide hallway. Actually it reminds me a bit of the lobby at an opera house or a museum—except without any paintings, crown molding, or chandeliers. Just ice. Strangely luminescent ice. And a few sculptures here and there, very high up the walls—
Wait, what?
My feet stop moving.
I squint up at the spot that drew my attention.
Nature did not craft the hooked fangs or sharply planed face of that creature. Nature didn't etch the graceful fairy a few yards further, or the dragonesque being that seems to cling to the icy ceiling.
