The Edge of Siberia

Descent

Raising my heavy arms from their burial beneath the snow, I wriggled my spine like a worm struggling in muddy quicksand. I reached forward, in search of anything to grapple onto, fingers dug into the snow. As I clawed at it, my hands pulled back into my chest.

I scrambled harder in this claustrophobic restraint upon realising Hetti's absence. Thrashing my arms and waist around with my hips cemented four foot deep in the snow, my eyes darted across the vast mountain range, up and down every slope, triangulating at each shadow, corner and surface in sight. My skin grew number by the second as my heart pounded senselessly against my ribcage in panic. She's... gone. She can't be gone. Where is she? What's happened to her? She's hurt, i know it. What if she's...

"Aaaaaaa!"

I jolted to attention. The noise reran the course of my mind repeatedly - reran with hope; reran with worry. At this point, i'd felt like maybe it could have been too late to move if my legs were frostbitten too severely, having already been passed out here after the jump. I couldn't feel my lower body, let alone get up to go and investigate. Just as I rested my eyes, I heard another small mumbling cry from beneath the snow about 10 metres away. My heart slowed a little in the knowledge that she was at the very least still alive.

"I'm going to die?" Shrieked the muffled voice.

Sobbing took hold of me in learning the overwhelming responsibility that I didn't feel ready for and my heart sank. Maybe it was my fault that we nearly died. Maybe we should have taken a different route of escape. Tears dribbled from my eyes. Our parents rushed into my mind as hurridly as they would have in real life if they knew - their warm embraces on a cold winter's day. A scent trail of creamy beef stew luring us to the dinner table after hours of playing together in the glittering meadows. Beds for our bodies to forget the day in as the moon rose to wish us goodnight. A medicinal kiss to the wounds acquired by climbing high into the alder trees. His little monkeys, father used to call us.

Every nerve ending in my body burned me back into reality as my body became a permanent whizzing of pain and frustration. Propped up in a daze, my brain thudded in its cage and my stomach growled angrily.

Taking a second look towards the mountain ascent behind me, I peeled my eyes more directly into a little row of what looked like alcoves sitting about three quarters upmountain. Something about the way that mountain edge curled backwards into itself triggered in me feelings that resembled shelter and warmth, even if it did look eternally swallowing. Still, it can't have been any worse than this. What if something was up there? People; food. Or perhaps, something else was up there.

Smooth spirals of white atmospheric mist danced between me and the alcoves as hidden shapes emerged from its shadows.

A thick gust of wind whooshed into my face and seared my eyes with frost, leaving a bitter sensation on my nose. My arms flung themselves upwards in delayed response and I smudged ice into my face as I rubbed my eyes. I began to yank my body around harder than ever, harder and harder, crushing my skin against the tight void, back and fourth. I pushed upwards with my toes, up and up; I pulled upwards with my arms. Fractures began to break through the mountain's poker face when echos of minuscule groupings of rocks tumbled from atop the mountain. As they crashed into their graves, not a thing in sight appeared to startle - there was no life here. Claustrophobia began to plant its roots in me, preparing to bore its descent upon a fight. An avalanche was brewing in the hills.