The air hangs heavy and still, thick with the smell of ozone and burnt metal. A muted, grey light struggles against the perpetual gloom of the winter landscape. Everything is coated in a thin, deadly film of ice.
The cold hit Kaito first. A deep, bone-grinding ache that settled in his teeth, under his nails. Then the ringing. A high-pitched whine that bounced around inside his skull, competing with the throb behind his eyes. He tried to move. A mistake. His back screamed.
He lay there, face pressed against something hard, gritty. Ice. It smelled like fuel, metallic and sharp, and something else, something burnt. He pushed a hand out, fingers stiff, clumsy. The ground was uneven, a churned mess of ice and broken metal. What was that? The skidoo. Or what was left of it.
He pushed up, a low grunt escaping his lips. Every joint protested. His neck felt like concrete. He blinked, trying to clear the haze. The world was a smear of grey. Grey sky, grey ice, grey humps of whatever they’d crashed into. Snow. Old, compacted snow, dusted with fresh powder. The wind was a low whisper, thin and constant, tugging at the frayed edges of his jacket.
His comms unit. Dead. He knew without even trying. The screen was spiderwebbed, black. He tossed it. No signal out here anyway. Not for miles. That was the point. Get lost. He’d done that, all right. Too well.
He slowly twisted, trying to get his bearings. The skidoo lay on its side, a mangled husk. Twisted chrome, ripped plating. One of the skis was bent at an impossible angle. Smoke still curled, faint, from somewhere deep within its guts. It wasn't going anywhere. Neither were they.
"Lena?" His voice was a raw rasp, swallowed by the wide, empty air. No answer.
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the dull ache. He forced himself to his knees, ignoring the protesting muscles. He crawled, dragging his useless legs, towards the wreck. Her pack was half-buried, straps splayed. His heart hammered, a frantic drum against his ribs. He pushed aside a crumpled sheet of metal. She was there.
Lena. Lying still. Too still. Her face was pale, almost translucent in the weak light. A trickle of blood, dark against her temple, had frozen solid. Her eyes were closed. Her breath? He leaned in, cold air stinging his nostrils. A shallow, shaky puff against his cheek. Barely there. But there.
"Hey." He nudged her shoulder. No response. He checked her pulse, pressing two numb fingers against her neck. Slow. Faint. But a pulse. Thank the damn ice. It had probably slowed everything down. Saved her, maybe.
He pulled his emergency medkit from his own pack, fumbling with the stiff clasp. Cold made everything harder. The tiny synth-gel patches felt like solid plastic in his hands. He peeled one, clumsy, and pressed it to the gash on her temple. It hummed, a low vibration, starting its work. He found another, for the scrape on her jaw. He checked her limbs, careful, listening for a gasp, a flinch. Nothing broken, it seemed. Just concussed. Badly.
He sat back on his heels, scanning the horizon. Nothing. Just the endless white, broken by distant, jagged peaks that looked like teeth. No lights. No structures. They were miles from anything. From anyone. They were exactly where they hadn't wanted to be.
His own body was screaming now that the initial shock was wearing off. A sharp pain in his left hip. His shoulder, a dull throb. He leaned back against the broken skidoo, trying to conserve heat. The grey light softened, the weak winter sun dipping lower, promising more cold. More dark.
"Lena," he tried again, a little louder this time. "You gotta wake up." He patted her cheek, gently. Her eyelids fluttered, a slow, painful movement. Her eyes, when they finally opened, were unfocused, glazed over. They scanned his face, unseeing, then flickered to the wrecked skidoo. Confusion. Fear. A flash of something else. Recognition.
"Kaito?" Her voice was a dry whisper, barely audible over the wind. She tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness hit her. She slumped back, groaning.
"Easy. Take it easy." He supported her head, easing her back down. "You took a hit. Bad one." He pointed to the synth-gel patch. "Working on it."
She reached up, fingers brushing the patch. "Where... where are we?" Her eyes were still unfocused, darting around. She wasn't seeing the details, just the overwhelming emptiness.
"Lost," he said, the word tasting bitter. "Skidoo's shot. We're on our own." He pulled his thermal blanket from his pack, an old military-grade foil sheet, and draped it over her. She shivered, even under its warmth.
"Comms?" she asked, her voice a little stronger now, though still hoarse.
He shook his head, holding up his dead unit. "Mine's slag. Yours?"
She fumbled at her belt, her movements sluggish. Her comms unit was there, cracked but not completely shattered. She pressed the power button. Nothing. The screen remained dark, a flat, dead rectangle.
"Damn it," she muttered, letting it fall back to her side. "Just like that, huh?"
"Yeah. Just like that." He looked around again. The light was fading fast. The temperature was dropping, noticeably. He could feel it in his bones. The wind picked up, a mournful howl now, kicking up stinging ice crystals. They needed shelter. Fast.
"We gotta move," he said, pushing himself up, pain shooting through his hip. He winced. "Can you walk?"
She tried to push herself up again, biting back a gasp. "My head... it's spinning." She swayed, almost falling.
He caught her, steadying her. "Okay. Okay. Not yet. We need a plan." He looked at the skidoo. Nothing salvageable for a shelter. Just twisted metal. The heavy plating, maybe. Too heavy to move. He scanned the horizon again, this time looking for anything. A rock formation. A cave. Anything that wasn't flat, open ice.
Far, far in the distance, a faint, almost imperceptible shimmer. A ghost of light. Or was it just his eyes playing tricks? The cold was getting to him, making his thoughts fuzzy. He rubbed his gloved hands together, trying to generate some heat. This was bad. Worse than bad. This was the kind of bad people didn't come back from. They'd ridden this far, outrunning whatever they'd outrun, only to crash here, in the middle of nowhere. A silent, frozen tomb.
He looked back at Lena, wrapped in the crinkling thermal blanket, her eyes still wide with a dazed fear. She was looking at him, waiting. Waiting for him to fix it. Waiting for a plan. He had nothing. Just the cold, the wind, and the slowly dying light. He stood there, shivering, the air growing thick with the promise of a deeper, more brutal freeze. The distant shimmer seemed to pulse, faintly. Or was it just a trick of the light, a desperate hope in the vast, empty grey?
“He stood there, shivering, the air growing thick with the promise of a deeper, more brutal freeze. The distant shimmer seemed to pulse, faintly. Or was it just a trick of the light, a desperate hope in the vast, empty grey?”