Mind of Ice

Specialty. Money. Business. Inherit. These words that go through Ledger’s head as he slides down the massive mountainside cause more dread than pleasure. This trip was supposed to be relaxing, a chance to clear his head, but as trees pass quickly out of his range of vision he can’t stop thinking about real life. Real life meaning his father and all he has planned to make Ledger’s life harder. All the things that are supposed to be needed and accomplished before he starts college. All the troubles with girls and social drama he’s had for the past months, and now the fact he can’t shoulder is that real life means inheriting a business he absolutely doesn’t want to run. He doesn’t want piles of meaningless money; he doesn’t want the power to decide if someone stayed alive for a few more days or if they were cast out from society. All he wanted was peace and solitude. He isn’t fit to run it, no, he doesn’t even want to be a businessman. He only wants to do whatever he can to defy his father. That is the sole purpose of his life, to overrule authority and run on his own. He earned the title “lone wolf,” and he wants to keep it.

“Ledger!” His skis slice through the snow as he heard his name over the whipping and tugging of the wind on his ears. “Ledger, is that you? I need your help over here.” His friend’s shout drew him away from his thoughts and over to a mound of ice. There, buried deeply in the pile of snow, was a frozen figure of fur and tangled claws that couldn’t be called natural. The thing tried to speak, but the muffled squeak that came from its tiny, parted jaws died away as soon as it hit the air. Ledger started sliding again, digging his poles in the ground to give his skis a boost, and sent the snow out of his way as he strode over to his friend.

“What is it?” Ledger shouted, still a long way away from reaching the creature and his preoccupied buddy.

“It looks like a dog, but it’s so messed up I can’t be certain.” As Ledger got closer, he saw what his friend meant. Still out of reach but close enough to call upon the large details of the thing’s outer appearance, he saw it shiver in the cold. Its grey fur was roughed up and matted, and its face was buried under heaps and heaps of opaque fuzz. The thing was small enough to be a baby, but when Ledger’s friend drew the hair out of its face, its eyes had the wisdom that only time and pain brought. It’s feet flexed claws twice as long as normal, worn and incapable of killing. Nothing like Ledger has ever seen before, but he didn’t see it much longer.

“Ledger?” His friend cried out as he turned and found no Ledger, but a few rough marks in the still falling snow leading downhill where he must have sped off. Only Ledger didn’t go by choice. A branch laden with snow and ice, carrying too much weight, broke off from a tree and came crashing into the ground with a crack and a pop. It could’ve headed for Ledger, but God decided to spare his life. Instead, snow from the tumbling log swirled into his face with a snowy blast that scarred his goggles. It cleared all the images of the wolf-creature and all the stress of his financial situation faded away. None of that remained and finally his head was cleared of every thought but the snow. The blissful, peaceful snow that covered his sight and made him tumble down and lose balance. It made his trip over the same log that spared his life and swivel downhill instead of continuing his course. It chocked his vision and cut off every living thing from reaching his eyes. Then finally, as he let go of his poles to stop himself from being impaled as he tumbled backwards, he stopped. His harshly layered clothes prevented any real abrasions, but his head was spinning. He heard his name, over and over on repeat, but he couldn’t speak. It was too much to think about.

Ledger removed his goggles and wiped away the snow, his vision blurred for a moment and his brain became fuzzy, but then he cleared his thoughts and saw what was in front of him. Massive walls of ice. A massive tunnel of ice covered by a thin layer of snow to disguise the danger underneath. This had been here for years, and he never knew about it. Ledger had been coming to these hills since he was a baby, but never before had he seen anything like this. It was a miracle Ledger was even alive, and that he didn’t feel the immense pain that should have overtaken him when he hit the ground. For that he was slightly grateful, or he would’ve been if his head wasn’t throbbing and pulsing and whirring.

The hole in the celling that showed how Ledger found himself in this place was dark and barley visible against the starless night sky. Had he passed out? Was he unconscious? Was this a dream? Maybe that was why his fall didn’t hurt. It was still light outside when he had fallen, and the sun couldn’t have disappeared in seconds unless something happened to him. How much time had passed? Hours? Days? No pangs of hunger ate at his belly, so he figured hours.

“Hello!” His voice rang out amid the canyon and echoed around the empty night. No one was coming for him. No matter how much he wanted to believe help was on its way, no one knew about this place.

“What about Rubin, he saw me fall.” Ledger thought aloud, and even his slight whisper bounced around the icy walls that made his feelings compressed and built up until he thought he might explode. “So, this is depression?” He continued to speak his thoughts, grimacing over every detail until he lay down, ready to give up and let the cold carry him away. Then he saw it, and heard it, and wanted to run away.

“Warroo. Warrooo. Maybell!” The voice was strangled and lonely, echoing around until it was so faint it disappeared entirely. There, at the source of the sound, was a small kindling flame. Smoldering and rigging its lacy tail through the cold, crispy air. Ledger shivered and worked his way over to the dot of red against the seemingly endless ice tunnel. The spot he fell through added just a touch of light, but not enough to make him comfortable to go on quickly. So, he slid through the shadows and wound up before a heavily roaring fire, that was warm enough to heat his fingers and toes, but not much else from a distance. He didn’t dare approach the silhouette of a man that appeared bedside the red ball of light. Ledger figured he could get a few more feet in before the man noticed he was there, so Ledger moved towards the heat while the man’s back was turned. Ledger looked around and saw thousands of other tunnels connected into this epicenter, his massive tunnel, and he shivered when he imagined what was lurking in the dark depth behind the shadows. The man didn’t noticed Ledger, so he took his opportunity and inched for the fire, letting the warmth seep into his body and ward off frostbite for a little longer.

Instead of wood, the fire burned on a plate. A silver, metal plate that seems to feed the flame enough to keep it alive. Nothing in this place made sense to Ledger, nothing about it seemed logical or natural. The chilling pain and the cold that froze his brain until all of it became a lull of mixed thoughts and senseless, unintelligible rambling that made him question his sanity. It would burn until it couldn’t find anything else to scorch and torture, and finally then Ledger would be defeated.

“Warr orr war oh! Maybell!” The man screams and flips his head when Ledger’s foot crunches a block of solid ice beneath his weight. His face looked nothing like a human’s. It was contorted to fit the darkness. Lumps forming over his skin to mark the past with the hair that stuck straight up and frayed as the man’s bald spot grew made Ledger realize how far gone this place was from the world. This was a place no one should be, but here they were.

“War, oh war! War tuk Maybell! Warrroo Warroo Maybell!” Ledger tried to shush him, but his voice rang out against the pasty, cold air. “Waarooo!” Ledger could see this man’s pain, but as he saw movement from within the shadows, he realized he needed to be alive if he could feel any sympathy. He clapped a hand over the man’s mouth to muffle the sound, but it was too late. The thousands of tunnels held thousands of occupants that looked roughly the same as Maybell’s husband. They too were disfigured and contorted to be part of this world. Some had more lumps than others, some carried more scars, some were big, some were small, but still they were all here together. They were all in this mess together. Ledger looked upon them all, as they came into the light, and found their pupils to be disoriented as well. A grey fog clouded their eyes, making everything about them dim. Instead of popping colors and bright gazes, Ledger was met with hard and unfeeling stares from these lifeless souls. Ledger knew he had to get out, but, how could he?

He was surrounded, and the group kept pressing closer, highlighting more of their hideous features. One had a punctured lip that blood oozed from, another had more lumps of his skin than could fit, and the worst yet wasn’t even a person. It was the same distorted animal that brought him into this mess. Its eyes were a blood-shot red and its fur was black instead of the mangled grey. It had claws that were twice the size of its body. It towered over Ledger as he tried not to show fear before it, but he couldn’t stop his shoulders from trembling before its evil grandeur. To call it an animal would be misguided, it was neither animal nor human. It was a monster.

 It approached Ledger with an evil grin as its lips lifted to show yellow teeth. Then it lunged, straight for Ledger. He gasped as its mouth closed over his arm, and the wet slobber dribbling from its jaws made lumps appear on his own skin. The beast removed its grip on him, and revealed mounds of his skin fused together to create a mass of memories on his arm. It shone like the past; and made Ledger remember the true thing that brought him here. Stress. He thought of his father, and all his unfulfilled promises. Ledger still had a life, but there was no escaping this. This was his life now.

Years may have passed. Ledger had no idea how much time he spent in the tunnels. Eventually the spot he fell through repaired itself and he was left in the darkness with no way out. Ever day he explored his tunnel, finding only more darkness, and the further he got the less the fire on the plate would shine. Soon it went out completely, and he couldn’t think anymore. All his thoughts were rooted on the life he never had, and that broke him down until every day was just a reliving of the past.

 He often felt the dog come and place its malicious slobber on his arm. When Ledger ran his fingers over his skin, he found more and more bumps and ridges spreading over his body. His eyes never adjusted to the dark, but he knew soon he would have no skin left. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was coming. Ledger could barely stand anymore, so he crawled through the darkness, hoping that he could make his way out by clawing forward. His fingers ached and began to curve, never straightening, as he used them to shovel across the ice. The dog would follow him around, waiting to see him fail, but Ledger wouldn’t give it the pleasure. Every second he struggled forward, trying to break out of his prison.

There in the distance, after he never gave up, was a shiny light. It didn’t look normal, it was blurred with Ledger’s dying vision, but he still saw it. It was the exit, his ticket out. His legs buckled underneath him when he tried to stand, and he fell to the ground, reduced to crawling. His fingers curled and stuck to the ground, but he kept going. His clothes scraped against the ice below him, and it chilled his muscles. It told him to stop, but he kept going. Ledger was strong, he was going to show that dog he was strong, he was going to show his father, his mother, his friend. This was his battle cry.

The sun felt nice on his greying skin, and his eyes which were once cloudy let up immediately when he crossed the border line and came into the open. He could see again. He was back on the icy slopes of the ski mountain, deep in a ditch that he couldn’t see over. The snow was so tall he thought was back in the ice cave, but when his new eyes traveled over his skin, he knew he couldn’t be. All the lumps were fading. They were falling off his skin and revealing his smooth muscles and skinny bones instead of piled up flesh. It felt so good to Ledger, until one massive lump remained. It marked his hand, and never let go. It was his reminder of that time of his life, his time spent crawling in the darkness, but it was better than being stuck there. He would have to carry it for the rest of his life, but he still felt blessed that it was over. A snarling sound made his head whip around, and at the edge of the shadows he saw a set of yellow teeth. The dog was back. It tried to step for him, but it whimpered as its paw hit sunlight. It couldn’t leave the tunnels. Ledger laughed in its face and muttered something that sounded like;

“Shoo.” It let up, and its grimacing smile retreated until it was another splotch of black shadows. Ledger fell on the ground, laughing and letting all his feeling out. Tears stained his eyes as he shouldered his way into a standing pose. He was out, for real. Ledger knew he was never going back if he could help it. He didn’t know what he would do now that he was free. Maybe he would take up his father’s business, maybe see the world, maybe even build something of his own, start a family, anything that made his life lived. Because he wasn’t going to sit idly for the rest of his time. Then he decided. He needed to go home. He took the first step with his left foot, leaving a set of footprints all the way down the mountain, going away from the black tunnels of doom. His mind finally cleared, and he was back in the real world, away from his mind cage that held him back for years and years. Ledger never went back to that part of his head, the one that caused his pain and suffering and theoretically trapped him in a dark tunnel waiting to be let out. He was done with that life, that mindset, now he was free. Although, his footprints remained there forever, letting all the rest of the world know that there was a survivor. Then the thousands more came out. Following Ledger's own trail and adding a multitude of other footprints to the icy, snow-covered hills that were present in the path to freedom.