FRIGORI MORTIS

FRIGORI MORTIS

My eyes opened, or did they? I could not see anything.

 I wasn’t sure what I wanted to see, or was expecting to see.But when I lift my eyelids, I expect some kind of image to appear in front of me.

 Nothing.

 I felt my breath shot back at me, I realized that there was something very wrong with me.

 My mind was slow and numb and I had trouble pinpointing what was off, except that I could not-see-a-single-thing.

 When I tried to move, I understood.

 There was no movement possible. I was surrounded by all sides, and I could not even feel my extremities anymore. I wasn’t sure what was up, what was down, I was completely lost.

 And covered in snow, smothered in flakes…

 The last images I had seen before the blackout imposed themselves on my panicking mind, and I nearly passed out from the realization. I was buried alive.

 Every climber’s  nightmare, an avalanche, and I had been caught by surprise, nothing to do, I was lucky to be alive.

Just recalling that mountain coming down on me made me shiver, and I was in no position to shiver. I was stiff with cold, and how long could it last?

My numb brain went over every story of avalanche I knew, everyone who had made it out, everyone who had disappeared forever.

 Was I really lucky?

 Or was my ordeal extended, alone in the darkness and cold, enough time to despair, but not enough to save myself?

 Panicking was the worst idea right now - so of course my heart started pounding in my chest, demanding more air - demanding air!

I had so little left, I was smothered in the snow, and my chances of surviving depended on how close to the surface I was.

If I could detect up and down in my predicament. All I felt was the numbness of the snow.

 A part of me felt like giving up.  Probably I was already oxygen-deprived and in delirium.

I could not escape, that was a delusion

 Entombed in my casket of snow, blind, deaf, and cold.

 Giving up seemed like the best option. I should not have woken up. A last torture before the end, seeing my chance to live taken from me, in a dark, cold, silent cocoon.

 I felt the urge and the panic, the despair and the let down. I was dead, it was better to accept it, accept to move on. My toes were killing me, I was so cold, the air was foul - how long would it take?

 How long before deliverance?

 But I was never one to just accept what fate had in store for me.

 An accident had left me in a wheelchair. Doctors claimed I would never walk again. So I ran a marathon 10 months later.

 Tell me what I can’t do, and I will prove to you how wrong you are. You cannot limit me, only I can do that.

 The snow was silent. No taunt. Just the heaviness of inevitability.  Had I met my match?

 Would I just stay there and accept that I was done for, nothing I could do to save myself?

 Forcing the ‘no’ out of my frozen mind was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.

 I couldn’t let it end this way, so I focused all my energy and fisted my hand.

My gloves were off, muscles were pulled, maybe I had a fracture, if not worse - yet my fingers curled around my palm, and when I extended all my fingers again, I felt some of my tomb giving way.

 Was I so close to the surface?

 Excitement almost made me lose consciousness, I did not have a lot of oxygen left and so much work to do.

 But there was a chance, infinitesimal! If I stopped pitying myself, if I gave everything I had.

 My arm had somehow wrapped around my head, giving me a small breathing space. Snow had invaded it, but it was nonetheless there, and it gave me a few minutes more to save myself.

 No whining allowed, only efficiency I started scratching at the wall of impenetrable snow, making some crystalling flakes move. I wish I could have seen them, known how gravity was affecting them, but there was simply no light.

 The despair was bubbling right beneath my new resolve, but I could not let it overtake it. I tried to breathe against my chest so that the heat of my exhalations would not make the snow ice over. Keep it porous, allow  what little oxygen could filter in to reach me. 

Move forward, inch by inch - if only!

I was down to millimeters, just moving my head seemed an incredible victory, enough to make me feel like crying.

 Nothing was done, but I could move it up, and left ( was it up, was it left?) I still could not orient myself in the dark tomb of snow.

 That was enough to fuel my next step, I would not give up now.

I had about two inches of space between my nose and the wall of solid snow in front of me. I wriggled - or tried to in any case. The weight on me was terrible, it was hard not to let my mind wander, imagining kilometers upon kilometers to dig through, an impossibility, folly, driving myself mad and breathless again in a matter of seconds.

 It was too much to take. I was stuck, there was no other way to see it, no other way to envision it there would be no miracle rescue, I had spent all my luck impossibly surviving this monster of an avalanche, and now it had run out entirely. I could dig for hours ( if I survived that long) and I could be digging towards the bottom, not towards salvation, I had no way to know where the top was. I had lost all sense of direction with the fall and the snow burial and, like a surfer caught in the surf, I was completely disoriented in my tomb of cold darkness.

 Enough to drive anyone to madness.

 I could not be emotional, I could not be weak. Tears had never served any purpose, and yet here I was, tears threatening to spill from my useless eyes.

 The tear traced leftward to my eyebrow and my forehead, trickling on my ear before leaking onto the snow around me, managing to tickle my near frozen skin as it did.

 Now my heart skipped a beat, but perhaps not because of the lack of oxygen.

 I hadn’t done much scratching or digging, but I was going at it the wrong way. Sideways, I would have dug sideways if I had not stopped for a little useless waterworks.

 What if the surface was just a few inches away, if I scratched the real way?

 I grunted and growled, wasting air, trying to level myself out and face the surface instead of the depths of the sideways.

 Did I have a chance? Did everything happen for a reason?

 Was I somehow chosen to make it out alive, if I just hustled and gave everything I had and more?

 I couldn’t be too aggressive, I had to be careful, watch my breaths, keep them away from the snow, so as to keep that chance alive, even just for a second longer. 

I wasn’t sure how long someone could survive, I had read some stories ages ago, learned a few tricks - yet nothing could prepare for the brutality of it.

 This pressure, the oppressiveness, the knowledge that you are dead and alive at the same time, and the only person who can make the difference is you.

 In my mind, there was no chance a rescue dog would sniff me out in the nick of time.

 I had always done things alone, and that wouldn’t change.

 You made your own  luck, good or bad, and I had to deal with the hand that had been dealt.

 So I scratched at the snow with numb fingers I could barely feel.

 Every little bit counted, every new indentation I created was a victory unto itself. But it was hard to keep the focus - that had to be the carbon dioxide accumulating, wreaking havoc with my head.

 How to not scream for air, when all I could see was snow - and barely see at all?

 The pressure on my chest was horrible and only seemed to increase with every passing second. What if there was another avalanche, what if more and more snow was piling atop of me, making every effort useless?

 I had to shake my head ( or attempt to) every few seconds or so, to keep my thoughts in line. Survival was not a dominant trait in all of us. Some people would thrive in this, I bet, but I was just losing myself bit by bit.

 Insanity was threatening with every passing second, I had never realized that I was claustrophobic. 

And every time the madness took over and left me fumbling for what to do, I wasted precious seconds I did not have. How could I still be alive? I had been stuck here for centuries!

My life seemed far away, a joke, it had never happened, there was no soft, warm wind, there were no trees, and the overwhelming abundance of air when skydiving. There were no mountains, no oceans, no lakes, all those were figments of my overwrought mind. 

All that truly existed was this frigori mortis. The cold of death, encompassing me from all sides, smothering me into my final resting place.

 I was alive, I was dead, I was both at once, I was stuck in the middle, not knowing how it would end, wishing to see again - anything!

Feel again, smell again, hold again - but all there was before me, my reality, was this madness of snow and ice.

 And my fingers, stiff claws with no feeling, scratching as though they were possessed.

 I didn’t think of looking for the time on my smartwatch, but it made me jumpstart when it glowed, proving my hands were freer, able to perform some movements. And the light was such a relief that I felt like crying again - or maybe that  was because it illuminated a wall of white that had no end.

 But I kept clawing at my jail, wrecking my casket of ice, determined to break free of the snowy curse.

 There was no warning, I could not see, and barely feel. When my hand broke through the surface, I did not even notice right away. Flurries in my face, a gust of wind reaching in and freshening the foul air, brought me to reality. 

I dug frantically, afraid that it would disappear, that I would be left in the dark once more.

 Reaching up, I took support on the edges of the hole I had created, and heaved with all my might, screaming in agony. It felt as though I was ripping my lower body off. I had to wriggle and strain for several minutes, but the air was so sweet ( although it was dark and snowflakes kept pelting me in the face) that I found renewed strength, more than I had ever felt before.

 Sweating freely - although I was still frozen stiff - I pulled myself out and  spent the next few minutes sobbing in relief.  I was out, I was alive, I made it, against all odds and better judgment. I had made it, saved myself once again. I must have thanked God a dozen times in a minute, busily hugging the snow-covered ground that had kept me prisoner..

 But after a certain time, the elation died down and I realized that I was not out of the woods just yet.

 The storm was raging around me, I could not see a thing, I had little to no cover, just a few scraggly trees, and I was getting very very cold, what with all the sweating of the previous minutes.

 I was alone, that hadn’t changed, and I saw no rescue in sight.

 My hands were near useless, but I managed to find my phone in one of my pockets- only to discover that the avalanche’s violence had cracked it open, rendering it unusable.

 I started laughing.

 Escape one hell - to land in another one.

 I would freeze to death.

 Unless…

 I could not believe what I was thinking.

 My very last reserves of energy had been spent crawling out of that snowy tomb… and now, to survive the storm, I had to go back inside.

 I looked for a sign, anything! God laughing at me directly would have somehow been more satisfying than this.

 Nightmare one second, salvation the other.

 My battle for survival was just beginning.