The cold is slow

The air was crisp with snow that formed a fluffy blanket over the landscape - mountain range and blue sky after last night's snowfall. It left a prickle on the skin, like little needles prodding the body, looking for warmth to draw slowly but surely away from your members. Your blood tried its best to keep the cold away from you, by diverting resources, making your core the warmest possible. It left your toes, your fingers, your ears, and your nose defenseless. Red. A stark contrast against the desaturated whites, gray, and blues around you. Painfully numb. It made you shake when you woke up from your oblivion.

The eerie silence that came with the slow process the snow started was torturous to succumb to, one that would take hours. No matter how protected you were, any opening was enough for the air to find you and to pick at you. It was thousands of ants slipping under your layers of protection to bite you, making you numb to everything around you, and your eyes heavy.

The worst was when you took a breath and exhaled. The former was painful. The air was almost too pure, too concentrated. Your lungs expanded like a glass cage about to break. Meanwhile, the latter felt like a relief at first, until the humidity of it congregated around your face like so many little crystals. It deposited each pearl on your face, turning your skin a different color as it penetrated deeper in you. Your nose was black, your cheeks a deep purple. You tried to put your hands under your armpits to protect your fingers, and it was enough for now, but your toes… you couldn't feel them. It had been that way since you fell and hit that rock on your way down. You folded like a piece of hay under the hooves of a horse. The abominable sound of broken bones was all you needed to hear to know you were doomed. You kept your eyes open still.

"Help! Please! Somebody!" You desperately tried multiple times before the truth fell over you. No one was there to help you. No one could hear your pleas for help, no one could see you, or find you. You were all alone. It was such a vivid feeling, especially when the wind whistled and whispered in your ears. It never felt that way when you were coming down the slopes, no matter the solitude around you. Maybe helplessness was the real loneliness in this world. When you knew you could do nothing to survive and no one was there to help you.

No. You decided there and then not to give up. Not now, not ever. You assembled your courage and started shuffling around. Everything under your waist refused to move. Dead weight. Still, you positioned yourself so you could crawl. You were going to get off that damn mountain even if you had to slowly creep down the whole way, even if your cheeks were blackened and your nose likely lost. You had more desire to live than to stay down there until the snow took you. With determination you started to advance.

The conditions were hard, and it didn't take long for your arms to start hurting. You were in good physical shape, but the weight of your whole body was still a lot. Behind you, you left a trail and some blood in the snow for every sharp shot of pain in your back. Every time you turned around, it looked so short that you wondered if you were even making any progress. It created a pit in your guts, a deep feeling of despair that you wouldn't make it. But still, you persevered.

The snow under you was powdery, as the one above you started to fall. You had to go faster, but you felt tired and weak. Your arms burned, your shoulders were tense, and you still weren't able to feel your lower body. Your thought tried to keep that out of your brain. Those thoughts would not help you, and you had to keep going.

You had to. You had to. You had to, you kept repeating yourself. If you gave up now, there was no chance you would make it out alive.

The sun started to set, and the needles in the wind multiplied tenfold. The ants crawled all over you the same way you crawled towards your saving grace. You were in a race against the time, and you had no legs to run. Still, you could barely help admiring the sunset, the yellows, oranges and pinks that occupied the faraway landscape, where the shadows of the clouds accentuated the rays of light passing through the sky to reach the ground. It would have been a huge comfort if not for the still biting air around you. But it was enough to renew your vigor and steel your resolve.

You passed tree after tree, rocks, ice patches - they were the easiest to navigate but also left you barely able to feel anything after - until finally you could see the lodge. Tears froze on your cheeks from joy, as you kept going, ignoring the pain in your back and your arms, focusing only on the incoming relief of civilization.

"Come on, I'm almost there," you kept chanting to yourself until you saw the first people out there, who were smoking, bathed in the lights of the ski resort. For all you know, with the halo of light around their heads, they could have been angels. You brought a hand up in hope to get their attention. "Hey! Please, help!"

It worked because one of them turned their head and visibly started to walk towards you. His eyes went big and when he realized he gestured to the others to come too. They ran to you and when they reached you, a manic smile spread on your lips. Finally you were saved. With a sigh of relief, you let go of everything, and passed out.

When you woke up a minute later with a paramedic near you, asking how you felt, there was only one answer on your lips.

"I'm cold."

That was the word. That was almost all you felt the past hours. Cold.

You were cold.