The snow crunched loudly underfoot. Sarah stepped lithely, working hard to avoid falling into the snow. It was packed high; many feet deep by this point. She couldn’t remember when it began but it must have been at least a day ago. Her feet ached with the frigid cold and her hands were cracked and red. They bled at first but she had been moving without stopping for what felt like days and it seemed that somehow the blood just wasn’t reaching her hands anymore. Sarah was thankful for this though, she didn’t have anything to staunch the flow and the blood was sticky and gross. She wrapped her sweater around her left hand, hoping to keep the blood at bay. She soon realized that she needed the sweater to keep warm. The cold bit at her every limb and froze her lungs. Each inhale hurt, her breath froze before her. She couldn’t tell how far she had moved, the weather had slowed her progress substantially. Her determination was left unscathed; in fact, it grew ten-fold the further she strode.
It was different for Emily. She lifted her foot and urged it in front of her, trying to master her resolve and propel herself forward. Each step she took hurt her both physically and emotionally. She was deteriorating rapidly, feeling the likelihood of the two of them making it out of these woods was being stomped out by the snow. She lifted her foot another time, sending it swinging out in front of her into a pile of white fluff. Instead of landing on a solid surface her foot sailed straight through the snow until she was waist deep and sinking.
“Sarah!” she screamed out, arms flailing. Sarah, who had moved several paces ahead, looked back. Her face contorted with fear. Dangit, she breathed. Mist streamed from her open mouth, each breath sending great huffs into the night.
Emily floundered under the rising snow, feeling helplessly trapped. She wretched violently against the mound, trying but failing, to pull herself free. Sarah leapt to Emily’s side, breathing heavily. She flexed her fingers and sent them into the ice, groping helplessly for Emily’s writhing body. Her fingers finally struck Emily’s waist; she curled them around Emily’s sweater and pulled. Nothing happened. Emily was panicking at this point; she struck out and sent her arms flailing into the sky. She screamed aggressively each time Sarah got a grasp on her but they didn’t make any progress. Em remained lodged in the earth, sinking deeper and losing strength.
It was different for Emily. She lifted her foot and urged it in front of her, trying to master her resolve and propel herself forward. Each step she took hurt her both physically and emotionally. She was deteriorating rapidly, feeling the likelihood of the two of them making it out of these woods was being stomped out by the snow. She lifted her foot another time, sending it swinging out in front of her into a pile of white fluff. Instead of landing on a solid surface her foot sailed straight through the snow until she was waist deep and sinking.
“Sarah!” she screamed out, arms flailing. Sarah, who had moved several paces ahead, looked back. Her face contorted with fear. Dangit, she breathed. Mist streamed from her open mouth, each breath sending great huffs into the night.
Emily floundered under the rising snow, feeling helplessly trapped. She wretched violently against the mound, trying but failing, to pull herself free. Sarah leapt to Emily’s side, breathing heavily. She flexed her fingers and sent them into the ice, groping helplessly for Emily’s writhing body. Her fingers finally struck Emily’s waist; she curled them around Emily’s sweater and pulled. Nothing happened. Emily was panicking at this point; she struck out and sent her arms flailing into the sky. She screamed aggressively each time Sarah got a grasp on her but they didn’t make any progress. Em remained lodged in the earth, sinking deeper and losing strength.
“C’mon! Stop moving! I can’t get a grip! Stoppit Em!” Sarah screamed shrilly into Emily’s pallid face. Emily had sunk deeper; half her torso was now fully lodged within the snowy depths. Emily struggled tragically for another minute, shouting and screeching, creating a bigger hole for her body to settle in to. Without hesitation Sarah threw back her arm and slapped Emily clear across the face. The sound of frozen flesh to flesh contact reverberated shockingly into the night, the sound like a wooden bat coming into contact with a baseball.
“Stop!” Sarah recoiled against the shock of just having slapped her best friend in the face. Her hand, now beet red, pulsed dramatically. Em, her face now imprinted with the mark of Sarah’s slap, stood still. The corners of the trapped girls’ eyes now shimmered with fresh tears but she seemed to now be surrendering to Sarah’s demands.
“Okay, now, hold on.” Sarah breathed, urging Em to allow her to help. She slid her arms back into the snow, wincing at the cold, and grabbed firmly on to Emily’s waist. Digging her feet into the snow, Sarah thrust herself backward and pulled. She felt Emily shift minutely, inching free. She adjusted her grip, re-dug her feet, and through her body backward. Emily slid free of her icy tomb just enough to provide enough room for Emily to maneuver her legs. After a moment, Em kicked free of the snow and fell unceremoniously onto the ground beside Sarah. The two of them struggled breathlessly to regain their resolve.
Sarah looked at Em and realized that Em was shaking uncontrollably and her lips were now tinged blue. She looked defeated and oddly still, her breath grew shallow and limited. Sarah tore her coat from her back and reached for Em’s sopping wet zippered hoodie. She wrenched it off of her and covered her with the coat. Sarah sat back and studied Em’s complexion, hoping that she would soon warm. When nothing changed Sarah, in a last ditch effort to help Em, threw her body on top of her. She, knowing nothing about surviving in the snow, hoped that she could somehow transfer her warmth to her struggling friend.
The two of them stood like this for a long while, Sarah sheltering Em and Em concentrating on regaining the feeling in her lower extremities. This moment of uncertainty seemed to hang in the air, creating a still silence that resonated quietly throughout the woods. An eternity passed, it seemed, before Em finally shifted her weight and sat up, knocking Sarah to the floor. Her color had returned somewhat and her lips were no longer a sickly blue. The two of them took a handful of breaths before the silence was broken.
“You need to watch where you’re going, Em! That was too close, we don’t know what we are doing out here. This is serious.” Sarah, now feeling sure that Em wasn’t in any mortal danger, resumed her usual accusatory tone. Of the two of them she was the most logical, the most maternal, and the most afraid.
“Don’t start with me, Sarah. I was just walking! I don’t know how to walk in snow any more than you do! Don’t try to pin this on me.” Em’s cheeks bloomed with angry red splotches and her lips quivered with a mixture of anger and chill.
“Clearly you don’t! We wouldn’t be here, in this snow if you knew what you were doing. Typical Em, doing things without actually having a plan! And now we’re here, wandering around in the middle of nowhere!”
“Wow.” The scorn on Sarah’s face hurt far worse than the slap she had received from her earlier. She knew Sarah blamed her for getting them here but she didn’t think she would actually say it. The blame was a weight that Em had been carrying with her since their car broke down.
Sarah snatched her coat from Em and shrugged herself into it. She pushed her dark brown hair from her eyes and tucked the loose tendrils into the hood of the coat. Sarah looked haggard and angry. Her deep green eyes bore down on Em, daring her to deny her involvement in their dire situation. When Em didn’t take the bait, Sarah stalked off, leaving Em to stew in her guilt.
Em hopped up, shook out her right leg and then the left, and trudged forward, this time more carefully. She felt positively sick with guilt; she knew she couldn’t pretend to not be the cause of all of this. After all, she was the one who, in a moment of pure spontaneity called Sarah and invited her on a trip to the mountains. Em was feeling overwhelmed, her longtime boyfriend, Jared, had broken up with her, admitted his infidelity, and moved out all in the same day. She barely had time to catch her breath, let alone comprehend the situation. So, she decided she needed to get away, and Sarah was the only person she wanted to come with her. Her beat up old Chevy Impala had always been unreliable, even at the best of times. But, she didn’t have time to consider that. Instead, she gassed it up, picked up Sarah and pointed her steering wheel north; leaving Jared and real life in her rear view.
“Are you gonna move or what?” Sarah was reaching her limit with Em. This was so typical of her, she never planned anything. But what did it matter right? She was always there to save the day, always there to make sure that Em was safe, or happy, or whatever Em needed that day. This time she had gone too far, and now she wasn’t even moving! They had been friends since high school and the dynamic had never changed. Em always got herself into trouble and Sarah always got her out of it. They fell into a steady rhythm of this and Sarah grew weary and annoyed. She thought Em would grow out of her reckless carelessness, but she didn’t. When life hit her with something unexpected, Em always made some rash decision and Sarah was left to pick of the pieces of it all. If they ever got out of here things were going to change.
Em didn’t respond to Sarah’s comment, instead she picked up her feet and moved onward. She was sure to stay at least a foot behind her in case she decided to continue to talk about how they got here. The truth was neither of them knew where they were going, but Sarah was convinced that they needed to keep moving, that somehow they would be found if only they kept moving. But that was before the snow began to fall and before they ran out of food and water. There, of course, was no reception and even if there had been their phones had died long ago.
Em watched Sarah stop and look around every hundred yards or so. She knew that she was hoping to find something that she recognized, some sign of life, or some road sign. Em knew they wouldn’t find anything; they hadn’t passed anything but thick trees and overgrown shrubs for at least a day. Her hope was rapidly diminishing almost as quickly as her strength. The longer they walked the more lost she felt, both physically and mentally.
She had only wanted to have a weekend away, to clear her head, but she didn’t consider that her twenty-year-old car might not make it around the steep mountainsides. They had driven for a little over three hours before Em felt something shift in her car. She didn’t know what it was, or what exactly had changed, but should could tell something was different in the way the car was covering the asphalt. She, obviously, did not mention this to Sarah. She didn’t want Sarah to remind her that she was supposed to take the car in to the shop a month ago. Now it all seemed so silly.
Sarah felt herself grow tired; her steps had been stunted and short for the last hour. She was becoming disoriented. She could feel Em watching her stop but she didn’t pay her any attention. The trees and brush were beginning to look the same; she could have sworn she passed the same tree at least five times. But she didn’t mention this to Em. The same thoughts began to run on a loop in her mind. Where were they? How did they get here? Would someone find them? Was it bad that she could no longer feel her right foot? Did she lock her apartment door? She didn’t have an answer to any of these haunting questions. Of one thing she was sure though, if she was mad at Em she was ten times madder at herself. She had let Em, for the first time, whisk her away, and again for the first time, she didn’t question her. She didn’t let her typically practical mind barrage Em with questions of where they were going or if she had had her car fixed. For once she wanted to be spontaneous and free. And now they were here, probably walking to their death in a freezing wonderland of ice.
The pair of them trudged on, not speaking for an hour or more. Time had no meaning in a place like this. Sarah stopped one last time and leaned against a thick tree. She pressed the whole of her weight against the wood and allowed it to support her completely. Em watched her, feeling disgustingly ashamed of herself.
“Are you okay?” She attempted.
Sarah took a breath. “No, Emily. I’m not. I think we’ve been making circles; I can’t seem to figure out where to go. I’m frozen, exhausted, and hungry.”
“I don’t think we’re making circles, we just need to keep moving Sarah, just like you said. It will be fine. We’re almost there, I know it.” Em’s sad attempt at encouragement sounded hollow and weak. Even she didn’t believe the lie she was telling. But she knew she needed to try.
“Are you sure, Em? I don’t know. I’m just so tired.”
“I know you are,” Em cooed, “I am too, but we just gotta keep going okay? C’mon in a few days we’ll laugh about this. It’ll be great. C’mon lets go.” She knew that if they were going to live they needed to help each other; this wasn’t the time to place blame. She held out her hand to Sarah and pulled her off of the tree. It was Em this time who led the way, she wanted to shoulder some of the responsibility and allow Sarah to rest some.
The darkness swallowed them whole. Two lost souls struggling to find civilization in a place that was smothered in milky white snow and thick brown trees. The only movement in the entirety of the woods, it seemed, was the two of them. Even they were scared into silence by the profound quiet of the wild. To Em it seemed so contradictory. She had never really thought about what ‘the wild’ might sound like but she surely did not expect it to sound like nothing. The drive here had been full of noises, her own ranting about Jared, the off-tone bellows of Sarah singing to the radio, and incessant chatter. But, by the fifth hour the car had began to jolt and jerk violently on the road. Sarah suggested that they pull over, but Em refused. She thought she knew of some repair shop off of a side road just a few miles away. They took the road, but didn’t find any shop or any life for that matter. Then the car gave out.
The snow was falling harder now; a blanket of white across a black canvas. Em urged Sarah to grab onto her hand to ensure that they stayed together. They walked slowly and cautiously, fatigue dragging them into its foggy depths. Sarah stumbled several times; Em could feel her shaking uncontrollably beside her. The snow fell without intermission; it was all they could do to avoid running in to any trees or falling headfirst into the snow. Em could no longer feel her extremities, in fact, she couldn’t even see them. The snow hid everything from view. It was picturesque and terrible at the same time. It was ideal and nightmarish, beautiful and horrific; like being trapped inside a Christmas snow globe.
Sarah knew she kept stumbling, partly from fatigue and partly because her eyes kept closing. When she closed them she felt warmth. It was beautiful. Beneath her eyelids she could see a burning red, it was warm and comforting, like being on the beach. The beach is nice and it’s wonderfully warm, she smiled because she could hear the waves. A glorious warmth trickled slowly from her eyes to her torso and finally to her toes. She kept her eyes closed for what felt like an eternity.
Em could feel Sarah slipping away. She felt heavier, as if she was no longer moving under her own strength. Em knew she needed to get them out of the snow and away from these woods as quickly as she could. She pulled Sarah more quickly, peering through the sheet of snow before her. Several times she caught a glimpse of Jared. Sometimes he was leaning against a tree, other times he was standing with a faceless woman. Em kept thinking, why is Jared here? Why isn’t he helping us? We need help Jared! She waved and screamed at him but he didn’t even more. She didn’t have time to think about him though; she needed to get her and Sarah away from here. For an instant Em considered that she might be going crazy, it was an odd sort of thought.
The snow kept falling in great white sheets, there was no color, nothing but pure white in every direction. There was no noise, no color, no objects and no people. But then Em saw Jared again. She decided to tell him to leave, or at least get him to help them.
“Jared! What’re you doing here?”
No answer.
“C’mon Jared! Just help us, okay? I’m trying to get me and Sarah out of here. I think she is losing her mind. She doesn’t talk anymore. Please?”
He was being so annoying; Em couldn’t understand why he would just stand there and not say anything. Typical Jared, she thought. She was glad that it was getting warm out again, though. Her body wasn’t cold anymore, she wasn’t even thinking about the snow. Snow was great. It was warm and soft and she could feel her legs again. She was wonderfully warm. She knew she had never been so gloriously warm in her entire life. She felt like she was laying in a bed of cotton, warm and wonderful. She could almost feel the sun blazing overheard, kissing her skin and warming her face. Being warm was great.
“Sarah! Sarah! Doesn’t it feel so good out here now? It’s so warm, I feel so soft and relaxed. I told you we would get out of here. You doubted me, but I knew we would make it out. And now we are in this beautiful place! It’s so warm, and bright. I’ve never felt so relaxed. Doesn’t it feel great Sarah? Sarah?
Em had long since fell to the ground; the snow had formed a thin layer across her body. Sarah was more than a hundred yards behind, already more than halfway buried in snow.
The sun rose the following morning warm and bright. The snow had finally ceased. The trees in the woods were covered with melting snow. Small blue birds emerged from their nests and chirped hungrily into the morning air. The ground too was a blanket of deep snow uninterrupted except for two large mounds a hundred yards away from a newly paved road.
“Stop!” Sarah recoiled against the shock of just having slapped her best friend in the face. Her hand, now beet red, pulsed dramatically. Em, her face now imprinted with the mark of Sarah’s slap, stood still. The corners of the trapped girls’ eyes now shimmered with fresh tears but she seemed to now be surrendering to Sarah’s demands.
“Okay, now, hold on.” Sarah breathed, urging Em to allow her to help. She slid her arms back into the snow, wincing at the cold, and grabbed firmly on to Emily’s waist. Digging her feet into the snow, Sarah thrust herself backward and pulled. She felt Emily shift minutely, inching free. She adjusted her grip, re-dug her feet, and through her body backward. Emily slid free of her icy tomb just enough to provide enough room for Emily to maneuver her legs. After a moment, Em kicked free of the snow and fell unceremoniously onto the ground beside Sarah. The two of them struggled breathlessly to regain their resolve.
Sarah looked at Em and realized that Em was shaking uncontrollably and her lips were now tinged blue. She looked defeated and oddly still, her breath grew shallow and limited. Sarah tore her coat from her back and reached for Em’s sopping wet zippered hoodie. She wrenched it off of her and covered her with the coat. Sarah sat back and studied Em’s complexion, hoping that she would soon warm. When nothing changed Sarah, in a last ditch effort to help Em, threw her body on top of her. She, knowing nothing about surviving in the snow, hoped that she could somehow transfer her warmth to her struggling friend.
The two of them stood like this for a long while, Sarah sheltering Em and Em concentrating on regaining the feeling in her lower extremities. This moment of uncertainty seemed to hang in the air, creating a still silence that resonated quietly throughout the woods. An eternity passed, it seemed, before Em finally shifted her weight and sat up, knocking Sarah to the floor. Her color had returned somewhat and her lips were no longer a sickly blue. The two of them took a handful of breaths before the silence was broken.
“You need to watch where you’re going, Em! That was too close, we don’t know what we are doing out here. This is serious.” Sarah, now feeling sure that Em wasn’t in any mortal danger, resumed her usual accusatory tone. Of the two of them she was the most logical, the most maternal, and the most afraid.
“Don’t start with me, Sarah. I was just walking! I don’t know how to walk in snow any more than you do! Don’t try to pin this on me.” Em’s cheeks bloomed with angry red splotches and her lips quivered with a mixture of anger and chill.
“Clearly you don’t! We wouldn’t be here, in this snow if you knew what you were doing. Typical Em, doing things without actually having a plan! And now we’re here, wandering around in the middle of nowhere!”
“Wow.” The scorn on Sarah’s face hurt far worse than the slap she had received from her earlier. She knew Sarah blamed her for getting them here but she didn’t think she would actually say it. The blame was a weight that Em had been carrying with her since their car broke down.
Sarah snatched her coat from Em and shrugged herself into it. She pushed her dark brown hair from her eyes and tucked the loose tendrils into the hood of the coat. Sarah looked haggard and angry. Her deep green eyes bore down on Em, daring her to deny her involvement in their dire situation. When Em didn’t take the bait, Sarah stalked off, leaving Em to stew in her guilt.
Em hopped up, shook out her right leg and then the left, and trudged forward, this time more carefully. She felt positively sick with guilt; she knew she couldn’t pretend to not be the cause of all of this. After all, she was the one who, in a moment of pure spontaneity called Sarah and invited her on a trip to the mountains. Em was feeling overwhelmed, her longtime boyfriend, Jared, had broken up with her, admitted his infidelity, and moved out all in the same day. She barely had time to catch her breath, let alone comprehend the situation. So, she decided she needed to get away, and Sarah was the only person she wanted to come with her. Her beat up old Chevy Impala had always been unreliable, even at the best of times. But, she didn’t have time to consider that. Instead, she gassed it up, picked up Sarah and pointed her steering wheel north; leaving Jared and real life in her rear view.
“Are you gonna move or what?” Sarah was reaching her limit with Em. This was so typical of her, she never planned anything. But what did it matter right? She was always there to save the day, always there to make sure that Em was safe, or happy, or whatever Em needed that day. This time she had gone too far, and now she wasn’t even moving! They had been friends since high school and the dynamic had never changed. Em always got herself into trouble and Sarah always got her out of it. They fell into a steady rhythm of this and Sarah grew weary and annoyed. She thought Em would grow out of her reckless carelessness, but she didn’t. When life hit her with something unexpected, Em always made some rash decision and Sarah was left to pick of the pieces of it all. If they ever got out of here things were going to change.
Em didn’t respond to Sarah’s comment, instead she picked up her feet and moved onward. She was sure to stay at least a foot behind her in case she decided to continue to talk about how they got here. The truth was neither of them knew where they were going, but Sarah was convinced that they needed to keep moving, that somehow they would be found if only they kept moving. But that was before the snow began to fall and before they ran out of food and water. There, of course, was no reception and even if there had been their phones had died long ago.
Em watched Sarah stop and look around every hundred yards or so. She knew that she was hoping to find something that she recognized, some sign of life, or some road sign. Em knew they wouldn’t find anything; they hadn’t passed anything but thick trees and overgrown shrubs for at least a day. Her hope was rapidly diminishing almost as quickly as her strength. The longer they walked the more lost she felt, both physically and mentally.
She had only wanted to have a weekend away, to clear her head, but she didn’t consider that her twenty-year-old car might not make it around the steep mountainsides. They had driven for a little over three hours before Em felt something shift in her car. She didn’t know what it was, or what exactly had changed, but should could tell something was different in the way the car was covering the asphalt. She, obviously, did not mention this to Sarah. She didn’t want Sarah to remind her that she was supposed to take the car in to the shop a month ago. Now it all seemed so silly.
Sarah felt herself grow tired; her steps had been stunted and short for the last hour. She was becoming disoriented. She could feel Em watching her stop but she didn’t pay her any attention. The trees and brush were beginning to look the same; she could have sworn she passed the same tree at least five times. But she didn’t mention this to Em. The same thoughts began to run on a loop in her mind. Where were they? How did they get here? Would someone find them? Was it bad that she could no longer feel her right foot? Did she lock her apartment door? She didn’t have an answer to any of these haunting questions. Of one thing she was sure though, if she was mad at Em she was ten times madder at herself. She had let Em, for the first time, whisk her away, and again for the first time, she didn’t question her. She didn’t let her typically practical mind barrage Em with questions of where they were going or if she had had her car fixed. For once she wanted to be spontaneous and free. And now they were here, probably walking to their death in a freezing wonderland of ice.
The pair of them trudged on, not speaking for an hour or more. Time had no meaning in a place like this. Sarah stopped one last time and leaned against a thick tree. She pressed the whole of her weight against the wood and allowed it to support her completely. Em watched her, feeling disgustingly ashamed of herself.
“Are you okay?” She attempted.
Sarah took a breath. “No, Emily. I’m not. I think we’ve been making circles; I can’t seem to figure out where to go. I’m frozen, exhausted, and hungry.”
“I don’t think we’re making circles, we just need to keep moving Sarah, just like you said. It will be fine. We’re almost there, I know it.” Em’s sad attempt at encouragement sounded hollow and weak. Even she didn’t believe the lie she was telling. But she knew she needed to try.
“Are you sure, Em? I don’t know. I’m just so tired.”
“I know you are,” Em cooed, “I am too, but we just gotta keep going okay? C’mon in a few days we’ll laugh about this. It’ll be great. C’mon lets go.” She knew that if they were going to live they needed to help each other; this wasn’t the time to place blame. She held out her hand to Sarah and pulled her off of the tree. It was Em this time who led the way, she wanted to shoulder some of the responsibility and allow Sarah to rest some.
The darkness swallowed them whole. Two lost souls struggling to find civilization in a place that was smothered in milky white snow and thick brown trees. The only movement in the entirety of the woods, it seemed, was the two of them. Even they were scared into silence by the profound quiet of the wild. To Em it seemed so contradictory. She had never really thought about what ‘the wild’ might sound like but she surely did not expect it to sound like nothing. The drive here had been full of noises, her own ranting about Jared, the off-tone bellows of Sarah singing to the radio, and incessant chatter. But, by the fifth hour the car had began to jolt and jerk violently on the road. Sarah suggested that they pull over, but Em refused. She thought she knew of some repair shop off of a side road just a few miles away. They took the road, but didn’t find any shop or any life for that matter. Then the car gave out.
The snow was falling harder now; a blanket of white across a black canvas. Em urged Sarah to grab onto her hand to ensure that they stayed together. They walked slowly and cautiously, fatigue dragging them into its foggy depths. Sarah stumbled several times; Em could feel her shaking uncontrollably beside her. The snow fell without intermission; it was all they could do to avoid running in to any trees or falling headfirst into the snow. Em could no longer feel her extremities, in fact, she couldn’t even see them. The snow hid everything from view. It was picturesque and terrible at the same time. It was ideal and nightmarish, beautiful and horrific; like being trapped inside a Christmas snow globe.
Sarah knew she kept stumbling, partly from fatigue and partly because her eyes kept closing. When she closed them she felt warmth. It was beautiful. Beneath her eyelids she could see a burning red, it was warm and comforting, like being on the beach. The beach is nice and it’s wonderfully warm, she smiled because she could hear the waves. A glorious warmth trickled slowly from her eyes to her torso and finally to her toes. She kept her eyes closed for what felt like an eternity.
Em could feel Sarah slipping away. She felt heavier, as if she was no longer moving under her own strength. Em knew she needed to get them out of the snow and away from these woods as quickly as she could. She pulled Sarah more quickly, peering through the sheet of snow before her. Several times she caught a glimpse of Jared. Sometimes he was leaning against a tree, other times he was standing with a faceless woman. Em kept thinking, why is Jared here? Why isn’t he helping us? We need help Jared! She waved and screamed at him but he didn’t even more. She didn’t have time to think about him though; she needed to get her and Sarah away from here. For an instant Em considered that she might be going crazy, it was an odd sort of thought.
The snow kept falling in great white sheets, there was no color, nothing but pure white in every direction. There was no noise, no color, no objects and no people. But then Em saw Jared again. She decided to tell him to leave, or at least get him to help them.
“Jared! What’re you doing here?”
No answer.
“C’mon Jared! Just help us, okay? I’m trying to get me and Sarah out of here. I think she is losing her mind. She doesn’t talk anymore. Please?”
He was being so annoying; Em couldn’t understand why he would just stand there and not say anything. Typical Jared, she thought. She was glad that it was getting warm out again, though. Her body wasn’t cold anymore, she wasn’t even thinking about the snow. Snow was great. It was warm and soft and she could feel her legs again. She was wonderfully warm. She knew she had never been so gloriously warm in her entire life. She felt like she was laying in a bed of cotton, warm and wonderful. She could almost feel the sun blazing overheard, kissing her skin and warming her face. Being warm was great.
“Sarah! Sarah! Doesn’t it feel so good out here now? It’s so warm, I feel so soft and relaxed. I told you we would get out of here. You doubted me, but I knew we would make it out. And now we are in this beautiful place! It’s so warm, and bright. I’ve never felt so relaxed. Doesn’t it feel great Sarah? Sarah?
Em had long since fell to the ground; the snow had formed a thin layer across her body. Sarah was more than a hundred yards behind, already more than halfway buried in snow.
The sun rose the following morning warm and bright. The snow had finally ceased. The trees in the woods were covered with melting snow. Small blue birds emerged from their nests and chirped hungrily into the morning air. The ground too was a blanket of deep snow uninterrupted except for two large mounds a hundred yards away from a newly paved road.