Cabin Fever

❅ 1: Hannah ❅

Though it was only the 23rd of December, Hannah already knew this was going to be the worst Christmas yet.

She was lost.

She probably shouldn't have exited the highway until she returned to the depths of civilization, but the blinking gas light was threatening and, frankly, more than a little bit distracting, and she was eager to have it gone.

But how was she supposed to know that gas stations could be closed the day before the day before Christmas?

Stuff like that just didn't happen in the city.

Then, while trying to return to the highway, her spotty GPS connection crapped out and so she may have missed her turn. Now she was rolling along bumpy dirt roads, surrounded by endless lines of trees, and praying for pavement or phone signal or anything that indicated other people existed — somewhere, out there.

And it was beginning to snow.

It started as a few harmless little flakes that descended from the sky in charming little twirls, but soon the world grew darker and the frequency increased until the wind was howling and there was not much but heavy white flakes to be seen in any direction. In the span of about fifteen minutes, she had gone from quaint little back roads to a barren white wasteland.

It would have been smart to check the weather app before leaving. It would have been smarter to pack a map. It would have been smartest of all if she had remembered to text her friend before she immersed herself in a blustery, isolated winter wonderland.

But there was no time for regret when one was just starting to panic.

The conditions progressively worsened — the roads getting slicker and the snow piling higher and the flakes falling thicker and in a more substantial quantity—until a mistaken turn brought her face to face with a snowdrift.

She was thoroughly and completely stuck and completely and utterly fucked.

She gave herself about five minutes of screaming, cursing, and sobbing before she shut down the emotional outburst and forced herself to problem solve.

It was still relatively early in the day, which boded well for encountering a potential passerby, but considering there were no signs of civilization since she'd made the unfortunate error of exiting the highway, she was not optimistic.

If a gas station could shut down early for the holidays, she wondered if the plows would take similar time off. In that case, she needed to either find some phone signal to call for help or get herself shelter.

As if mocking her, her car took that moment to give up life, sputtering without fuel for only a moment before shutting down, and then, to top off the seven layer shit cake that was becoming this holiday season, her phone chirped with a delightfully foreboding low battery warning.

"Oh, universe, you perverse, vengeful bastard!" she screamed to the cosmos.

The wind howled in response.

Well, that was that. Now it was easy to decide what to do because it was a matter of moving or dying. She could sit in her car and freeze to death or she could venture out of her rapidly cooling oasis and attempt to rescue herself.

She crawled into the back of her car, where her suitcase had been haphazardly tossed, and assessed her available resources. She had packed for a weekend at a well heated, cozy lodge. Which meant her wardrobe involved abominations of ugly Christmas sweaters — a family favorite for all her friends — and knee high fuzzy socks to pull over her leggings.

Her selection of footwear left much to be desired. She hadn't owned a pair of boots since she was a child, except for a year-long stint in her teens when she'd worn exclusively UGGs. She had two pairs of "monster paw" slippers, two pairs of flats (including the pair on her feet), and a pair of running shoes should she be so inclined as to start her New Year's resolution early (which was, in all honesty, incredibly optimistic).