This Crual Place, Beyond the Blizzard (English Version)

Chapter 2

The fact I awoke at all filled me with a sense of relief. Brain still groggy, I sat up and observed the tent's interior. It'd fared well in the figurative flashbang of a snowstorm.

Something was different. The small tears only looked out onto white, but all was quiet. Never has there been a silent blizzard.

Only when a cold shock hit my foot did I notice the mounds of melting slush on the floor, directly beneath each rip in the tent.

I was snowed in.

Adrenaline flooded my veins and sent my thoughts into hyper speed. How long had I been buried? How much oxygen was left in the tent? How deep was I?

Don't panic. Freaking out won't help.

I took a deep, controlled breath and crawled over to the zipper, hesitating before tugging it open in one swift motion.

White fluff poured into the tent, and in a transitory state between dread and understanding, I scrabbled backwards in fear of an icy casket.

My mind cleared. Logically, if the snow was that powdery, I couldn't be down very deep.

Still, the tent sagged, its backbone long since snapped. I dragged myself out and pushed my way through the dampening snow, lugging the pack with all my equipment behind.

With the gap collapsing in on itself behind me, I planted my boots in the snow and stood.

I wasn't on Monte Rosa.

I wasn't in the Alps.

I wasn't even on a mountain at all.

Standing near the bottom of a sort of half-cone slope, the horizon-wide expanse of dark water was the first hint I was somewhere else entirely. I could tell the ocean was a ways down, but only after shuffling down to the edge did I catch a glimpse of the precipice. A rugged ice face plummeting some four hundred feet. Vertigo struck instantly, knocking me onto my ass, hands splayed like starfish.

Something sticking up near the edge caught my eye. It resembled the curved rails of a pool ladder – if said ladder was poorly made and rickety, with coarse grey rope tied to each side. Greying fibres sequestered by an equally ashen backdrop.

A tiny ray of hope beamed somewhere deep inside me. Maybe someone was here. I crawled through the powder and gripped the steel bars. My gloves did nothing against the inexorable chill of wind-beaten metal. Still, desperate curiosity willed my head and shoulders to lean over the precipice.

Fixed into the mottled ice, a vertical tower of crude materials swayed in the ever-present winds. It reminded me of a shantytown with its hastily fastened planks and battered metal sheeting. For the life of me I couldn't fathom what reason any sane person would have to build such a thing. Then again, I'd yet to find anything in this place I could fathom.

"Hello?" I called out. The first words out of my mouth since waking up were hoarse and weak, tumbling pathetically down the mismatched scaffolding.

There was an immediate response from somewhere below. I couldn't see anyone but there were multiple voices, bleeding together into a garbled slur.

Relief warped into regret as I remained hunched, frozen, as if I were some frostcaked gargoyle on a forgotten castle. Though my voice barely cut through the winds, I regretted opening my mouth. I didn't quite know why. The frantic shuddering of the platforms as someone clambered up to meet me instilled a deep, imminent foreboding.

I somehow hadn't realised before, but the ropes tied around the bars I clasped onto were actually those of a rope ladder. They whipped into the cliffside, heralding the arrival of the figure who'd just pushed their way out from under a rotten blue tarp.