The evening had settled over Omaha like a quiet exhale, the kind of stillness that only came after a long Tuesday had wrung itself dry. The streetlights outside flickered on one by one down Harlow Street, casting long amber ribbons across the pavement still damp from an afternoon drizzle. Inside the Faux household, the smell of pot roast drifted through every room, warm and heavy, clinging to the curtains and the old wooden staircase banister the way only home-cooked meals could. It was the kind of smell that made you feel safe. The kind of smell that made you forget, even for a little while, that the world outside was enormous and indifferent and full of things that could swallow you whole.
Dennis Faux sat on the edge of his bed on the second floor, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his back hunched slightly as he scrolled through his phone with the lazy energy of someone who had nowhere urgent to be. He was twenty-seven years old, broad-shouldered, with dark hair that curled at the ends when it grew too long, which it currently was. There was a calm about Dennis that people often mistook for indifference, but those who knew him well understood it was something closer to steadiness. He did not panic easily. He did not spiral. He was the kind of person you wanted next to you when things went sideways.
His phone buzzed. A contact name lit up the screen: Marcus H.
Dennis sat up straighter and answered on the second ring.
"Marcus, hey," he said, his voice low and easy.
"Dennis, my man." Marcus Holt's voice came through the speaker with the particular crackle of a man who spent too much time outdoors and not enough time indoors near a proper Wi-Fi router. He was the expedition host, a rugged and enthusiastic man in his early forties who organized adventure trips for a living and treated danger the way most people treated mild inconvenience. "Got the final itinerary locked in. You still good for the fourteenth?"
Dennis glanced at the small calendar pinned above his desk. March fourteenth, 2026. Nine days away. He felt the familiar pull of excitement in his chest, that electric hum that came whenever something real and significant was on the horizon.
"Still good," Dennis confirmed. "Walk me through it again."
"Alright, so." There was the sound of papers shuffling on Marcus's end. "You and your crew fly out of Eppley on Air Canada Flight 989 at eight thirty in the morning. That gets you into Toronto by around noon. From Toronto, you connect to the expedition charter. We're taking an ATR-42 up to Nuuk, Greenland, for a fuel stop. Brief layover, nothing fancy. Then we push on to the base camp airstrip. It's a remote strip, sits right in the middle of the mountain range. Birkeland Station, they call it. Not much there, but it's our jumping-off point."
"And from Birkeland we head up?"
"From Birkeland we head up," Marcus confirmed with audible satisfaction. "Twenty-five people total on this expedition, Dennis. Good group. Experienced folks, mostly. We're talking glacier traversal, some summit attempts if weather holds, and the full white-out survival training I told you about. This isn't a resort trip. People need to come prepared."
"They will be," Dennis said. He was already mentally running through the list. Allen. Zoey. Selena. They had all agreed months ago when he first pitched the idea over drinks at Allen's apartment, a half-joking proposal that had somehow, in the way most of Dennis's ideas did, turned entirely serious within forty-eight hours.
"Perfect," Marcus said. "I'll send the full briefing packet to your email tonight. Read it carefully, especially the section on emergency protocols. And Dennis, remind your people to pack for minus thirty. I'm not being dramatic. It gets mean out there."
"Understood. I'll let them know."
"Good man. See you on the fourteenth."
The call ended. Dennis set his phone down on the mattress beside him and stared at the ceiling for a moment, a slow grin spreading across his face. Greenland. He had wanted to do something like this for years, something that pushed back against the ordinary rhythm of work and weekends and grocery runs. Something that reminded you what your body was actually capable of when you stripped everything else away.
