Story?

The chill wind gnaws at me, tearing my body raw with the cold. I tread carefully along the barely visible path: the way is strewn with the memories of life. A gust rips through any protection I have against the cold, until my blood seems to freeze. Behind the wind comes a torrent of leaves which had once been beautiful, vibrant adornments of the trees now laid bare before me. The life had drained out of them, and as I pressed on, I could feel the leaves crunching underfoot, losing their final protest.

I hug my body and press onward. I can see the great burning globe rolling slowly along it’s inevitable journey. Once light has been extinguished from the sky, the oppressing black will consume me between the jaws of the blizzard, and I will succumb to the final chill of oblivion. The path is not short, but my time certainly is. I must reach the sanctuary, or this mountain will become my tomb.

The memories of life implore me to stay, to share in their fate. Each step I take, another twig snaps, another leaf crunches, another empty shell bursts beneath the oppressive weight of my vitality. They groan and lament, but I must not listen to them. I must resist the siren wail of the fallen.

Time passes. The sun becomes low in the sky, and the white ground grows illuminated with its light. The shadows of the gnarled trees reveal behemoths of shadow, beings of darkness waiting to feast upon the flesh of the living, reminders of what is to come. With each passing minute, the darkness grows, and the ghouls become more ravenous. They hunger for me, but I must not feed them.

The pure white crystals across the ground shine brightly, trying to fend off oblivion, but they are losing ground, and the creatures of the night devour their light eagerly. The time when the ground was glazed with incandescence is now but a distant memory, as surely gone as the time when the leaves I trample were adornments upon the lofty arms of the royalty that now lay stripped bare, overturned, broken.

The memories no longer beg. Strengthened by the impending arrival of night, they grow menacing, threatening. They are no longer the sirens but the kraken, intent on pulling me down into the oblivion where they reside. I stumble upon them, and their snaps are no longer wails but cackles. I rush headlong against their embrace, against the oncoming storm, against time itself.

I sprint onwards, cannot slow down, cannot stop, because if I choose to rest, then I choose to rest for eternity. I break through a row of skeletons, a row of trees that were once part of the beating heart of this forest. Instead of feeling snow beneath my feet, however, I suddenly find that the ground has become ice. Instead of pushing against the packed legion of crystals, my feet slide gracefully across the frictionless surface. Graceful, however, my fall is not.

I rocket across the frozen lake, relaxing completely. To make any movement would be to make the process even more lengthy and complicated. My fate is no longer within my control; the ice now determines my fate. Above me, I can see the moon making its appearance, and the stars twinkling into existence. I close my eyes and exhale slowly. I whisper a soundless prayer to the night, though it is closer to my last rites than any request for assistance.

My exhalation is brought to a sharp close by the excruciating, instantaneous pain in my left side. It seems my unwilling journey has been brought to a close. I carefully reach down and feel the enormous boulder jutting into my ribs, which I strongly suspect are no longer completely intact. I turn my head carefully so i can face my attacker. The hunk of stone stares back at me without expression. It does not live as the trees once did, it is and always has been devoid of life. It cares not for the affairs of the living, and my collision into it did not inconvenience it in the slightest. Nature cannot be resisted. What a meager concept life is, for the rock is truly the ultimate image of existence; it lasts until the wind and the rain have smoothed its rugged face and scattered its dust across the land and even then, its remnants can form together again, forming an endless cycle of existence. This boulder has existed in some form since the dawn of time, and will last until its end.

I test the ground around me, and discover that is not the treacherous ice but a bank of snow. I slowly roll over onto my good side, and am rewarded with another jolt of excruciating pain. There is no doubt my ribs are broken. If they have punctured any internal organs, then it matters little whether I reach shelter or not. If that is the case, I will not survive the night. The stone is not my attacker but my murderer. I raise myself up, and my vision becomes dark around the edges. My side commands me to lay down, to accept my fate, to avoid pain and quietly let the night devour me.

I fight against it, and limp to the center of this island. A sanctuary for the fallen, it is now strewn with the litter of death above and beneath. I smile grimly. I may not have a headstone honoring me, but it is likely my fate will be the same as those who reside beneath them. Where is a suitable place to die? There is now no chance of reaching the camp, while I am temporarily crippled. This residence for the dead is as far as I will make it.

I continue shuffling through the markers of stone. The wind tears at me and the minuscule flakes of ice rip at my skin, taking slivers of me with them. I shiver, and my body shudders with the pain. It occurs to me that the final circle of Dante’s Inferno was not a burning inferno but a plain of ice with a perpetual blizzard blowing across it. I look around for shelter, any kind of shelter from this brutal flaying.

Then, a sight appears to me which, for a moment, infuses me with warmth. For the first time, hope comes to me. I limp over to the structure. It is a mausoleum. The square block of granite stands before the blizzard, no longer concerned or wary of the affairs of the living. It cares only for the dead. I stand before it, and the iron gates guarding the entrance. A chain is draped between the doors, keeping them locked.

A tricky proposition, considering my injured side. But pain will not stop me from trying to survive. I lower myself to the ground and locate a rock that fits well into my hand. I examine the rock closely. Was this piece of stone once part of the boulder that stands guard over these dead? The rock simply is, and I can either fight against it or try to manipulate nature for my own survival. I have already tried dashing myself against it, and I don’t especially wish to experience that again, so I must now try the other option. I pick up the rock and lightly toss it in my hand. My murderer will become my savior.

Something is strange about the way it feels, however. I realize that I can no longer feel my extremities. The blizzard has already begun to feast upon me. I smile. The blizzard has overplayed, for by devouring my senses, it has devoured my pain. I torque my body around and smash the rock against the lock keeping the chains in place. My body is blissfully ignorant that only a few minutes ago that action would have sent it into spasms. I laugh, laugh in the face of the storm, in the face of the adversary who through his lack of self control has given me my final chance at survival, laugh at the stone that has given me both my crippling side and my salvation. It occurs to me that I am probably delirious.

I bring the rock against the lock once more. It is now twisted, crippled. The stone has broken the lock as it has broken me. The lock is learning the same lesson that nature cannot be withstood, and the lock cannot withstand another blow. I rear back and bring the rock against it once more, throwing all of the force that I now possess into it. The lock shatters and falls to the ground. I drop the rock and tear the iron gates open. Behind them, there is a single wooden door. I pull it open easily. Apparently the lock on the iron gates was considered security enough. In the final dim rays of the sun, I see a coffin lying upon a slab of marble in the center of this tiny room. I close the door behind me and lay down beside the slab, feeling my way down carefully in this now completely black room.

The home of the dead will now serve as my home, for tonight. It is unlikely that they will take much offense. The storm of ice outside this keep howls its disappointment at being denied its meal. I realize that I am tired, so tired. I have trouble remaining conscious, which is probably for the best. I can start to feel my nerves once more. Once feeling returns to my side, I will probably pass out from the pain anyway. As I drift off, I realize that there can be no internal bleeding, because if there were, then I would die in this tomb. I cannot die, cannot accept the fact that I will die. And so, there cannot be internal bleeding. In this cemetery, I am overcome with the peacefulness of the dead.

-Chris