Even my voice sounded as though frost coated it. The cold ate its way into my soul, there was no escaping it anymore. There wasn’t a fire that burned hot enough, nor hopes strong enough to warm me. I closed my eyes once again, I hoped for rest, for something that let me know I could feel better, even if I couldn’t feel the warmth that I used to enjoy.

It felt like I hadn’t moved in years. I felt like I had frozen to the tree itself. I was shivering against the tree. Why does it have to be so damned cold? It was another few years before I heard the faint sound of footsteps in the snow. The snow crunched beneath the person’s feet so loudly that it sounded like they were breaking through a thick layer of ice. The crunching came closer and closer to me and the tree that I felt like I had fused to. I waited and just listened to the crunching get closer and closer until it passed my tree. I paid close attention to the pace and volume of each step, anything to keep me warm.

I watched as the person walked past, and I easily recognized her. I’d recognize her anywhere. 

My Mama walked past a few more trees carrying something, it looked like a box, a cardboard box. I tore myself away from the tree and followed her, I needed to make sure that she was ok. I wasn’t even remotely alright with anything that was going on, why would she be? She just lost a kid. Her eldest kid at that.

“Mama, it's too cold outside, please go home with everyone.” I pleaded with her. I knew she couldn’t hear me but maybe, just maybe, she could get my message if I begged hard enough. I pleaded with her the entire time we walked side by side, but I doubt that even if she could hear me that she would listen. Her face was so dead, the life in her eyes that used to light up her entire face was nowhere to be seen, especially compared to the excitement and life that she had in her before the avalanche. 

She set the box that she had carried all this way in her hands down after a while of my pleading with her. I watched as she knelt in front of the box, shaking, shivering maybe. I could hear her sniffling almost in time with her shivers. It broke my heart to hear her crying, then I realized where we were. I sat next to her wishing that I could hug her, comfort her, or anything. “Why’d you come here of all places? I got buried by the avalanche here, don’t I have a grave?” I kept my voice low, it seemed disrespectful to raise my voice even though it was my death spot. Whether it was for my mama or my body I couldn’t know.

I looked around for anything that I could interact with that would tell her that she isn’t alone, to let her know that I was there. I picked up snow and threw it at the box, broke tree branches, and stuck them in the snow all around us, anything at all. But with no luck, she didn’t react to anything that I did even when snow hit her when I threw it at the box. 

With an exhausted sigh, I sat next to her, and to my surprise, I could hear her talking to me. Like I had been there with her talking with her about everything that had happened to me. She cried out begging to know why I had gone so far then that she didn’t care about the wood she just wanted me to be with her. But I never told her why, there wasn’t an answer that I could tell her, it was like she was talking to a version of me that lived inside of her and not the me that was sitting right next to her. 

I watched her cry and plead with “me” to come back to her and never go so far up the mountain again. She shook hard, hysterically crying into her hands and pleading with “me”, begging me to come back home and hug her tightly and say that I was perfectly fine, that it was just all a horrible dream that she was having.

I wished that I could help her feel better, I wished that I could hold her and tell her that it would be alright even though I couldn’t come home to hug her anymore. I wished I could do everything for her, but I knew that I couldn't, the tiny part of me that thought it might have been a dream died at that moment. 

We sat together for hours until the sun began to set in the sky, painting an array of beautiful colors into the blue of the midday horizon, until Tyson came to take Mama back home.

“Jack wouldn’t want you following him so soon after him,” he reasoned with her better than I would have ever been able to if it had been any of the others that passed instead of me. I was glad that he was still there for her, maybe he would be able to tell her all the things I wished I could for me. Maybe he could give her the big tight hug that I would never be able to give her again. He always had been better than I was at communicating with emotions at stake, if only I could've learned before this.

I watched them walk back to the house. Their figures disappearing and reappearing between the trees. Mama huddled into Talon’s embrace, I never noticed how little she seemed next to him. I could tell that she was shaking, her grief still dripping down her face as Talon held his arm around her trying to stay strong for her sake and to get her back home safely.

I watched as their forms shrunk in the distance they slowly disappeared into the evening fog that surrounded the mountain until there wasn’t even a shadow to see anymore. 

I stared at where their forms used to be for too long after they had disappeared from my sight. I almost felt like I was going insane

The wind blew louder than it ever had while Mama was still next to me, the flaps of the box bounced playfully with the frigid air. The sound it made stole my attention away from my family and instead towards the box Mama left behind. I went to open the box the rest of the way but the wind seemed eager to see what was inside no matter how reluctant I was. 

Inside, the box only held a few things, but most of those few things had meant a lot to me in life. Mama left me a portrait of the family that her friend had painted, though it was just a small version of the real one that hung in our living room just above the fireplace. It was a wonder that it never fell into the fire and burned our home down. There was also a brand new jacket that must have been my present for a Christmas that I’ll never get to see, as well as a hunting knife that Papa had gifted me when I was nine so he could teach me how to whittle to pass the little time that we had in the evening.

Mama disapproved of how young I had been when he gave it to me, but even so, whittling had become a shared hobby between us. At times, Papa would go into town and sell some of the carvings that we made together for extra money and space. 

I picked up the jacket and changed into it. I was mostly just glad that I had something that would remind me of her and our family even if it couldn’t help me and the pain. Even if it wasn’t much, I wanted to be able to live through them and them through me. Though that isn’t usually how that works is it? 

I picked up my old knife and studied it. It needed to be sharpened but it would work for stripping and smaller carvings that could help me pass the time. After all, it seems as though I’m pretty stuck here. So I now had an abundance of time that I never could imagine before. 

For now…hopefully. 

As I studied my knife I noticed that the handle and point of the blade itself seemed to be growing ice...where I held it to check it over. Confused, I checked the flaps on the box and sighed a little in relief, no frost. Must be an odd coincidence then? I picked up the portrait and looked at each of the faces that I could make out in the dark, each was close enough to what they looked like but there were a few little inaccuracies. Nothing too major but I hoped that it would be enough to be able to remember what they actually looked like through it. 

I folded up the portrait as delicately as I could and I looked around the mountain hoping to spot somewhere where I could take shelter from the incessant wind. 

Only moments had passed before I spotted a small light flickering not far in the distance. It looked like a torch of some kind, but the light itself was an unnaturally bright white. I felt uneasy just looking at the light, and yet it seemed to call to me and welcome me closer to it. Almost like it wanted me to follow wherever it led me.

I’m already dead, how much worse can it get?