With the pocket knife in my hand and the portrait folded neatly in my pocket, I started my trek toward the bright white light. Who knows how far the light even was? Who knows how long it will take? It didn’t seem like it was attached to anything, but it was also too bright to be a star either. 

The snow crunched beneath my boots. It was the only noise that accompanied me as I walked alone in the untouched snow. Every single step that I took, every move, made another crunch that bounced around my head longer than the actual sound could last. It was a welcome break in the silence but I had a feeling it would overstay its welcome.

Crunch

Crunch

Crunch

My mind began to wander back to my home, to the many memories that I had made in the years I had with my siblings. It wasn’t long before I began to hear our laughter from when we used to play in the woods replacing the crunching. I heard Kelly calling out to me as Talon chased behind as his ever-protective self.

“Jack!” She giggled out, “Jack!”

I turned to see her struggling to run after me, the snow came up to her knees and piled up even more as she tried to run. Talon was chasing behind her trying to tell her to walk in the tracks that I had already made as I walked. I waited for them to catch up to me, watching her giggle and Talon try to help a toddler that very clearly didn’t want any.

She jumped up on me as soon as she thought she got close enough to me, I had to reach to catch her so she didn’t fall, but it wasn’t like she would’ve noticed if she did anyway. She grabbed at my face to look me in the eye, squishing my cheeks as much as she could. 

“Yes, little Master?” 

She giggled.

“Mama said that you have to take us with you to play if you wanna stay out here.” Talon put his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. I nodded and looked at the two of them as seriously as I could. 

“Alright, but I have to tell you that we will be going on an adventure, one that may be way too dangerous for any mortal human being.” Kelly had a look of wonder and excitement plastered on her face. 

Talon just looked bored. He thought that he was too old for fun and games at ten years old. It always bothered me that he thought he was so mature that he couldn’t play with us anymore. Even though I was older than him. 

Pulling myself out of my thoughts, or rather my memories, I looked up to try to see how close I was getting. The light had gotten much brighter as I walked towards it lost in my memories. I had a feeling I knew where it was taking me and I just couldn’t help but smile to myself at the thought as I walked towards the bright light, listening to each crunch, they felt loud enough to echo across the mountains and through the trees with each growing louder and echoing more than the last.

Kelly made me set her down so that she could walk beside us, I kept a hold of her little hand to keep her as close to me as I could. While Talon walked behind us in my tracks watching her in case she spotted something and tried to run off…again. I wasn’t much older than him but he still acted like he thought that he was that adult in our little band of siblings, which only grew to be more true as we grew older.

We weren’t too far away from where I was taking them when Kelly started complaining about being tired and cold. I knelt and picked her up, zipping her into my jacket to keep her warm.

I carried her the rest of the way there and knelt and pointed to the mouth of a cave. “We’re here, that’s where we’re going.”

“A cave?” Talon was skeptical as always. Imagination always seemed to skip past him as we grew older.

“Not just any cave, a yeti’s cave.”

“Yeti?!” Kelly looked at me fearfully.

I nodded, “Yeah, a yeti lives there...for now.” I looked at her bravely with a confident smile stretching across my face, “One day I’m gonna make that cave mine.” I showed her the cave, it looked enormous to us, and everything inside it was so large compared to us. We went a few feet inside, it didn’t go far in the mountain but it was plenty big enough for our imaginations to wander. Surely enough, Kelly heard a noise that no one else did and immediately wanted to go back home. 

She thought that an actual yeti lived in the cave for years afterward. It didn’t help that Talon frequently brought it up and told her that Yetis eat young children like us if we were bad or if we broke into their homes.

So we began our descent, walking much faster than we had for the ascent, all the way back to our house halfway down the mountain.

I smiled at the memory as I looked up at the one and only Yeti Cave, I guess I was right...I was gonna make it mine one day. Sadly, it was today, after…

I took a deep breath and walked toward the cave. It was pretty bittersweet, I was glad that I was taken to a spot where I had so many memories of my siblings. We had come back to the cave many times whenever we wanted privacy or an escape from reality for a few hours. I loved the cave, but I hated the circumstances that I was being taken to the cave under. 

I had only taken a few steps into the mouth of the cave before the light disappeared into the starry night sky and I was left all alone in the dark, facing an even darker cave that was filled to the brim with memories. Good and bad, fun times and heartbreaks. The near pitch-black cave that I stood in front of had become almost like a secret hangout for the three of us. We never told our parents about the yeti or the cave even while Kelly still believed the monster was real, it was a secret just for the three of us to share.

But this time I was all alone, even more, alone than I had felt since I realized my family couldn’t see me or hear me...or even feel anything that I caused, let alone me or my presence. I knew I had to suck it up and go in or else the wind would freeze me a second time if that was even possible.

“Why did you have to go so far, Jack?”

Why is a very good question, one I didn’t have an answer for anymore