1
Freya
"Just ten more minutes," I mutter, adjusting my camera settings as my fingers begin to lose feeling. The bitter Icelandic wind slices through my gloves like they're made of tissue paper instead of supposedly high-performance thermal material. My fingertips are turning that concerning shade of white that means circulation is becoming a serious issue.
I've ventured further from the marked trail than planned, but the light hitting the ice formations is worth it—ethereal blue shadows against crystalline white, the kind of shots that outdoor gear companies pay good money for. And right now, I, Freya Lindholm, definitely need that money. My bank account hasn't recovered from last month's rent-camera equipment juggling act.
Through my viewfinder, I frame the perfect shot: jagged ice against volcanic black sand, nature's most striking contrast.Click. Review. Too dark. Adjust aperture.Click. Better, but thecomposition's off. Shift three steps left, ignoring the way my toes protest inside my boots.Click.
"That's the one," I say to myself, a habit from too many solo assignments. The LCD screen displays exactly what I want—depth, texture, the play of light that makes viewers feel the cold just by looking. If I can capture a dozen more like this, the trip will pay for itself twice over, and maybe I can finally stop eating ramen for dinner four nights a week.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Probably Árni, my local guide, wondering where I've wandered off to. I promised to stay within sight of the marked poles, but that last ice formation was too tempting—the way the afternoon sun hit it created a cathedral of light I couldn't resist. I pull off a glove with my teeth and fish out my phone, wincing as the cold bites into my bare fingers.
The screen flashes once, then dies.
"Seriously? I charged you this morning." I press the power button repeatedly, but the screen remains black. Battery failure from the cold—rookie mistake. I should have kept it closer to my body heat. "Great job, Freya. Very professional."
That's when I notice the shift in the air—a sudden denseness, a pressure change that makes my ears pop. Looking up from my dead phone, I see the wall of white rushing toward me across the glacier.
Not the gentle snow forecasted for later tonight. This is a full whiteout, appearing from nowhere.
That's impossible. The forecast said clear until evening. Clear as in blue skies, sunshine, perfect shooting conditions.
My internal checklist kicks in. Find shelter. Retrace steps. Use GPS backup. Don't panic—panic makes you stupid, and stupid gets you dead.
I pull out my backup GPS unit, the expensive one that's supposed to work in "extreme conditions," and swear as the screen flickers and displays gibberish before going dark.
Electronic failure. Both devices. Not coincidence. Either I've wandered into some kind of electromagnetic dead zone, or something very weird is happening.
The temperature is dropping—fast. Too fast for natural weather. The advancing white wall seems to swallow the landscape ahead of me, erasing the horizon. The thermometer on my jacket sleeve is dropping so quickly I can almost see the needle move—from uncomfortable to dangerous in minutes.
I turn back toward where the trail should be, but already the markers have disappeared in the thickening snow. My breath forms dense clouds that freeze into tiny ice crystals before they even disperse. Even through thermal layers, the cold is starting to burn.
Shelter first. Direction second. Panic never.
I begin moving downslope, where rock formations might provide windbreak. The rational part of my brain catalogs my assets: emergency blanket in pack, protein bars, water (probably freezing now), flares, headlamp. The less rational part wonders how a storm this severe could materialize from nothing, and whether Árni will even be able to organize a search party in these conditions.
The snow thickens until I can barely see my own feet. Each step becomes uncertain, the ground beneath me alternating between slick ice and treacherous rock. The wind howls with an almost vocal quality—rising and falling like something alive. It reminds me of the throat-singing I heard at a festival last year, deep and resonant and somehow communicating meaning without words.
My photographer's eye can't help but note the beauty in the terror—how the snow isn't falling so much as swirling, dancing in patterns too complex to be random. The abstract part of my brain thinks:This would make an incredible time-lapse. Assuming I live to edit it.
The cold is reaching my core now, despite my layers. My toes have gone from painful to worryingly numb inside my boots. Bad sign. Very bad sign. I need to find shelter in the next ten minutes or I'll be in serious trouble.
I've taken a wilderness survival course last year. The instructor's voice rings in my head:"In extreme cold, you have minutes, not hours, to make the right decisions. Your brain will slow down before you realize it's happening."
My decision-making window is closing. The disorientation is setting in—that subtle mental fog that precedes hypothermia. I'm having trouble remembering which direction I came from. The white is absolute, disorienting, a blank canvas that's rapidly becoming a shroud.
That's when I see it—a flicker of blue light through the curtain of white. Not the flat blue of sky or the reflective blue of ice. This is an electric blue, almost luminescent, moving through the storm like a lantern carried by an unseen hand.
Northern lights don't come down that low. And not during snowstorms. Not possible.
I squint, focusing my rapidly deteriorating attention. The light separates into two distinct points, like eyes in the whiteness. Then more blue appears—branching patterns that rise up from the eye-like points, spreading outward in a crown-like formation.
Not eyes. Something else. Something... impossible.
I fumble for my camera, the photographer's instinct overriding survival for just a moment. Through the viewfinder, everything seems more real, more containable. I raise it with trembling hands as the shape in the storm grows more distinct. Tall—impossibly tall, at least seven feet. The branching blue lights resolve into what look like antlers, glowing against the white backdrop.
Click.
