Then the rut comes.A gouge in the soft snow, hidden in shadow.
How did I miss it?I don’t miss ruts.Not ever.
My right ski bites wrong, jolting sideways.My other leg kicks wide, searching for balance.The vibration screams up through my bones.
I can hold it.I’ve done it a thousand times.
But the hill rips back.One binding explodes with a crack.The ski spins away, cartwheeled into the net.The other catches, jerks me sideways, but the binding holds.Whiplash lashes through my neck, the world tilts.
I’m airborne.Not flying.Flung.Trying to navigate the fall, but it´s hopeless.
I’m not good at crashing.Crashing isn’t my thing.
White snow.Red panels.A blur of blue advertising boards rushing past.My body twists, shoulder slamming into ice, hips snapping around, legs buckling.And still one ski holds, pulling my leg in impossible directions with terrible force.
I tumble once, twice, the sky and ground trading places so fast I can’t tell which way I’m facing.
Impact.The airbag on my chest goes off, and sharp pain explodes in my shoulder, blinding me for a moment.
My helmet crunches into hardpack.The sound is dull, echoing inside my skull, like a bell struck underwater.
I try to suck in air, but the wind’s been blasted out of me.My chest locks.My mouth fills with the taste of metal.
Somewhere above, cowbells clang distorted, warped.Voices shout.Skis scrape as someone cuts down toward me.
I spit blood, and then the pain comes.In my shoulder, in my leg, in my head.It feels like Iampain.
And through it—her voice.Not real.Just a memory, sharp as ice.Don’t do anything stupid.
Not Leitner.
Katharina.
The name echoes, blurred, heavier than the roar of the crowd.
I want to answer, to tell her she was right, but all that comes up is bile.I gag, swallow it back, and the black folds in mercifully around me.
***
Katharina
Screams.Then silence.Then gasps.
The crowd sound folds in and out like surf breaking, but I know the moment I see it on the screen.This isn’t just a fall.This one is bad.
My throat seizes.I can’t breathe, can’t swallow, can’t look away.I’ve seen hundreds of crashes — the ones where someone slides up, waves, and gets on with it...and the ones where no hand comes up.This is the second kind.
“Signal, Thomas,” I whisper, my voice shaking.“Please.Just move.Give us something.”
Nothing.Absolute quiet at the mixed zone — like the air is waiting for proof.
After many long, rotten minutes, the helicopter beats itself out of the treeline, rotors hammering the air.I grab the radio to reach Leitner.“Tell me.”My voice cracks.
The words crackle out in fragments: ‘Transported to Innsbruck.Left knee—bad.Shoulder dislocated, airbag went off like it was meant to.He’s unconscious.Helmet intact.He should be… okay.’”
Should be okay.
The words hit like a punch.My knees almost give.I should feel relief.Instead, I feel terror.Terror that I’m not there with him, that part of me has already flown in that helicopter while I’m stuck here.
