As the temperature continues to plummet, I keep my eyes laser focused on Sita’s vibrant jacket—my only beacon in the sea of white. The wind bites at any exposed skin and my fingers and toes throb with encroaching numbness. Each step becomes a battle. I stumble, my foot skidding off a hidden rock, and let out a startled yelp.
The second it takes to regain my balance is all it takes for Sita to vanish into the storm.
“Sita?” I call.
No answer.
I hurry forward a few steps, thinking she’ll reappear, but she doesn’t. I spin in a circle, blinking against the white out.
“Sita!” I yell, again and again.
Shivering, I remember my mother’s childhood advice.If you get lost, stay where you are. Someone will find you.
I stand still, calling out every few seconds. But within minutes, my voice is hoarse, and I can no longer force it through my chattering teeth. I have to move or I’ll freeze.
I test my footing to see which way slopes downward and start in that direction with slow, cautious steps. Disoriented, I try to map the trail in my head, but I’m well and truly lost. I can’t see a thing.
Too late, I realize my next step lands on nothing but thin air.
On instinct, I cover my face and head, curling tight as I tumble. Snow and debris churn around me as I freefall until aviolent thud knocks the breath from my lungs. Time stretches as I lay stunned, until I finally cough, dragging in air.
I try to move my arms and legs, but it’s impossible. I’m trapped. Buried alive.
Focusing on just one limb, I start wiggling my right arm where it’s still curled protectively around my face. Slowly, I create a tiny pocket.
Panic rises, but I fight it back.Think, Dahlia. Think.
The urge to yell for Sita wars with the need to conserve oxygen. I slow my breathing, trying to protect what little air I have. All too soon my limbs grow heavier and a tingling creeps up my legs. If I don’t suffocate, I’ll freeze to death. Using every ounce of willpower I possess, I slow my breathing even more.
I can’t blindly fight my way out of this. I need to figure out which direction I am facing. I work up what little saliva is in my mouth and spit. It falls straight down.
Digging upward isn’t an option, so I’ll need to somehow back myself out. The thought brings wildly inappropriate lyrics to mind as a bizarre soundtrack to the grim situation. I start nodding my head to the beat and try to wriggle my body, booty end first, muttering, “Back that ass up.”
Between the freezing cold sapping my energy and the weight of the snow dragging me towards exhaustion, I debate giving up. Maybe freezing to death won’t be that bad.
But the song plays on in my mind, and somehow it gives me the strength to dig deeper, tap into some hidden well of strength, and just keep shaking that ass. Every gyration confirming I’m not ready to die yet. Every thrust of my hips declaring I haven’t come all this way to give up now.
Suddenly, something shifts, and an icy blast hits my bottom, sneaking tendrils up the back of my parka.
“No, shit, nineties rap for the win,” I chatter out.
Delicious icy air flows past my body and floods my lungs, but no matter how much I tell my body that I need just a fewmore seconds of energy, it will not listen. The wind whispers to just rest, and I nod. That twerking was a lot of work, I think as my eyes drift closed.
“Something, something, back that ass up,” I mumble, slower now, even my lips too cold and tired to move.
And then someone grabs said ass and pulls. Sita must have found me. That was way too close. I flop onto my back, staring at the sky. Snowflakes land on my face, but I barely feel them.
“Thank you,” I whisper, almost too exhausted to speak.
A dark shape looms over me, but the eyes that meet mine aren’t Sita’s. Instead I find the familiar swirling silver that has plagued my dreams.
And they belong to a Migoi.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
This is bad. Really, really bad. I wonder if staying buried alive would have been safer. And yet, I could swear amusement flickers in its gaze at my curse.
Its deep set eyes are large and luminescent, laced with the frost and misty grey. They are full of secrets and heavy with the weight of time. I close my own, willing the shock-induced hallucination away, but when I reopen them—it’s still there, staring down at me.
