Ice and Snow me where to go

By Evan Cheung

Edited by Adelaide Wong, Sophie Gain, Patrick Wang

I emerged from my burrow, a little temporary home, out into a crumbling city scorched by the sun’s light. The light reflected off the pure white surfaces around me, directing its angry glare right into my eyes. Snow was almost everywhere you looked, so there was no escape from the piercing light of the sun. But I was luckier than others. The ozone layer hadn’t been completely destroyed, unlike other places, so all we got was blistering heat that tortured us to no end, but at the same time wasn’t enough to kill us. I sighed. Time to head out.

A flaky black substance crunched under my boot as I stepped out of my makeshift home. Black snow. No one knew what it was, only that it burned your skin off if you touched it. Ahead of the burrow, rows of tall buildings lined the streets, their concrete surfaces sometimes marred by holes, a crusted black substance sticking to the edges. And yet there wasn’t much of it compared to other times. There had not been heavy snowfall for a while; it was only a matter of time before another snowstorm blew into this crumbling shell of a city.

Soon, a towering structure came into view, a spire standing on top of its partially collapsed roof pointing to the sky. There it was, a roughly rectangle-like base supporting the domed roof and a spire tapering towards the top. The walls, once a pristine beige, were now corroded, with huge concrete pillars laying on the ground. A few days ago, news came, claiming that there were valuable resources in a certain place nearby, but that getting them was quite dangerous. That usually meant that the valuables were located in a place that was either falling apart and therefore quite easy to get yourself killed in, or inhabited by bands of violent hooligans. A mound of rock and clay clogged the main entrance, so I turned to the windows instead. Fogged and dusty, but still as strong as they had been made to be. Grabbing a fallen brick, I swung it hard and slammed it into the pane, cracks slowly spreading outwards. Finally, there was a crash as the glass shattered into thousands of pieces, each twinkling in the morning light like the stars above. Peering in through the gaping hole in the window, I glanced at the sheets of dust cascading down from the roof of the darkened interior. The rumour mill had been correct in that the structure was near breaking point. All that is left now is to see if their promises of treasure were true.

As I stepped through the crack onto the scratched stone floors, a shower of debris spilled onto me from above, covering my coat with a layer of dirty grey and obscuring my vision. Light shone in from multiple large openings in the wall, with the desolate atmosphere of the hollow halls somehow making the light seem more bleak and hopeless. In front of me lay the twisting labyrinthine corridors that once made up the mighty headquarters of the Episian Brotherhood. Now, they were nothing but dust and cracked plaster. I continued through the maze of corridors, but only decayed shapes and petrified skeletons remained. Anything else seemed to crumble to ash under my touch. All other places were buried under rubble and sealed off to intruders and looters.

Hours passed as I wandered through the ashen hallways and rooms, or so it seemed when I finally decided to give up this useless endeavour and accept that the rumours had been a hoax. No sooner than that, a sharp crack tore suddenly through the dust-stained air followed by an ominous rumble that shook the ashen walls and floors. Just then, part of the roof above me splintered, cracks thrusting out from its corners. A groan resounded throughout the building as the tortured frame struggled. Suddenly I was running, adrenaline coursing through my veins. Running, running, running, as I had always done. No matter where I turned, there just seemed to be five more corridors branching out and snaking off to some other godforsaken corner of this maze. Shades of black crept up in the corner of my vision, the endless passage growing longer and losing definition as my eyes blurred. Then, in the distance, a shadowy figure appeared enshrouded in white light. It seemed to be…reaching out to me? My voice moved up my throat to call out to it, before something hard hit my head making me black out.

The first thing I heard when some semblance of consciousness returned to me was this dull, muffled scratching noise, accompanied by an occasional thump. Beneath my head lay a slightly uneven stone surface, not far from pavement. I opened my eyes just a slit and was forced to shut them again when a piercing light burned my eyes. That was it for now. This seemed to be somewhere out on the street, but the last thing I remembered was blacking out in that collapsing building. What had happened since then? I moved to sit up, rapidly blinking my eyes. Peering through my eyelids, I scanned the area. That scratching noise I had heard just now had stopped, but I remembered it coming from the left. Swivelling my head in that direction, I could just about catch a glimpse someone there, grinding the snow on their boot. The rather short person turned around and ran towards me. “Oh! Looks like you’re awake!” they, or rather she, called out in a high feminine voice as she approached. “I thought you were never going to wake up. You were lying there for ages!”

My vision was still blurry, but I could make out her large, round blue eyes. Below that was a rather small nose. She wore a brown snow jacket lined with tufts of white fur and blue woollen mittens, faded laced boots on her feet, and trousers above that. On her back hung a heavy-looking rucksack, a rolled-up mattress strapped to the top. I tried to ask for her name, but all that got out was “Wha…What?”

“Oh no! Did you forget how to talk after being hit? Papa said that people lose their memory when they get hit in the head!” Her thin lips pressed into a line as she pondered the dilemma. “Uh…I’ll get you something!” She turned around to reach for something in her backpack, a ponytail swinging out from behind as she did so. “Here!” she said, handing him a cylindrical bottle. “Papa said these help with headaches!”

“I...no, I’m fine” I croaked, unable to find my voice in the confusion. “How am I out here? Wasn’t I in…”

“Oh, you mean there?” the girl pointed behind me, where a pile of rubble lay where the building had been previously. “I saw you inside, and you didn’t look like you felt too good. That’s why I decided to help you!” She put both her hands on her hips and puffed her chest out, a smug expression resting on her pale face.

“Uh…Thanks. But how’d a kid like you get me out of there? The place was collapsing in on itself”

“I pulled you out.”

I was still confused about how she had done it, but there were larger things to worry about. I staggered to my feet, still unsure of my footing, but I balanced myself afterwards. “Alright kid…”

But what to do with her? I couldn’t just leave her out here on her own. “What’s your name?”

“Me? I’m Lumi!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Pleased to meet you!”

“So what happened to you?” We were on the road, the afternoon sun hanging high in the sky.

“I used to live with Papa somewhere outside here. Mama went away somewhere when I was really small,” Lumi replied, arms swinging from side to side as she walked. “But after there was lots of snow; I couldn’t find him!” Her boots ground against the frost on the pavement as she stopped and turned. “But I know he’s here somewhere! Papa always used to play hide and seek with me. I just know he’s hiding in one of the buildings, waiting for me to find him!” Her voice had taken on a slightly desperate quality now. “But he’s making it so hard! I’ve looked all over the city, and I still haven’t found him!” Tears were welling up in the corner of her eye now.

“Calm down, calm down, you’ll find your papa someday, okay?” I comforted her. “You know what? I’ll help you find him” I didn’t know why I was saying that. I supposedly had other things to do. But Lumi’s face brightened up instantly. “You will? Thanks so much, mister!” She jumped up and hugged my legs.

“Woah, woah, okay, you don’t have to do that.” But before I had finished speaking, she declared “Let’s go!” and ran ahead.

“Hey, wait!” I called, moving to catch up with her. “You can’t just run ahead like that!”

We had reached the edge of the city by nightfall. Standing on a snowy hill, the rest of the city loomed before us in the distance, the farthest buildings nothing more than hulking shadows retreating into the starry night. Just below lay a crisscross of intersecting roads leading to and away from the city. “Mister? Why are we here?” Lumi questioned, staring off into the snow-covered expanse ahead.

“No reason really, just for old time's sake.” In the past, before the storms had hit, I would come here to gaze at the then gleaming skyscrapers, all of them standing proudly rank and file like a military formation. And maybe it was because Lumi reminded me of someone I once knew that I was standing here, reminiscing about the days when I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal would come from, or how many supplies I had left before I had to go rob some more. Why did I have to live that life? I could turn back into that concrete prison and continue living that way. Or…

“Hey Lumi,” I called. “You said that you searched all over the city for your papa, right?”

“Yeah, why?” she asked, curious as to where I was going with this.

“What if he’s not here? What if he went to some other place and is waiting for you there?” There had been rescue missions shortly after all hell broke loose, and not many people had the time to find their loved ones when they could die of frostbite by standing out in the open for more than 2 minutes.

“Hmm…” Lumi considered this. “Yeah, good idea! Then I’ll go look in other places! Papa’s gonna be sooo happy when I find him!” She took a few steps forward, before stopping and turning to look at me. “Let’s go together, mister!” she held her hand out. Now she really reminded me of her.

“Sure,” I said, taking her hand. “Let’s go, Lumi.”