Unforgiving, Was The Cold

         It was the furthest north they had ever been. The waters lapped against the vessel as the crew fought the rigging in the dense and powerful storm, as rain pelted their coats and soaked their shoes. Captain Peterson stood upon the deck shouting orders which could scarcely be heard over the powerful howling of the wind. Soon, larger and larger waves came and smashed into the side of the ship, sending it spinning more and more upon the waters. The compasses could only just keep up with the vicious speed at which their holders were tossed about the deck. The light from the sun was entirely blotted out by the immense and imposing storm clouds above the heads of the crew.

        “Land ho!” Came from the crows nest, and there they saw the vague pale silhouette of something which was certainly not more ocean.

     “Heave to it, men! We’ll see our way out of this storm!” The hoarse voice of the Captain roared across the deck, barely making it over the stressed creaks and barreling wind.

     “HEAVE! HEAVE! HEAVE!” The sailors cried out as the storm raged.

     Their force, however, quickly fell to uselessness as the rigging finally gave way, and the central mast snapped at the base, the ropes pulling taught until they snapped, their sudden speed slicing through the sailors holding onto the side. As it fell, it crashed into the foremost mast aboard, tangling both sails and rendering them utterly useless as the ship began taking on the immense throws and tosses of the water.

     The storm continued tossing the vessel to and fro, but with the sail they bravely made their way towards the strange shape. The spinning and shaking ship soon was picked up by a forceful wave and brought over to the island, where it smashed unceremoniously and dramatically upon the ice, splintering and scattering as the crew were thrown from the deck outward.

     There, the storm continued to pelt them with more and more rain, hail, and wind. Those who found themselves uninjured quickly made haste to a nearby cave to try and wait out the storm, a cast of few and far between. The injured and dead were mostly trapped by the falling hail, until soon most if not all were simply corpses decorating the otherwise pristine ice. The sole injured crewman who survived the hail was MacAvoy, who had been carried into the cave by Lucious, the ship’s carpenter.

     There they sat. Of a crew of nearly fifty people, those that made it to the cave safely were Lucious, MacAvoy, Airam, Orwell, Jenna, and Rutt.

     They took to the cave as rats, literally deserting a sinking ship, which groaned over the noise of the wind as it continued to strain upon the ice. The group huddled together towards the back for a mix of warmth and safety, as they watched the tumultuous scene outside with both immense fear and terrible curiosity.

     The cold wind blew through the cave with an obvious disregard for the safety of the unfortunate sailors. They continued their huddle, while Lucious did his best to bandage MacAvoy’s wounded leg. Airam, the former ship’s navigator, hurried out of the cave when the wind lulled, trying to retrieve some of the other crew members from the hail. The ship, in the distance, finally seemed to settle in one position on the ice, the sail aimlessly flapping in the wind.

     Orwell, previously Quartermaster to the late ship, started quietly tallying the dead, those which he could see, while Jenna, originally the Second-Mate and cook, diverted all her efforts to recovering energy and reducing stress, as she laid against the base of the stoney ground.

     Airam pulled a body towards the cave.

     “I found Ulise!”

     Ulise, or rather Ulysses Cartwright, the ship’s doctor, laid battered and bruised, barely breathing, as he was dragged into the cave by Airam. Orwell and Rutt came to see, while the others remained where they were for various reasons.

     “Good on ya, Cartwright!” Orwell said, hoisting him up off the ground, “Keep your wits aboutcha, you’ll be fine soon!”

     Airam leaned the wheezing doctor against the ice wall, and returned to the field to see if there were any more bodies, which Orwell quickly took to assisting. Plenty of the corpses were clearly that, and nothing more, either having immense splinters or clearly broken limbs which exposed them and their blood to the cold, unforgiving weather. A small handful were conscious but so wounded they didn’t have long to live, such as Jules, the look-out who undoubtedly spotted this land. Yet, with his weakened state, he beckoned Orwell and Airam over and pointed towards the wreckage of the ship.

     “Captain… The- The Captain—!” he wheezed, as his voice faded from him. They turned to look.

     Laying upon the separated mast with several immense and rough splinters piercing his body, was Captain Peterson, limp and, quite clearly, dead.

     There was a sharp intake of breath from Airam which led to him coughing from the cold, and Orwell shook his head solemnly. When they turned back to the First Mate, he was no longer with them. All that was left was a quickly chilling husk.

     The area around them quickly became a lost cause as most of the individuals on the ice had long since perished.

     They hurried back into the cave. Airam went to check on MacAvoy’s status, while Orwell went to talk to Ulysses.

 

     “Doing any better, Cartwright?”

     The unfortunate surgeon shook his head, “I’m not long for this, Wells. There’s—” Ulysses’ statement was cut apart by a hacking, bitter cough that poorly contested his bleeding lungs against the cold.

“There’s something there, Wells—!”

“In your lungs? What can I do?”

Ulysses hesitated, and pointed out to the snow, to the right of the cave.

“The eyes, Wells. There’s- There’s something—!”
    “What, like, a deer? A whale? What?”

The surgeon shook his head, his hand dropping to the floor as his weakening body lost its head.

“Cartwright? Ules? Please, Ulysses, what is it? What do you see?”

But the corpse did not answer.

 

 

The crew huddled up around MacAvoy, with Orwell the last to join them, his face hard with ice and fury. They were silent, with MacAvoy, Lucious, and Airam sitting on the ground attending to MacAvoy’s wounds, while Orwell, Jenna, and Rutt stood, collectively eyeing the scene outside. Looking out the cave entrance, Rutt got an idea and beckoned Jenna to assist him. Utilizing some of the rigging attached to significant but small parts of the ship, they pulled what had once been the back panel above the rudder over from the water’s edge and sealed most of the entryway, reducing the cold air inside the cave. Rutt then left briefly, and came back with a couple stacks of the more dry pieces of wood.

“Absolute mess,” he remarked, “can’t believe we wound up in this mess in a wooden boat of all options. Radio’s soaked through and won’t work anymore.”

He began placing the scraps in the cave close to the group, and endeavoring to light them with his personal lighter, a gift which was engraved with his name, and a bit of his winter coat as kindling. It wasn’t an easy task, but he got the job done.

As a fire began to blaze, the surviving six members of the crew sat around it, trying to warm themselves up with as much haste as possible.

Airam did not immediately come close to the fire.

“What are ya waiting for, Ram? Scared of the fire? You’ll catch your death anywhere else,” Lucious said, endeavoring to coax him forward so as not to lose anyone else to the infernal freezing.

     “I h-heard that there’s o-only so much energy, something l-like a heat source can give off.. I w-would rather yo-you all have it,” he let out, shivering.

     Lucious gave a quick shake of his head, “Don’t be ridiculous. The only energy going to waste is the heat going in the direction of your empty seat. Join us, it’ll burn out eventually one way or another.”

     In this cold, it would be a hard soul to take more convincing. Airam took a seat next to them and held his hands up to the flame, hesitantly.

     “That’s the way, then.” He said, encouragingly.

     They all took the warmth as much as they humanely could, bearing their hands close and their imagined selves closer.

     As they sat and waited, the chill eventually reduced until all that remained was just the normal cold weather. Freezing, crackling, bitter cold weather.

     “Should we get some rest? I’m really tired, and don’t know what else there is to do,” asked Rutt.

     “No, don’t. That’s the hypothermia talking. If we sleep at this moment, we may not wake up before we can be rescued,” Orwell said.

     “Rescued?”

     The voice that came out was small, quiet. It could hardly be told who said it, except that naturally Orwell didn’t. And yet, it voiced the same concern the entire group held. Did anyone know where they were? None of them seemed to, and there was no clear indication that they’d found somewhere inhabited, somewhere known to any society in the world except as an abstract spot on the map. The feeling was awful, and all-consuming. And yet, press on they must.

     A humble and quiet silence befell the group as the wind, now muffled by the impromptu barrier, continued to howl and scream outside, threatening to drain the life of any who dares walk within its reach. The only real comfort to be found by the surviving six was the clear absence of hail falling against the panel.

     The group collectively decided that staying in the cave was not going to be their best option, but it would be difficult for MacAvoy to travel in the snow with his broken leg, and Lucious insisted he stay with the unfortunate midshipman to tend to his wounds, since the doctor was no longer with them.

     Rutt, Orwell, Jenna, and Airam all agreed to go ahead as the search party to seek some form of shelter for them to reach. They each rechecked that their long winter coats were intact, that they were largely uninjured and weren’t losing any blood, before setting out into the cold in search of either shelter or a way to signal for help.

     As they wandered out of the little cave, the cold once again blew through their bones making them colder and more uncomfortable than ever in their attempt to find safety.

     As they looked around, they decided that their best bet would be to travel south. The coast of the icy field seemed to be to the west, and so they began marching along it in what they assumed was closer to civilization. Trekking their footpath in the snow, they fought the wind and ice step by step. None of them were truly sure if they could find any sign of life.

None of them were sure they’d ever see anyone else.

 

     As they marched along, something began to beckon them forward. It was a tall, frail tower with no walls or floors to speak of, but with a simple red light flashing at the top. There also seemed to be some sort of bowl attached to the end of the strange thing.

     They looked at each other and began marching, more determined than before, towards the strange device.

     It took them an hour, comparatively short time if we consider they were looking in an otherwise barren wasteland and it could have been miles away. Some could call them lucky.

     They approached what was clearly the source of the odd tower: A structure, largely buried in the snow with a massive metal door. The door itself seemed to be partially open, a massive shutter with one side having fallen down into the gap that was meant to hold it between uses.

     They slipped their way over the gap, and into the darkened building, unsure of what may lie within.

     Orwell turned to Rutt.

     “This seems safe enough. It’s slightly warmer in here than it is in that god forsaken cave. We might even be able to find some sort of heater or something. I can go and fetch the others.”

     Rutt shook his head.

     “It should be fine if I do so. I have longer legs than you, and a lighter to keep me warm. The snow won’t slow me down as it might for anyone else. Plus, you know your way around a machine or two. They can use your skills here.”

     Orwell conceded the point, and the aged cannoneer nodded as he went off to retrieve MacAvoy and Lucious.

 

     Rutt stepped out into the cold air once more and grit his teeth as he fumbled his lighter out of his coat. The wind is unkind and, as it dared to remind him with an unfortunate gust, unfathomably deadly.

     He marched through the snow, endeavoring to hasten the unpleasant walk from an hour or so down to just a few minutes, quickly stomping his way through the snow. And it was fairly manageable, with the little flame at his chest, keeping him warmer than it would be without, a beacon of safety in the darkness.

 

     And then, halfway along the path, the lighter stopped burning.

     Click. Click. Click.

     Nothing.

     Rutt swore. “Butane, doubt any more survived the crash, but can’t hurt to look, hm? Not much choice otherwise.”

     He’d managed, so far, to ignore the fact that his snot was frozen and his toes were going numb, but as he found himself alone, with no one else to worry about, and no fire for warmth, that played upon his mind like nothing else.

     The snow in his boots practically removed any motion from his numb ankles as they fought against the bitter cold. The breeze from the ocean, barely a few yards away from the path they walked, certainly did not help matters.

     It quickly grew colder and colder. Or, perhaps it was exactly the same temperature, and Rutt was lost, focusing hard on the details of the weather. As he marched along, he took a deep breath and looked inland, where he was stunned by what he saw.

 

A green tree.

Green and brown like the ones you’d find lining parks in the summer. Clearly warm, healthy, and alive.

 

     Rutt was stunned. He didn’t think anything could survive in this bizarre part of the world. He began marching his way over to it and hoping above hope that there was something to find. That this wasn’t just a tree that was fundamentally used to the cold and able to grow green no matter what.

     He was not disappointed. He quickly found himself standing on a dirt path with flowers decorating the grass on either side of him, the snow practically through a door which he’d just simply stepped through into this beautifully enchanted meadow. He put his hand on the tree and rejoiced at the wonderful, wonderful warmth that it provided. He gazed at the grass and flowers, removing his hat and gloves as he took in the incredible scenery.

     Down the path, following a hill away from the ice, Rutt saw what appeared to be a pale woman with a boater’s hat and beautiful pastel coat sitting on what was unquestionably a park bench, reading a newspaper. He hurried his way down to her, happy and excited at his fortune. He yelled, he called out to her, and she looked at him. He was thrilled, excited, and beautifully, beautifully happy.

 

 

     Orwell, Jenna, and Airam continued browsing the odd and misplaced shelter they’d found themselves within. Orwell had found some new and strange radio equipment that he was more than happy to try and get working, as it seemed to be a radio of a very foreign design. One that he could get working, if he could figure out why it had plenty of power but no signal.

     Jenna and Airam went on examining a laboratory of sorts, which seemed to be home for thousands of little black boxes, which Airam proposed to be unusual models of computer servers, likely custom-built to survive the absurd cold. They could not, however, make out the path of the wiring in the dark, or where the strange oblong glare on the wall was coming from.

     “This is all a bunch of gibberish to me, if I’m honest,” Jenna said, scratching her head in confusion, “I’m much better with AM kits than this sorta uber-techy stuff.”

     “There’s not much that I get either, at least without a proper console or something,” Airam said as he withdrew a little flashlight from his pocket.

     “Maybe. Or maybe we can see where all the wiring is going, I’m awfully curious if it leads to anything.”

 

     As Airam made his way to the back of the room, dusting the remarkable quantity of snow off him to not get it on the electronics, Jenna made her way towards the door.

     “Well, you can stay and tinker with this mess, I’m gonna check up on Orwell,” she said.

 

     It was about this time that Lucious and MacAvoy, the prior carrying the latter, finally reached the structure. Having become fed up with their options within the freezing cave, they’d marched in tail of the others. After a walk uneventful, save the discovery of Rutt’s discarded lighter, they were making their way into the strange building.

     With difficulty, Lucious and MacAvoy slipped into the gap in the huge door, and took in the room that, while cold, was significantly warmer than the frigid air outside.

     “Hello?!” MacAvoy called, “Ow! Ow, don’t move so suddenly!”

     “Sorry, you startled me,” Lucious said, apologetically glancing towards MacAvoy’s injured leg.

     As they had this exchange as Jenna came into the room from the hallway, her expression lightning when she saw them.

     “Good, you both made it! Rutt found you, then?” She said this as she looked around the room.

     “No, no, we didn’t find him. We found this, though,” MacAvoy said, passing Jenna the lighter.

     She looked at it, and turned it over to read the inscription. Her expression hardened, and she pushed it back into MacAvoy’s hand.

     “Well. Nothing to be said, I suppose. I’m going to try and help Orwell with the radio equipment. You didn’t see him when you came in, did you?”

     Lucious shook his head, “We just got in, ourselves. Haven’t even got a look around the place, yet.”

     Jenna gave an understanding nod, and made her way to where the radio equipment had been.

     “Ah, wait, have you seen the head around here?” MacAvoy interjected.

     “Oh, yeah, just go down that hallway, it’s on your right,” she indicated the way she’d come in before departing in another direction.

     “You need to relieve yourself?” Lucious commented, “I’m pretty sure all my, uh, ‘pipes’ are frozen stiff.”

     “Well, I feel somethin’ warmin’ up and it ain’t my bones.”

     Lucious escorted MacAvoy down the halls of the facility, in search.

        After a couple minutes of walking, MacAvoy froze.

        "Ah, stop, stop. I think we're too late."

     With no destination, Lucious gently laid MacAvoy against a nearby wall, and took a seat next to him, closing his eyes.

     “Sorry, Luce. I…” MacAvoy’s voice drifted off, and back, “I don’t really…” and out, and in, “my, is it dark in here or what..?”

     Lucious' eyes snapped open, and he looked back at his friend, who’s expression was completely empty.

     “Mac? MacAvoy, you alright?”

     He knelt down to him, and gave him a light shake. The Midshipman was completely unresponsive.

     Lucious began to panic, his first thought was to unbutton his coat and perform some quick procedure or something if he’d become infected, or even just CPR to get him conscious, but when he pulled MacAvoy into a brighter patch, he noticed the unquestionable reality.

     MacAvoy’s lower body was soaked through with blood. Most had coalesced in dark patches due to the cold, but it was unquestionably blood. Upon further examination, Lucious found that the impromptu bandage around MacAvoy’s leg had disappeared some time ago, probably during their trek through the ice. It was no use. No matter the shaking, MacAvoy had no answer.

 

     Jenna searched the radio room pretty thoroughly for some kind of side-passage, and didn’t find anything. Orwell had, as far as she could tell, simply vanished. It was at this point that she realized the desk of little papers, mostly gibberish, had one that was in her own language.

     It read simply:

“Seems this thing is connected to the roof.

Going to see what’s up there.

-      Oars”

     “That idiot…” Jenna sighed, expecting the worst, and followed the signs with a picture of a person climbing a ladder. Soon, she found herself on the roof of the strange structure, and looked up the tower with the bizzare red light, which she assumed was the antennae. Around the top, she could make out the shape of a person on the small platform near the power box. They seemed to not be moving. Worried that another hail storm had struck, Jenna began to climb the tower.

     It was a long climb, each rung more difficult to hold onto than the last, as the air got colder and colder. Each step felt like one more mountain climbed, one more eternity served in the snow, before she finally reached the peak.

     And there, laying on the platform, was what remained of Orwell.

     He looked, at least, like he’d simply settled down for a nap, perfectly comfortable, and simply didn’t wake up. She sighed.

     “To think you of all people were the one warning about hypothermia..”

     She noticed that he’d been tinkering with some sort of lever: The radio tower’s power switch, by the looks. His acquired tools even sat on the lower lip of the housing. She climbed onto the platform, gave the switch a flip, and prayed for power.

 

     Back within the base, Airam was still fiddling with the server farm. Airam had failed to notice quite a few things, while he was working. Though in his defense, he had been very cold, and had walked through pitch-white snow for a good while. It wasn’t easy to notice the little things in this, and he’d certainly never been trained for it. He’d failed to notice that what he was working on actually was connecting to a console, who’s monitor was turned off. He’d failed to notice that it was a perfectly functional server farm. He’d failed to notice that he’d tracked a great deal of snow into the room, he and Jenna both, which had now melted onto the floor.

     He was by no means an unobservant man. He paid a great deal of attention to all elements of life where possible. But the weather had numbed his senses. So as the lights came back on, and he was able to see, he noticed everything he’d missed.

And he also noticed, without looking, that one of the loose power wires was in his patch of melted snow.

 

     Jenna watched as the laboratory’s lights sparked to life, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She took a moment to appreciate where she was.

     The area was all-white, as far north as they had ever gone. The base was the only pre-existing element to break up the landscape that she could see with a huge chunk of gray, but their vessel, outdated though it was, had added an interesting patch to this particular view. As she turned to the ladder to make her way down, she felt it.

 

     Ping.

     She’d been struck.

     It was starting to hail.

 

     A wave of panic set in as she realized how terrible her position was, and she began to hastily climb down the side of the tower as the pieces came down with more and more ferocity. About 1/3rd of the way down, she had the idea to flip to the other side of the ladder so it might protect her, shield her, from the weather.

     About ½ of the way down, a piece proved it didn’t make a difference, as it struck her head right between steps in the bars, and knocked her unconscious.

So she fell.

     Lucious stood, after a long reflection, having found yet another member of their dwindlingly small surviving crew among the departed, and took stock of the situation.

     The building was actually warming up. It was heating itself slowly, and they may actually survive.

     “We will survive?” he mumbled, “We, who? Is there anyone left?”

     He began to make his way towards the entrance when he heard a loud clang from the roof. Rechecking that he was unharmed and his weather gear was in order, he hurried to the ladder indicated and made his way to the roof. There, he found an unconscious Jenna, clearly having just taken quite the fall. In a panic, he grabbed her and heaved her over his shoulder. It was surprisingly easy, which he mentally noted meant he was going to be quite sore later. He hustled down with Jenna stabilized across his shoulders, and ran towards what he assumed to be the generator, going by the symbolism attributed to power.

     As he finally made it in, he laid Jenna against the machine, and hurried back out to the remainder of the base to locate some medical supplies. He couldn’t find anything in the immediate area, so he reluctantly left Jenna alone in the engine room, sealing the door to try and keep the warmth in one place, and searched the remainder of the structure.

As he searched, Jenna opened her eyes.

     She looked about the room. In a haze, she couldn’t remember where she was, but soon each piece began to rebuild itself in her memory, and she quickly regained her senses. She felt her mind using every effort to hold back her emotions, at least until it was sure the crisis was over.

     She got up, appreciating the warmth of the room, and started to finally get a good look at the sort of place they were in, now that the lights were on.

     The walls were sleek and metallic, but dented with age and decay. The wiring was well-made, but fraying in places. A pair of broken lights dangled from the ceiling in this room and that, but even this dismal, gray-ish blue sight was better than staring at more of that hellish white.

     As she opened the door to the generator room, she could hear much of the building whirring to life. Pistons running in the room behind her, lights beginning to buzz in various places, the distinct hum of a heater on full blast. Not to mention the smell of cold air being dissipated by the hot.

     And then she realized she was hearing something quite strange. A clicking sound. A tip-tap-tip-tap.

     She followed it, carefully. The halls were winding, bits of piping and wiring were exposed from panels whose bolts had given way. Some rooms bore shattered glass from vials and flasks.

     She had to shake off her mind acknowledging that two of the rooms bore her fallen friends, and one had simply vanished.

     Tip. Tap. Tip. Tip. Tap. ….

     The tapping stopped just as Jenna reached the door to the radio room. She glanced in each direction. In one, she could almost make out the silhouette of MacAvoy, but she did her best to not think on that.

     She opened the door.

     What greeted her eyes when she did is not something that would stand out in an art gallery.

     It is not something that would shine in a news article, which would focus on the tragedy.

     It is not something that would make late-night television without a very enthusiastic presenter.

     But it was the most important thing to see.

     So important, that it wasn’t until Lucious came running that she realized she’d been crying.

     Because on the desk was a little mechanical printer. Designed to turn morse code into letters.

     And it had printed one thing.

 

MESSAGE RECEIVED

HELP ON THE WAY