A World Frozen in Time

This world is frozen solid... a higher-pitched young woman's voice calls out from the drifting winds, It always has been. Cold gusts sweep over an icy landscape of glacial mountains, and oceans of snow so deep, to fall in would mean almost certain death. As far as Toklo, the man who raised me is concerned, it always will be. He was a nomad like me. He told me epic stories of days long passed, of villages in the Snow Plains out past the Shredded Mountains where they hunt the endless saber wolf packs as fearlessly as they do us, he told me of great cities beneath our feet where bright lights flicker during the night. Roads, bridges, and towers stretching far under the horizon. Treasures, unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Although they are far too deep to reach by hand, must be miles deep ice at least, but it's clear as day though. Almost all of the ice underfoot is so clear that without the snow dusting over it, you might think you were floating. Sometimes on our travels, we'd see great spires reaching almost close enough to dig too and green trees and plains frozen in time below. During our last trek, he told me those cities were where we go when we die. That they were built by the gods to house the souls of all the people claimed by the wastes. I imagine he's there waiting for me now too. On the last trek, he made one wrong step in front of me and fell into the snow, I dug for days, but he was gone. Now it's just me and the wilderness. I wonder if there's anyone else out there...

Heavy winds gust outside Uki's hut carrying snow spiraling through them slamming the front door open, she wakes late in the night with a quick gasp. The sweat on her brow almost freezing the moment the wind crosses her bed, she moves with great haste to put on her makeshift jacket and rush to the door to close it. The winds out tonight could rend flesh from the bone easily. With great difficulty she manages to shut it then looks around in a panic realizing her door's latch no longer works, then she takes a chair and places it against the handle to hold it closed for now while searching for other objects to barricade the entrance with. As she shifts and moves about the cramped cabin which is carved into the base of a massive arch of ice creating a natural barrier from the cold outside and the winds from the south, but clearly, not north. She had been hibernating inside her shack for a few days now as the storm outside had lasted for many nights already and may last several more. Most of her home is made of ice as well, but with scraps of metal and wood that she'd find on her treks. The ones she used to take with her adopted father Toklo. On makeshift desks, there are animal skins with drawings inside them, and carvings on wooden planks. All done by Toklo before he passed. They depict a treasure unlike any other he had seen when he was younger but had to pass by due to an oncoming storm which would have meant certain death for him. Now Uki is set on finding it, for it was almost all Toklo would talk about. "Love frozen in time." He called it. So they searched aimlessly for years before he was lost. Now Uki searches alone. Finally, after several days the storm subsided, and the shack's door opened then fell to the ground in a pathetic thud. "Damn it... so much time wasted." She walks from her shack out towards the lake of snow surrounding her home to collect a few buckets worth to boil for breakfast, then she took her rounds, quickly checking all of her traps along a path she'd walk every day, Uki is a well-trained hunter and trapper, she faces constant hardship so she herself has become hardened. After returning to her shack and cooking two oversized rodents with water she stands in the doorway of her hobble with determination, certain she'll find Toklo's "Love frozen in time." even though unsure of what that really is. Following his makeshift maps and markings, she has a direction and a landmark finally, a giant square made of stone in the ground. And so her journey begins her final trek into the arctic wasteland ahead. As her steps fade into the snowy desertscape she holds her thick coat made of fur and other clanking hard surfaces scrounged up over the years and a blade at her hip made of bone and animal skin, as the wind blows her down harder and harder the closer she gets to a pass through the Shredded Mountains. She walks almost bending all the way over fighting for stability and even her life. Her determination still unwavering, her strength only increasing as she knows when she hits the pass the winds will subside, just as she finally makes it after a few hours of walking in the wind and snow to the Shredding Pass between the mountains. Above her, all along the clifflike walls to both sides are icicles the size of whales, some looser than others. She watches her feet as well though as the ground here is weak in some places, and there are thick needles of ice lining some areas of the ground as well making tripping, not an option.

Halfway through the pass, she moves carefully and quietly over and around the spear-like needles. As she steps over one of the many spikes of ice protruding from the ground, her other foot slides out from under her and she quickly falls onto the hard ground but stays firmly in the place she fell. For a moment she feels a horrible pain in her side, then a freezing numb throughout her abdomen. Looking down she sees blood on the ground next to her, and almost loses consciousness. Then as her eyes close, she feels an ominous rumble all around her. Her daze cut short but the sound of a loud crash behind her by only a few feet, one of the giant icicles had fallen behind her closing any chance of returning home from that direction, suddenly life appeared in a vivid slow motion and she realized she could move, then again realized she needed to run! Looking up she could see two more and then another after than down the line about to crack and fall above her. Making haste she takes out her blade and looks to the spike that impaled her, picking at it as fast as she could as the sound of cracking grew louder and more pressing. Finally, she broke the base of the spike as she was smarter than to just remove it and pass out or promptly die of blood loss down a ways. She took off in a sprint, grunting and panting heavily through great pain. Still carrying the heavy icicle through her body she runs as fast as her legs will carry her over and around yet more spikes ready to finish her off, behind her the crashing of yet more massive icicles set off a chain reaction as the whole pass started to fall apart around her! Just as she made it to the exit the final icicle slammed down behind her with force enough to throw her foreword into the harsh winds on the other side of the Shredded Mountains. Suddenly though, the sun peaked through the clouds if for nothing more than a moment as she caught her breath and removed the spike from her torso then treated her wound. Setting up camp there for the night in a nearby cave she laid next to a shoddily made fire just barely enough to keep her warm while another storm brewed just outside. Cooking a piece of one of the rodents she had caught earlier. Uki was exhausted, lonely, and in pain. As she finished eating her dinner and dozed off to sleep. She dreamed of the object Toklo searched for for so long. What does "Love frozen in time" look like? Why is it so important to her? Surely not just because Toklo wanted it. No... Uki wants to have some form of purpose in this harsh and brutal world, where she may die having never seen another human face but his. Might as well find the thing he desired so much. Otherwise, his life spent searching was for nothing.

The next morning the sun shines through the entrance of the cave, its warmth is a welcome change for sure. Uki's eyelids slowly drifting open and her light brown cheeks are greeted by that warm morning sun. Then she is promptly reminded that she is horribly wounded from a sharp pain after attempting to move. She gets up and out of the cave to observe her surroundings. No matter what her resolve is nothing short of iron. A true force of sheer will walking even though she only stands at five feet, she's more fierce than any bear alive. She spots out in the distance what can only be described as a giant stone square that from this distance goes far down into the ice below, one of the towers peeking out from the city below? Cautiously she moves across the great plain of snow, she is sure-footed and sharp as the blade on her hip, every step is a gamble, but if she pays attention to the patterns in the snow underfoot she will not fall into the white abyss. As she makes it to the edge of the snow river, the ice surrounding the massive obelisk is clear as air, it goes down for a few miles at least, must be hundreds of stories. The sheer size of such an object to Uki leaves her in awe for a moment. Then she presses on towards it. After an hour of walking, she arrives at the edge, where she expected it to be carved into the surface of the ice. She sees it was built however, and then the ice formed around it. Such a prospect had never occurred to Uki that the cities may have existed long before the ice or that the ice may have not been there before. She spots a steel door with a metal handle that's rusted beyond recognition. After simply kicking it as hard as she can the door falls open with relative ease but opens her wound further bleeding through her clothes. The ancient building inside is dark, but not dark as in black, more submerged. It feels as she walks through its empty glass corridors that she has entered another dimension. Where she would expect creaking or perhaps shifting sounds of any kind, it is nothing but pure silence. Looking out the windows towards the dark world outside encased in ice, was like looking into her mortality... Just then she hears a small crashing sound coming from behind her. A figure backs up taken aback by Uki's presence as Uki places one hand over her wound and the other on her blade. Just then Uki's eye is immediately caught by a glimmering gold object frozen to the glass on the other side of the room in the hands of a woman holding it close to her chest with a saddened but gentle expression. The figure reaches for their blade, but Uki is long past ready for the fight, has the upper hand and ends their life before they even draw it, they drop to the ground dead... Uki then walks over towards the frozen woman holding what appeared to be an ancient golden locket. Then she slowly fell onto the ground leaning back on a cubicle wall, and succumbed to her wounds. The End.