Legacies of light

Part 1: Fimbulwinter

Year 1

All I feel are sharp pains throughout my body. How long has it been since I started walking? It could only have been just over a day, or I would be dead. I haven't taken time to rest because I feel I would collapse and fall over if I did. My feet are numb, my arms are shaking, and I can barely see anything. My ears are about to fall off, and all the liquid in my body is about to freeze. I feel as though my consciousness could fade at any moment. All I know for sure is the weight of my bag on my back and that I'm walking upwards.

Thoughts run through my mind, like how can snow so white, so pure, so beautiful while also destroying my senses? I spent years finding the materials to construct clothes resistant to this cold, so that I could climb this mountain at the end of my life, but it's barely doing anything for me.

I laugh a little at the hopelessness of my situation, but then my throat feels a sharp pain. I can’t even slightly open my mouth in this cold; the moment the cold air comes in through my mouth, I feel as though my organs are about to turn into ice. Still, regardless of any of that, I continue to scale this mountain, I must.

My body wants to stop, but I refuse. It wants to give up, but I persevere. It keeps telling me you've done enough, it's ok; anyone would die at this point, but I ignore it. My legs started to buckle; I fell, it seemed my body has had enough of me, and while lying in the snow, all I could think was, how comfy this is? It's even softer than my pillow. I feel the strength drain from my body as I embrace the snow. Is this what it means to be a peace when you die?

But I'm not alone. She is still here with me, so I say the names of my family repeatedly in my mind: Draga, Dragoste, Viata, Intrare. And it gives me strength even if just a little, and I press on even if I can keep going just for one or even two more minutes, it will allow me to give her an even more beautiful sight, and after all she's done for me I believe she deserves that, so I continue to march forward to get a little further.

I go on, but then I feel something under my foot. Did I hit something? Looking down, I see a child as white as snow. Shit, what, crap! Why is a child here? Even though my body was numb to the bone, it still felt shocked by this.

I quickly picked the child up to see if it was alive. The child had its eyes closed; so, I tried checking its pulse, but my body was so numb I doubted I could do it, but then my arms started to wobble, shit my strength is falling by the second.

I try to look for visual indicators if the child is alive. The child's skin still looks bright, and its breathing is still constant. I try to hold the child close to give it heat, but I realise this child isn't cold; It's hot. What the hell is this child, unaffected by the cold? As I try to make sense of my situation, I fall into the snow below.

Crap, my strength is gone. What the hell am I going to do? No one comes to Fimbulwinter unless they have some death wish, so this child’s rescue options are non-existent. I feel my mind going blank damn, no I can't die like this is what I keep saying in my mind, but then the snow starts to move away from us. The snow clears a path in front of us, yet as I look around, the blizzard is raging everywhere else.

Under the snow, I can see green pastures, and light from the sun starts to break through the endless blizzard. It's almost as if the blizzard moved to make way for the sun. The sunlight shines on the path of snow in front of us.

I don't even understand what's happening, but my best chance at surviving is following that before the snow comes back. Even in my old age, I should still be able to do it. I reinforce my body with SE?, thinking I must optimise it and not push it past the limit. Then I get up, pick the child up, and walk down the path as fast as possible.

The child's body heat is warming my fingers; I still feel pain everywhere, but by reinforcing it, the pain goes down a bit, but this will lead to even worse muscle fatigue later. Still, I continue through it all, I have so many questions, why is this child here? Why is this child immune to the cold? Why is the snow clearing? But I put them all on hold and continued down the path as quickly as possible, pushing my old bones, and then eventually, I saw a lone house that the snow wasn’t touching. I see the light from the sun shining down on the house.

Seeing this, all I can feel is excitement. This is exhilarating, an old man like me can still have thrilling experiences like this, but this is not the time, I think to myself while rushing towards the house with the child. I dropped my bag so I could reach home faster. When I arrived at the house, I saw the front door open with a pile of snow outside the front door. I wearily head inside and collapse on the floor, and the only thought going through my mind is that it's so warm.

Crap, it seems I overdid it. My body is entirely numb; my consciousness is fading. No, is this where I die? Damn it; this is so unfair. I wanted to die in peace, fulfilled, but not only did I fail at what I intended to do, but then all these fascinating events happened right before I died, “Damnit,” I say before falling unconscious.

-Break-

Soft, warm, and comfy, is this what the afterlife feels like? I think to myself. But really, my ass still itches in the afterlife. I go to scratch it, and I realise I'm on a bed. I quickly jump up and open my eyes. I look around and see I'm in a reasonably big room with a bed in the centre. The room is also quite well decorated, not something that your common man would have.

One shocking thing I notice is that I'm naked; who the hell undressed me? Who the hell even brought me here? These thoughts run through my mind while sitting on the bed, and then I sigh. “Well, whatever, no use to think about, I should go investigate.”

Vigorously, I jump off the bed and land on the ground, striking a heroic pose. But it is soon interrupted by a chilling sensation on my feet. When I touched the ground, one thought immediately ran through my head: IT'S COLD! Going from the warm bed to this cold forced my body to jump back onto the bed. Looking down at what I felt, I saw a pile of snow on the floor, but looking at it immediately, I remembered that outside the open front door was another pile of snow.

Regardless, I still need to investigate and look for the kid; I thought when I saw the snow getting off the bed. I looked around for my clothes in the room but couldn't locate them. But I got a chance to look in the mirror, and I thought I might be 78 years old, but my body was still fit as ever. After admiring myself, I tried looking through the drawers in this elegant room.

I couldn't find my clothes, but looking around, I found a set of clothes that fit me; while getting dressed, I muttered, “This place is bizarre,” but weird things are so much fun; I thought to myself with a grin, but now it's time to see what this place is about. So, I open the door to leave the room.

Exiting the room, I look around and realise I'm on the second floor. Then I walk around and see a door completely covered in snow, so I go directly to this unimportant door. Then, as I try to reach for the doorknob, the snow stretches away from the door and turns into one big spike of ice, which attacks me. I move back and see the ice turn back to snow.

I try to approach the door again, and when the spike tries to strike me again, I move around just enough so the ice won't hit me. I then immediately try to go for the door, but something pulls me from behind. The giant icicle turned back into the snow and formed into a hand to grab me; then, it threw me away from the door.

When I landed after being thrown, I hit my head against the floor, screaming, “Ouch,” but after raising my head to look at the door, I saw the hand of ice with its middle finger up.

"So, it's like that," I say, irritated, and then I reinforce my arms with SE? and run up to the door to try and break it. The hand of ice prepares to intercept me, but I fall on my face and hear a large GROWL; Oh yeah, I need food.

I go around the second floor and start opening doors. I can't find any food or a kitchen, but I see a bathroom, "No time to think about that now, I need food!” so I try to find a staircase to descend, and in one of the rooms on the first floor, I find a kitchen, then without hesitation I head to the fridge, but it is empty. "Well, I guess I'm dead."

But then I remembered my bag had food in it. I run around looking for a door outside. When I find the one I came through, I realise it's closed. I open it and head out.

When I head out, I see just like before that the snow isn't close to the house. It is like a circle has been drawn in the area, and the snowstorm rages on directly outside it, but the sun no longer shines on the house. The snowstorm is raging over the top of the area; looking at this, it’s more like a dome area has been made where no snow comes close, rather than a circle. The is no physical object blocking the snow. It's just avoiding this area.

But more importantly, my bag is a little way from the house. I run to it with the excitement of an 8-year-old seeing their pet capis after it left to drink the blood from unsuspecting travellers. I rush towards my bag hungry, but after jumping and tackling it, I feel an all but too familiar sensation: “It's freezing.”

My bag was almost as cold as the snowstorm I was hiking in, and it was as solid as a rock, thinking. “No, no, no, no, NO,” I use all the strength in my hands to unzip the frozen bag after checking inside, I feel a sensation of instant despair, all the food in the bag was frozen. My hands and knees are on the green ground in defeat. “CRAP, I'M ABOUT TO DIE FOR THE 7^TH TIME TODAY, WHAT THE HELL.”

I got this bag specially made to resist the cold, but while I was hiking, the contents froze. However, I then remember that my most important item is still in there. I rummage through my bag to find the jar; luckily, it was still ok, at least the most crucial object, the pot, isn't frozen. “At least you're ok. I should thank Avram for making this jar, however. I guess I won't be seeing him again."

I brought my bag back inside in utter defeat to see if the heat would defrost it eventually, but I would probably be dead by then. In total despair, while hungry, I circled the house to think of a way not to die. Thoughts going true my head like maybe if I eat my right arm, I might live a little longer, perhaps just select parts of my body, but while walking with these negative thoughts, I arrive at the back of the house, and I see my Eden, a garden.

It's not that big, but the fruits growing from there are extremely large. In hunger, I grab one of these oversized fruits, bite it, and realise how much water is inside it. It's like having a refreshing drink right after eating this massive fruit. "This fruit was big enough to do me for an entire day."

After eating it, I fell to the floor and had many thoughts. First, I have never seen this type of fruit anywhere worldwide. Second, did I eat some mystery fruit that could have killed me instantly? Third, the pile of snow irregularly in front of the door was gone. Fourth, the door was closed, so someone had to take my clothes off and bring me to my bed. Fifth, where is the child? It just disappeared, and finally, this aftertaste IS GARBAGE!

It tastes like someone took a pile of dragon shit and sprinkled it with bugs. Oh, GOD, who made this? I tried spitting to see if I could get this taste off my tongue. I can't take this; it is so bad that I feel my mind fading "Oh no, not again; crap, I'm about to pass out."

-Break-

Walking up I say, “Crap, I guess this is what is meant by the equivalent exchange,” while I look at the small garden with these large fruits.

How long was I out? Wait, how am I supposed to tell the time? I just realised that I can’t tell the time without the sun and with my equipment frozen. Was today the same day I arrived here? Maybe it's been a few days. That's why I was so hungry. I need to find some way of telling the time, but right now, none of that matters. Now that I'm filled, time for round 2 against that door.

Walking inside, I get ready to walk towards the staircase, but looking upstairs, I see a blue and gold light. Looking closer, it's a pair of eyes. It’s the child. It’s staring at me through the upstairs rails "Hello, I'm Captivant. What’s your name?" I say with a smile, but the child screams hysterically and runs away.

Huh, that could have gone better also, did the kid's hair change from white to yellow when it saw me? I should probably go check if the kid is ok. As I get upstairs, I see that the door, which was once covered in the snow, is now open with the snow gone, “so I see you've run from my furry,” but while looking at the door, I see at the side of my eye the kid looking at me again, its hair is white again strange but no time for that now because is the second time the charm, so I try again “hello I'm Captivant what's your.”

It runs screaming yet again, and the child's hair changes from white to yellow as it runs. I guess I should leave the kid to run, but I have some questions I want to ask.

I eagerly walk towards where the kid is. It wasn't hard to find it because of the kids screaming. As I approached, the kid began running faster. Still, being a child, it really can't get that much farther than me, so I catch up in no time, and each time I get close, I try to start a conversation, but the kid keeps running away.

I should probably stop because I'm not getting anywhere, but this reminds me of when I used to chase my son and daughter when they were young, so I can't help but enjoy this.

After chasing the child for a while, I conclude that a kid this action must be healthy, and it seems the kid is deathly afraid of me. I didn't think anything I could do today would get me any results, so I stopped chasing the kid and screamed at max volume, saying, “I will not harm you, so you want to be friends? This invitation lasts until I'm dead.”

When I finish saying that, I go fetch my jar and return to the room I woke up in. Today has been a long day for an old man, and I'm tired, so I head to bed, then look at the jar and say, “Honey, it seems me and you, get to have one final journey together.”