Excerpts From Winter

"...I'm in a warm place now - an old village or hamlet.

There's plenty of tinder and firewood. Old thatched roofs have fallen down in a lot of the houses, so while I couldn't stay there, I still got some things for a fire or two. Some other houses fell down with beams and walls and the like, so I grabbed some pieces I could carry. I tried not to, though. It seems like such a waste - even if nobody is here. After all, this was someone's home!

One of the places had a stack of firewood outside. I had to break it apart and dig around to get the drier stuff underneath because the logs on the outside were basically just blocks of ice. I'm not even going to try to burn one.

I'm in one of the most intact buildings. It's at the center of the village, and pretty big inside. It might be some kind of theatre or concert hall. Upstairs, there's an office with some comfy chairs and cushions. I set a few around a fire. It's like a little ski lodge of a camp, now. It is so nice to rest my hooves, though. I ran for I don't know how far - literally. I don't have a map, and the white out hit so hard, I didn't have a chance to guess...

I should be dead.

I ran blindly, in the middle of a massive snow storm, not knowing how far, for how long, with this little pack of food and no ropes or extra satchels or any tinder or a flint or

I'm lucky I found this place. I'm lucky the white out ended when it did. I don't deserve to be here.

I passed out before. I don't know what exactly happened, but I just started breathing hard and... freaking out, is the only way I can put it. Like I was being overwhelmed. I read back to what I put down, and the first couple pages were gone. I guess I ripped them out.

I'm a little rattled. I got a cold-flash right before I went under, which means that it could have been some kind of shock from the heat of the fire or just exhaustion catching up to me at a weird time. I'm praying that I'm not sick. Maybe it has something to do with a panic attack? I used to have them as a filly whenever I was overwhelmed with a situation. I wrote all that "luck" and existential stuff, so that'd make sense, but it's been so long. I was around eight or something.

I guess I'm still lucky, because I passed out next to the fire. Even at the corner of the room, I could've never woken up from that. I don't know what time it is, and I remember seeing some clouds out of a dusty window in that office. I'll go do a better sweep, check it out, and head back.

I found a box of pencils and a few bottles of ink in a cupboard upstairs, and snagged some loose ones from the floor and such. I guess I'm pretty great on that department. There are no windows where I set up "camp" - I guess it technically is a camp - so after swiping what I could, which I still feel bad about, I peeped outside. I still couldn't see the sun, but the sky was definitely a darker gray than before. I swept around for anything else useful, came up empty, and headed down back to my comfy desk chair. No blankets, so I just made a sort-o'-fort.

I feel a lot better now, and after a little bread and a cup of snow over the fire, I feel even a bit relaxed. After how fast all that happened, getting a quiet rest is... well, restful. Besides all of this "homely comforts", I'm still really uneasy. The wind stopped blowing too hard, and when it did, it seemed eerie with how quiet it got. It whistled around bare trees that were still standing and loose thatch and windows of other houses. When I walked in this town, it was like... a dying creature. On it's last leg, wheezing or gasping for air. Shaking shutters, whipping curtains, even if they were on the ground. It was like it was asking for help. Now it's... gone. Dead. I'm just left with the crackling of the fire, and no slamming shutters, whistling windows or trees, and definitely... hopefully, no animals to chitter or howl.

I don't know how to follow that up. I get these spurts of poetry every once in a while, and I guess I need something to do to pass time alone. For a few reason, now that I think of it.

I can't sleep yet. I'm not as tired as I could be from that episode earlier, but that is going to change really quick. The sky's black now and I didn't grab enough wood on the first run to last the night. I don't know what's going to happen soon, whether that's tomorrow or in a year. The best I can do is prepare everything I can. If I need to buck the trees down for wood in a week, I guess I will, but that's just one thing. I don't know how long or how well this bread is going to keep. Trotting through the town earlier, I saw some kind of mini-theme park-restaurant thing. I didn't look inside, but it looked a bit shambled. On the other hoof, it could have just been like that for the most part. It's almost like a fort? I'll check it out, even if that's not the case. My thought process is that it might still have some parts of things I could stick together to be useful.

There's a ton of snow around there, though, so maybe I should scrap together a small travel package tonight, too. I'll make a small list:

x - Fire Wood
x - Ration for Trip
- Find Other Pages
- Search Upstairs Again?

"...I couldn't find those pages I ripped out earlier. I hope I didn't throw them away somewhere. I'm going to sleep. Good night."