Bitter Cold

by Waxworks

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Horror, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Thriller
Length: 7388

While climbing the frozen mountains north of the Crystal Empire, a stallion becomes trapped. As time wears on and he becomes weak, he starts experiencing strange things.

A stallion is out climbing the mountains north of the Crystal Empire. When the glacier he and his companion are on cracks, he finds himself trapped deep within an icy crevasse, where hunger, sleep deprivation, and the bitter cold wear on his body and mind.

Published 2018-03-03 21:10:07 UTC
Last updated 2018-03-03 21:10:07 UTC

Bitter Cold

I awoke in darkness.

I was upside-down, hanging from the rope tied tightly around my waist. The fall had been arrested by my careful preparation and a sturdy harness, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable. It had knocked the wind out of me and I wasn’t sure how long I had been unconscious, but it was long enough to leave me cold.

I shivered in the chilly wind blowing through the crevasse. Icicles dripped down the sides of the rock, looming large over me and pointing further down the jagged fissure. I checked myself over for further injury, making sure nothing was broken and merely numb from the cold or pain. I tested my hooves and each seemed functional, then checked my horn. I cast a simple light spell, further illuminating the crevasse in which I found myself. I turned the light down, unable to see the bottom, then turned it above, looking to see where my rope had gotten hooked to save me.

Far above me, it appeared that my rope had caught on an outcropping of ice, wrapped over it and strung across the void to somewhere far above. The rope had done its job and caught itself in the eye of the hook I was attached to, saving my life for now, but the fall had caused me to lose all my tools save a few glowsticks and food bars. I would survive, but I didn’t know if I could move.

I cast my light about, searching for anything I could use to get down. I was suspended in the middle of the crevasse, with nothing save my rope within hoof’s reach. I tested the rope and the purchase it had, swinging myself gently back and forth. I had to stop when the ice it was attached to shifted dangerously, sending particles down onto my head, and dropping me down a few inches.

I stopped and waited, hesitant to try again. I looked at the rope to see where I would end up if the outcropping gave way, and it didn’t look pleasant. The rope would drop me some distance down, and where I cast my horn light I couldn’t see much. The reflecting light sent a cascade of illusions flying back at me, and beyond sharp outcroppings further down, I wasn’t sure what was down there amidst the reflective walls.

I cast about for any of my tools that might have stuck somewhere, but they were either above me or below, and I could see none of them to pull them to me with magic. I tried to pull the rope, but my telekinesis wasn’t strong enough to support my own weight as well as the rope itself, and I just caused more shifting and a dusting of ice again.

Unhappy, I called out. “Glacier? Are you there? Are you alright?”

Glacier Break had been with me in our trek over this icy terrain far north of the Crystal Empire. I wasn’t stupid, though I had been the only pony I knew that wanted to travel this far north, I knew I couldn’t go alone for safety reasons, so I had brought the only pony that had agreed to come, which was Glacier Break.

She was experienced, though not as experienced as me, but the trouble here was that she was an earth pony. If she had fallen there would have been nothing save the rope to catch her, and I didn’t like her chances of survival. We had both been attached to the camp with harnesses, but I couldn’t see hers anywhere nearby.

“Glacier? Please answer! Are you out there? I think I’m stuck.” The only answer I got was the cracking and straining of ice. There was a loud popping from somewhere to my left and I jumped, but nothing else happened and there was no answer.

I stared all around, my horn light showing me reflections and strange shapes trapped within the ice. Something that looked like the bones of a long-dead creature, similar to a yak but bigger and with less hair. There were boulders trapped in the ice as well, some sticking out that would have made landing spots for a pegasus, but that remained out of reach for me. I tried calling out again, hoping Glacier was recovering somewhere, somehow.

“Glacier, we’ve been through worse than this. Please, we took every precaution. I know you’re okay, right?”

I still got no answer.

I waited, testing the rope every now and again, trying to reach something, anything, in order to pull myself to a place where I could reposition the rope and pull myself up. My only problem was the weight of trying to lift myself. My hooves were strong enough, my horn, not so much. It wasn’t from lack of practice, either. I could support my weight just fine, but I couldn’t make myself fly on magic alone, and tugging on a rope supporting my entire body was the same thing.

I resigned myself to waiting. If Glacier was alive, she would be searching for me, and I would be rescued eventually. We had clearly marked the camp with red and blue flags, and if the anchor was still intact up there to hold me, the flag was as well. Somepony would see it when they came looking at the end of our trek time or when the alerts about the crack reached the Crystal Empire. We had told them we would only be two weeks, and it had already been one. We were at the furthest inward point we had planned on going and were on our way back out when the glacier had split. It was terrible luck, but we should have been able to recover. All I needed was Glacier to come help me out of this and we could be on our way out.

While I waited I made certain to keep moving my limbs to avoid frostbite, massaging them often. I knew a heating spell, but it was exhausting and I had enough clothes that I shouldn’t have to use it until late at night. I called out a few more times but when I continued to receive no answer I resigned myself to silence, listening to the wind howl through the crevasse.

Glacier must have been pushed down the mountainside by an avalanche. That was the only reason I hadn’t heard or seen her. If her rope had snapped, she would have to climb back up, and that might take some time. If she had been pushed far enough down the mountain, she’d return to town and get help, or if she was injured she might need to get help to even stand a chance of saving me. I comforted myself with these thoughts and prepared to try to sleep.

‘Prepared to try’ was the operative word. The wind, which had seemed calm enough before suddenly became a raging breath of death. I tried to keep myself warm with rubbing and shaking, but it wasn’t enough and I was forced to cast the heating spell. It was exhausting, but I was warm. I eventually drifted off to sleep.

I was awoken by the pain of the cold wind in the darkness biting through my clothes. I didn’t know how long I had slept, but it couldn’t have been long at all. It was still dark, and the wind was blowing just as hard as it was earlier when I had passed out. I cast the spell again, warming my body just long enough to drift off, only to be reawakened by the cold wind. I did it again, passing the bitter night in this manner. It was tiring, painful, and supremely uncomfortable, but I didn’t yet have frostbite. It was a not a restful night, and when day finally came and the winds died down I was no less exhausted than I had been before I first fell asleep, but I was alive.

I squinted up at the lip of the crevasse. Droplets of water fall from above, the naked sun shining down onto the ice and melting some of it. There were few clouds in the sky, which was promising for my rescue. Anypony looking for a marker would be able to see the camp if it was still intact. They would at least be able to follow a trail of strewn camping equipment, and Glacier, if she was still alive, would certainly be able to find her way back to the campsite if she was in any condition to do so. I hoped for her sake and mine that she was.

The day wore on slowly and I ate some of my rations. Not much, but enough to silence the pangs of hunger gnawing at my stomach. I needed to try to last at least a week. I grabbed some ice out of the walls of the glacier for water. The first few chunks I gouged out weren’t clean enough, and I wasn’t sure if the final one was, but I couldn’t allow myself to die of thirst, and this was better than nothing.

When the sun poured down into the crack I was stuck in, I got a bright, sunny glimpse of my prison. It illuminated all the way to the bottom (or what I thought was the bottom), and I saw that I wasn’t as far away as I had imagined.

The bottom of the crevasse looked to be only fifty feet down. That was survivable in a pinch, if necessary. If I needed to, I could drop the rest of the way, maybe slide down part of the glacier to the bottom. I hoped it was snow down there, but even if it was ice there was still a good chance of survival. I’d probably break something, so I didn’t want to try it until I was sure I wasn’t going to be rescued.

I waited longer. The sun passed over head and the reflections in the ice around me changed. The sun slowly set and darkness fell over my prison. Up above I could see the stars wheeling aross the sky, turning in the void as the moon princess worked her magic. I wished I could fall asleep so she could find out where I was and send somepony to rescue me, but as the night deepened and the chill filled me I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I tried to fall asleep, but the few times I did it was shallow and fitful and I awoke, shivering, still in the same spot.

It was during this difficult trial that I thought I heard a voice calling out to me. I blinked, looking all around at the reflective darkness, trying to determine where the voice was coming from. I saw black below and twinkling light above, but no ponies at all. Yet still I could have sworn I heard a voice.

It sounded like the voice was coming from below and so I looked down. I squinted and as I watched I could see a white shape slowly open up below me. As it got wider I could see a black hole in the center surrounded by a cold blue circle. It flitted about, moving side to side, and after a few moments of looking I realized dimly that I was looking at an eye!

The eye looked up at the sky above, admiring the stars, and I shifted uncomfortable as it seemed to gaze right past me. When I moved it focused in on me, narrowing. There was no sound, but I got a distinct feeling of disapproval from it. I blinked, and nothing moved, then the white, reflective surface was gone. I shook my head, trying to clear the uneasy feeling, then looked again. Still nothing. I chalked it up to imagination and tried to suffer through the rest of the night.

Unfortunately after that encounter I came to the conclusion there would be no proper rest for me ever again. Strange visions came to me while I tried to sleep. I could not keep my horn light or the warmth spell going and so I alternated between a half-asleep state and fully-alert. I was uncomfortable and stressed as the night progressed, all the way up until the light arrived, reflecting off the ice and snow above to give me some illumination down in the crevasse. It was with mild relief that I welcomed it, but I knew the feeling would not last long. I was still trapped, hanging from a rope.

I took it upon myself to spend this day attempting to extricate myself from my situation. I had been relying on Glacier to return with help, but when it was evident she was not coming, I had to try and save my own skin. I had opted not to worsen my situation, but after two full days of this I determined she was either injured or unable to help. I didn’t think about the possibility of her death. It would only make me feel worse.

I looked up at the ice holding my rope still. I wasn’t sure how it had survived my fitful sleep and panicked waking nightmares, but it was better that it had. I looked up at it and squinted. It was some distance away, but despite the crackling and shifting from before it didn’t seem like it was near the breaking point. I tugged experimentally on the rope and received no complaints or crackling from the ice above.

With another hefty tug, I reached up with my hooves and wrapped them around the rope, using my horn as an assist to try and pull myself up. With both I just might be able to do it if I was careful not to strain my so-called rescuer; the ice chunk.

I made it up to the chunk of ice with only a minor scare of its shifting and seated myself next to my sturdy friend. I pulled the excess rope up next to me and caught my breath, panting from exertion.

When climbing I usually had a wall or something to grip with magic and hooves. I could keep my rear hooves on something and move my upper hooves elsewhere. The only reason I was so good at it was because my magic could be used to anchor myself to things. Climbing sheer cliffs was not something many ponies did because of hooves, but Glacier trusted me to carry her through the hard parts, and my magic gave me a unique edge.

Climbing unassisted up a rope, however, was pushing the limits of what I could do. It was slow and painful, with only my magic allowing me to eke inch after inch up the rope. Now that I was here on a small outcropping of ice, unless I could find a grip on the walls of ice and rock surrounding me, I wasn’t going to be able to climb the rest of the way up the rope. I settled myself to at least being safer and looked around from my new vantage point.

The bottom of the crevasse was now several feet further away than the fifty is was before, so if a drop was necessary or happened, I might still survive, but now that I was safe I didn’t need to entertain that option.

Or… somewhat safe.

The ledge was a rather small outcropping of rounded ice on top of a chunk of stone. The ledge afforded me enough space to sit with my side pressed against the frozen wall and not much else. I had enough room to shift a little in one direction or the other, but that was all unless I wanted to climb out on the jagged ice chunk that had saved me, but that had a pointed top and was unsuitable for standing on.

As I looked I could see that the ice chunk that my rope had been hooked on had come out of the other side of the crevasse. There was a hole in the cliffside ice that fit the shape of the tip of the chunk of ice. I lit my horn-light and cast it into the hole out of pure curiosity.

Inside at the end of the dark hole was an eye. The same eye that had been looking up at me from below. The pupil shrank when my light hit it, and I turned the light off with a gasp. A great creaking sound issued from the glacier around me, and I shrank against the cliffside, looking around for something that might break and cause me harm. Thankfully, nothing gave way, and when I was sure the glacier had calmed, I lit my horn and looked again, slowly sliding the light across the ice toward the back, ready to remove it in case the eye was still there.

There was no eye this time. It was just a hole filled with ice and the occasional rock. It was big, but it had an end, and it certainly didn’t end in an eye. I knew hallucinations were common and could happen due to a number of factors, such as sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and oxygen deprivation, but this was my first time seeing one for myself. It made me very uncomfortable.

While I had heard about the ancient ruler of the Crystal Empire being banished to the ice and snow of the north, I also knew that since its return he had been destroyed, so Glacier and I had known we would be safe out here. Still, the memory of his story was foremost in my mind as I recalled the eyeball looking out at me.

I glanced at the little hole once more, then settled down on my little ledge to eat and relax. I tried to imagine ways I could climb out by myself, but without any tools I didn’t see that happening. It would be far too difficult and dangerous to attempt as anything but a last resort before I became too weak to make the effort.

Instead, I tried to occupy my mind to prevent the hallucinations from returning. I imagined myself playing checkers alone for a while, then tic-tac-toe, then chess. It whiled away the hours and I hoped it was keeping the apparition at bay, but I could only do that: Hope.

“Glacier, I hope you’re okay. We had a good time, right? Dragging you all over Equestria to climb mountains and things. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did,” I said to myself. I looked at my warped reflection in the ice next to me and made faces. Most of them ended up turning sad as I thought about my missing friend and whatever fate may have befallen her.

Night fell eventually, and the cold came along with the darkness to hang over me. My thoughts jumbled as I tried to stay warm. It was a bit better than dangling in the middle of it, and I didn’t find myself needing to use my warmth spell as I could tuck my limbs underneath me. It was still difficult to sleep, though.

I tucked my head into my coat, closed my eyes behind my goggles and waited. My nose dribbled in the cold as I waited in vain for merciful sleep to take me. I was almost of a mind to pray for hypothermia just to end it, but as I sat and suffered I began to hear a voice on the wind.

“…cliff…” the voice seemed to say.

I lifted my head and looked around. There was nothing but darkness everywhere, save for a small amount of reflected light giving me a view of small ledges, standing ice, and drifting sheets of snow.

“…bu…tay…fff…”

“Glacier?” I stood up. “Glacier?! Is that you? I’m here! Hello?”

A sound that bore a striking similarity to either coughing or laughter sounded on the wind. I lit my horn and cast it about, trying to see something like a flag or other marker, indicating someone was nearby.

I mostly saw snow. The cold, driving wind tossed a fine dusting of snow around the crevasse, stinging my face. I shouted more but got no further responses. I looked up, left, right, and then finally down. I looked at the bottom of the glacier’s ravine and my light illuminated a figure standing on the snow down below.

I did a double-take as the light passed by, casting it back to where I thought I had seen the figure, but there was nopony there. If that snow at the bottom of the crevasse was soft, I would have expected hoofprints, but there was nothing.

I was a little panicked. I had been experiencing hallucinations while I was here, and now this one, while a lot more plausible than a giant eyeball staring at me from solid walls, was showing me apparitions of ponies while I was panicked about being rescued. It wasn’t terrifying like a giant, staring eye, but it was confusing and disconcerting to see a pony walking about so freely.

I cast my light back up to the crack at the top of the crevasse but could see not lights or anything. I left it up there for a while, waiting to see if anypony would notice my spotlight and come help, but after some time, I realized they weren’t coming. It had just been my imagination. An auditory hallucination followed by a visual one.

I curled myself back up into a ball and tucked my head into my coat, trying to get back to sleep. I chewed on some ice to satisfy my stomach somewhat and my throat after the yelling, spitting out a rock I found inside it and praying I wouldn’t get sick.

It was after the rock that I heard something. There was a shifting sound on the ledge next to me and I almost turned to look, when I heard the tap of a hoof.

I froze.

The irony of freezing while stuck in a glacier’s crevasse wasn’t lost on me, but I did not appreciate it at that moment. I didn’t know how somepony could have gotten here with me, nor did I want them there. The ledge was too small and too fragile. The ice might break and drop us both to the ground below, not to mention the size, there shouldn’t have been room! The ice ledge was far too small for both of us to fit! Either the pony was a hallucination, or they were utterly unnatural! Both options were terrible, so I ducked my head further into my coat and strained to ignore it, praying it was a hallucination like the others.

The sound came close to me and walked around me. I wasn’t sure if it was looking at me or if it had missed me entirely, but I endeavored to not make a sound. There was no sound I could hear from it beyond hoofsteps. I could not detect any body-heat, breathing, or a voice growling or anything. It seemed to not be there for all intents and purposes, save for the sound its hooves made on the ledge.

I waited for it to leave, but it stayed, shuffling back and forth along the ledge next to me. I had trouble holding my breathing in, because on the off chance it was a real pony I didn’t want it to hear me. I only breathed every few steps, just a little choking inhale or exhale at a time. Still the hoofsteps marched, going back and forth nearby. I didn’t know what it wanted, but it didn’t seem to be anything, as it merely kept walking, hoofsteps tapping back and forth.

After some time of it walking nearby, I jerked awake to find I had fallen asleep during the thing’s terrifying patrol. The sun had risen and light filtered down into the crevasse. I breathed a sigh of relief at it having been mere hallucinations and turned to look.

There were hoofprints on the edge of the ice.

That terrifying chill went down my spine again upon seeing that my visitor from last night wasn’t a figment of my imagination. At the same time, I felt relieved knowing that I hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing. That was immediately followed by further terror as I began to wonder if the eye hadn’t been a figment of my imagination as well!

If I hadn’t hallucinated the pony next to me on the ledge, what was it? I stuck my hoof in the hoofprint and confirmed that I hadn’t made the marks in my sleep. The hoofprints were much smaller than my own and wore shoes, judging from the faint design I could see in the prints. I looked for signs of wingbeats possibly blowing some of the snow away or brushing against the ledge, but I could find nothing. I twisted, trying to turn around and get a better look behind me when I felt the ledge give a little underneath my hooves. I held still as the glacier creaked around me, ducking down slightly to try and spread my weight over the ledge better.

I waited for the creaking moans and snapping sounds of ice to stop. It took some time but I eventually felt safe enough to move and so I looked down, trying to determine what had happened to my ledge. I should have been stopping much of the snow from reaching it, so what was going on?

The entire ledge beneath me had become an eyeball.

Worse yet; I could feel it! I was not seeing an eye and feeling ice, this was me standing in an eyeball! I could see my hoof sink into it, and I felt the eyelid pressing against my leg as it tried to block me!

I panicked.

Then I fell.

There was only a moment of weightless fear before my rope snapped taut. I was disoriented from the fall, and the rope flung my vision every which way. I could do nothing except clutch at my harness before I swung down the crevasse away from my ledge and deeper into it. The wind was knocked out of me as I struck something then swung back upward. The pit of my stomach dropped as I was pulled up and around something, then I felt a horrible weightless feeling.

My rope had either snapped or come loose.

I dropped, the cold, blue glacier around me watching with myriad eyes staring out from inside the ice as I dropped down, down, down to the bottom of the crevasse. I hit something else and felt a wrenching *crunch* in my left hind leg, then I rolled. I slid down something for a short distance, then tumbled across the cold ground for a moment, then gasped in pain as I *thumped* into a wall and came to a stop.

My lungs burned and I saw spots in front of my eyes as I gagged on nothing. I choked for a moment before I finally pulled in a lungful of air. I lay there, finally motionless after my trip down to the bottom. I stared up at the top of the crevasse far above me, one hoof on my chest as I gulped in air, the pain in my broken hind leg flaring slowly to the forefront as I assessed the damage I had taken.

I poked myself with a hoof in different parts that had taken a beating during the drop, leaving the leg for last. I made a point not to raise my head, as I knew for certain that was going to be terrible to look at.

Everything turned out to be in acceptable amounts of pain save my leg. There was no numbness on anything except that, and I knew that if I didn’t get it proper care soon I would lose it. I’d spoken with enough ponies on tough expeditions, and those in the cold told horror stories of injuries that were exacerbated by the environment around them. This would be one of those stories if I ever got out of it.

Against my every wish, I lifted my head and looked down at my leg. I dropped my head back to the ice almost immediately. The limb was twisted at a very unnatural angle, bent at a point that wasn’t my knee or ankle. I reached to touch it with a forehoof and winced.

I took a deep breath and lit up my horn. I examined it with a feather-touch of magic along the injury, then lifted a section of my coat up to my mouth and bit down on it. I counted carefully to three and wrenched my leg back into place, the bone snapping as it moved. I cried out in pain and groped at the air around it, trying not to clutch at the painful injury. I stared and breathed, waiting to see if any blood would seep into the fabric. There wasn’t any, so thankfully it didn’t appear to have broken skin. I leaned back, breathing heavily, and just stared, trying to ignore the pain.

I looked up at the sky far above me and tried to clear my mind, but the memory of the eye and the visitor kept coming back. I remembered the feeling of it underneath my hooves, and as I got thinking about it, I remembered seeing the pony far below me when I was on the ledge. Was that my visitor? Was that pony, or whatever it might be, down here with me, waiting until nightfall to come find me? The thought wasn’t comforting, but it was a welcome distraction from the pain.

I agonized there on the ground for a bit until the leg had settled and the pain had dulled to a persistent ache. I cast my eyes about looking for something to splint it with, but I have to admit I didn’t try very hard. I was at the bottom of a chasm in a glacier on the side of a mountain. There wasn’t going to be much wood down here.

I rolled over onto my stomach and pulled myself to my hooves, careful to avoid putting any weight on my broken leg. I stood and started shuffling down the crevasse, looking for a possible tunnel or place to climb back up. It would be hard, and I wasn’t sure my situation had worsened or improved, by anything was better than sitting still at the bottom hoping for a rescue that had not yet arrived. Glacier was likely dead if she wasn’t back at this point. I had to save myself or we would both perish.

I didn’t make it very far before I reached an impassable split in the icy walls. I could see that it continued on the other side as I cast my horn light through the narrow passage, but I couldn’t fit. I traveled back the other way until I reached a sheer, icy wall, and sighed. I would have to climb, or I would have to try to break through that passage on the other side.

Neither option was going to happen soon, though. Night had fallen during my slow trek from one side of the chasm to the other and my horn light would soon be all I had. I found an alcove that was protected from the worst of the wind and snow and curled up, eating the last of the food items I had. I had hoped to find some of my tools or other things down here with me, but they were either covered in snow and rock, or that strange visitor had taken them to keep them from me.

Upon remembering the visitor, I suddenly felt more alert and worried that I had during my careful walk. I hadn’t seen hoofprints that weren’t my own down here, and I hadn’t seen the eye, either, but knowing they were out there and it was now dark had me worried.

What did they want? Were they wild ponies, living out here and I had happened upon their home by falling into it? I’d heard stories of cave-dwelling ponies. They were mostly myth, but maybe there was a grain of truth to them, and we just hadn’t met them yet? What if this crack was in part of their real-estate, just next to their homes and hunting grounds behind that crack?

I laughed a little too hard, then frowned. I was getting delirious. From hunger, exhaustion, or pain I didn’t know, but that shouldn’t have been that funny. I couldn’t hold it back, though, and I started giggling madly, chuckling in my corner for several minutes before I could control it. When I was done I curled up harder, feeling sick to my stomach and on the verge of crying.

I didn’t want to die here, but I was now out of food. I had no way of getting out of the crevasse without my tools or help, and my leg was broken. I didn’t know what I could do and it looked quite bleak. I cast my warmth spell just to give myself a little comfort and tried to fall asleep, damning the exhaustion. If I was going to die, I wanted it to be in my sleep rather than awake, so I wasn’t concerned about using too much energy warming myself. I sighed and closed my eyes, letting sleep take me.

I awoke, to my dismay of delight I don’t know, but in that moment was when I saw it: A light inside the crack on the far end of the crevasse.

I was confused at first, not sure what I was seeing. I attribute that to the delirium that had settled into me. Hallucinations, visitors, warmth, light, heat. I wasn’t sure I could trust any of them anymore. I hadn’t been murdered, captured, or saved by the visitor that had come to me last night, so what reason did I have to believe this was going to be anything different? At the same time, I was desperate for help, so I pulled myself to my hooves and limped over to it. The wind bit at me and my leg stung. I couldn’t feel the hoof and I was sure it was frostbitten, but I hadn’t the tools to amputate and massaging it would likely make the break worse. Not to mention the pain involved in doing such a thing. It was a lost cause, and I had to accept that and just live with it.

When I reached the crack I peered through, curious what I might find.

I saw inside a rainbow of light. It stabbed through the crack into my vision and I blinked hard to try to accustom myself to it. There was movement of some sort in the light and I swore I heard voices. They were faint, fainter than I would have expected them to be, but there was something back there.

Suddenly an eye appeared at the crack, blocking the light coming out. I jumped back in alarm and started trying to get away. I recognized that frightful blue at once: It was the same eye that had been appearing to me all this time. It was wide and wild, and I could see it still even as I pulled back. My weight ended up on my bad leg out of panic and a cried out, falling to the ground as I stumbled. There was a cracking sound and my eyes snapped back to the crack to see the ice giving way to some force coming from behind it!

Ice sprayed outward from the wall and out of it came a creature with a single great eye. The self-same eye that had stared at me over the past few days. Its face was featureless at first beyond the single orb, but when it saw me a split appeared on the lower half and it grew into a many-fanged maw out of which steaming drool dripped.

I would like to say I stood my ground somewhat. I didn’t. I screamed and scrabbled through the snow and grit, moving backward until I hit the wall of the chasm. The creature stumped toward me, mouth opening wider. I closed my eyes and lit my horn, trying desperately to create a shield. I knew it would be weak, but I was better at defense than offense and it was my only hope of living a little bit longer.

My shield went up, the beast approached, and fangs dropped down toward my bubble of protection. The teeth struck it and I felt an impact and a strain on my horn, then it was all gone.

I opened my eyes, not aware I had closed them in fear and looked. The beast was gone, leaving only a thin white fog floating around me. My shield was intact and I was uninjured, save for my already-broken leg.

I looked up and around, dropping my shield and switching to my light. I looked at the crack in the wall and saw that it was still broken open. The fact that it was truly destroyed sent more chills of fear down my spine and I had to question myself once again about whether or not I had hallucinated the whole thing. Was the cracking of the ice something that actually had happened naturally and I had merely devised a reason for it in my head? I supposed it didn’t matter, the ice was gone and I could enter if I wished.

I pulled myself back to standing, eyes darting left and right down the chasm and to the crack in the wall. It was big enough for me to fit through now and the light was still spilling out of it, illuminating some of my surroundings. It wasn’t quite as bright as I had remembered, though.

I peered through the open crack at what lay inside. There were shards of something strewn about on the ground, possibly gemstones or possibly ice, though they were myriad colors. They might have been ice as I could see frozen pools on the ground of those self-same colors spread about the little room, but how they had formed pools instead of freezing to the rest of the glacier I didn’t quite know. The colors didn’t mix with the rest of the ice, not even a little bit of diffusion had happened to them as the pools of color were cylinders of a sort, trapped in the ice.

Despite how strange it appeared, I came inside. I knew staying outside would be a death sentence, whether it be slow or fast, so my choices were down to coming inside. As it turned out, that was the right choice.

Inside the little cave I found several icy puddles, frozen over, all of different colors and all glowing. There was one for each color of the rainbow and several in between. They were lined haphazardly on the floor of the cave leading toward a darker section past the lit puddles, taking me deeper inside.

I followed them.

At that point I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. Maybe it was the pain of my leg or the pangs in my stomach, but I followed them, desperate to discover what was hiding within this ostensibly naturally-occurring cave in the glacier. What I found wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad, either.

You saw it yourself, didn’t you? Before you found me. That’s why you’re here, right? It all happened to me the same way.

I came inside a larger room and found a table spread out before me. There was food of every type: cooked, raw, and mixed. The smell invaded my nostrils and threatened to drive me mad with how delicious it seemed. My mouth watered and my stomach growled. It was all I could do to stop my self from painfully hobbling over to it and eating whatever I could grab. It seemed too good to be true, and it was, as I know now.

I tried to tear my eyes away from the food and glance about the room, but it was difficult. When I finally did I saw that there was a firepit on the other side of the cave. It was crackling loud and I was wondering how I had missed it before now. It was huge. More of a bonfire than a campfire, and it wasn’t melting any of the ice I could see on the ceiling. I felt a brief moment of panic as I realized that if this was all a hallucination then I must be dying, but it was swiftly drowned out by the sensations of pain and hunger I felt upon seeing this room.

Despite my better judgment, I pulled myself into the room and past the table. I approached the fire, wary but hopeful.

It was warm.

Hot, even.

It was the best feeling I could remember in my frazzled mind. My stress melted away and I collapsed next to it, spreading myself out to try and soak up as much heat as possible, ignoring the pain from my broken leg. As I lay in front of it, I could feel my broken leg becoming increasingly sensitive. It tingled as I sat and I wondered if it might yet be salvaged. Getting out of this with a missing leg would be quite something to tell family and friends, but I’d just as soon keep it if I could. It would be quite a tale, no matter what, even with the strange hallucinations.

The pain intensified and I reached down with a hoof to prod at it, making sure the bone hadn’t shifted too far with my panic earlier. I idly reached out with my magic and pulled some of the vegetables and fruits off the table. I could feel them, as far as I could ‘feel’ anything with magic, but they held weight and shape. Either I was swiftly descending into madness, or these were actually here.

I looked at a grape and wondered where it came from. It should have had me more worried but I was not. I was tired.

Oh, so tired.

I put a single grape in my mouth and closed my eyes. The juice seemed to spread out over my tongue as my teeth broke through the skin, and dizziness hit me. My vision spiraled and I felt myself fall to the side. I hit the ground and stared upward as the world spun. I found myself hyperventilating and struggled to stop, but a mixture of panic and intense pain had my body in its throes.

It was during this I saw her come toward me. At least, I think she was a mare. Her body was all deadly grace and terrible magicks. You could feel it come from her in waves of power. She approached me and I only got a look at her for a moment before I felt her magic and I sank into the ground. An orange sheen covered everything as some warm liquid covered me and I lost the ability to move.

I wasn’t sure if I was dying, but as the pain continued and yet continues despite my inability to move, I imagine I am not hallucinating nor dead. I don’t know what it is that this is intended for, nor do I know how long I’ve been here, but I only hope we are discovered sometime soon.

You’ll understand how to move soon enough. There is nowhere to go, though. You can’t leave the orange. I imagine we’re organized by color, but I’ve no idea what purpose that serves. I am… sorry about your injuries. You’ll get used to the pain or you’ll go mad soon enough, and it won’t matter. The stallion screaming you can hear has been doing that constantly since my arrival. Since he isn’t yelling with his lungs he never stops. You’ll get used to that, too. Again, you’ll either go mad or you’ll learn to ignore it.

It could be worse. You could be dead.

That’s worse, right?

Right?

The End.