Thawed

The snowy blur formed a mist around her eyes. She couldn't breathe. She wanted to scream, but her throat was parched from the dry coldness. She knew she needed to run, but she kept looking back. The wind was sharper than ice-daggers. Any moment now, she would collapse and perhaps never wake again---

Alisa woke up with a start, drenched in sweat. She turned around, grasping at the wisps of her blindingly white nightmare that faded into the darkness of her wall. She needed to go back and save something, but she just couldn't remember what it was. With a throb in her heart, Alisa got out of bed. Grabbing the piece of paper that had been giving her nightmares for a week, she dashed out of her home.

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"Twenty thousand dollars?!" Alisa's mom sounded incredulous.

"Yeah, I went to the bank today." Alisa usually ate in her room alone, but joined her parents that night to enquire about the large sum of money she'd discovered.

"Where did you get that paper from, dear?" her dad asked calmly, putting down his spoon. He had the same tinge of red as her in his auburn hair.

"I found my old, navy mountain coat in a stash of clothes in mom's closet," Alisa replied. "This crumbled sheet fell out of its pocket. It had the account details on it."

Dave cast a forlorn glance at his wife, Chelsea. She looked away guiltily.

"I couldn't throw it away with the other stuff, Dave, it was her favorite jacket!" Chelsea tried to defend herself, "I was worried she would remember it, and I didn't want to cause her more grief than she already—"

"What grief?" Alisa looked up. She suddenly wondered when they last had a dinner table conversation together.

"Well," Dave sighed, "I guess we couldn't keep this from you forever, dear. It's time you knew what really caused your coma five years ago."

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"...and when the Sun comes up, the snow shall melt and free our soul..."

Alisa stared out of her airplane window, trying to remember where she knew those lines from. It felt unreal to finally have money to buy her own plane ticket. Although she still had no idea where it came from, more pressing matters occupied her at the moment. She replayed the conversation with her parents from the previous night in her head. Ever since she had woken up from her coma, she was always afraid of things slipping away from her mind. She did not want to lose this information at any cost: she'd been betrayed by someone that had made her a promise of love. No wonder she thought such pursuits were futile.

"Hello," a sharp voice startled her out of her daze. A young woman about her age in denim jeans and long earrings sat down next to her.

"Good morning," Alisa greeted back.

"I'm Riddhi, going to India for the summer. Where are you going?" she asked cheerfully.

Alisa felt her heart drop. She'd left home in a fit of rage upon hearing the truth, but the gravity of the journey she had embarked upon was finally beginning to dawn upon her. "Nepal. There's… someone I need to find," she said, her voice wistful.

Riddhi raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like an ex from your tone," she joked. Alisa's serious expression brought her to a halt. "I—I'm sorry I didn't mean to--"

"He was part of our school's mountaineering club with me," Alisa evaded her comment. "We would scale small ranges every so often, and even fly out of the country once in a while," she paused.

"Then one day, he wanted to try the Himalayan ranges. No one else seemed to encourage the idea. They all thought it was crazy since the mountain tops were always covered in snow. But I.. was immature, and in love, so I went with him. We joined an expedition tour to scale the heights of Makalu," she trailed off.

Riddhi wondered why she was sharing so much with her when they didn't even know each other. But she was invested. "What happened?"

"I don't remember," Alisa replied sadly, "My parents said that there had been a mishap, and I was found at the bottom of the hill amidst a blizzard. He-- he had pushed me off the edge."

Riddhi gasped. "What!? That's horrible! But why?!"

"I don't know. I've lost a lot of my memories from around that time. But I believe he was trying to reduce the load on the climbing rope to save himself from the blizzard. He was never seen after that. The others believed that he ran away into hiding when he realized I was still alive."

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry…" Riddhi felt airsick before they even took off. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find him," Alisa stated, matter-of-factly. She had a nagging suspicion that the money account she had no recollection of coming across was somehow related to the incident.

"How will you do that?"

"I'll retrace his steps… starting from the mountain, to wherever people saw him last around the area."

"You're going alone?" Riddhi asked, her eyes wide.

"Yeah. I haven't kept up with my friends since that experience, I've pushed everyone away. I guess the 'icy' betrayal turned me cold," Alisa chuckled mirthlessly.

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Alisa gazed at her footprints on the snow-covered track. She had set out to climb Mt. Makalu with a group of tourists led by Sherpas two days after landing in Nepal. There were fewer blizzards this time in the summer, but the mountain tops were covered in snow year-round. Compared to when she had last visited, there were increased security measures with blocked-off roads and warning signs. She watched as a group of teenagers passed by along the track, laughing and joking around. She remembered how Riddhi had wanted to help, and how she’d turned her down. Riddhi had looked dejected, but had given her phone number to Alisa in case she ever wanted to talk. "I don't need friends," Alisa had muttered to herself. Now she wished she had mentioned to Riddhi that her earrings were pretty. And how she'd appreciated the offer.

They were halfway to the top when Alisa stopped abruptly. "That… that's the path we took," Alisa thought aloud, looking at a small opening in the mountain that branched off from the track. The entrance was barricaded with "No entry" signs.

One of the Sherpas looked back. "I wouldn't recommend that path, young lady, it's pretty narrow. The snow is less trodden upon, and thus more slippery there."

Alisa's breathing grew more uneven now. "Yes… that's what they said back then too," her voice wavered. She broke into a run.

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The sun didn't touch this side of the mountain. Alisa could feel her hands shriveling in the gelid wind. Her feet were numb. This path hadn't been used in years, she could tell. Something told her to keep running. She could vaguely hear someone screaming and cautioning her in the background. She kept going, tripping dangerously close to the edge a few times, until she reached a snow-covered mound.

"No… no no," she fell to the ground, clawing at the snow-mound.

The Sherpa who was running after her caught up to her, breathing heavily. "Miss, what are you doing!" he sounded anxious.

"There… used to be a cavern here! A small entrance," Alisa was shoving away heaps of snow with her hand.

She kept digging until she heard a blood-curling scream that she later realized was her own voice. In the whiteness of the snow, a pale-looking hand peeked out from the mound at her. Slowly, she uncovered a ghostly yet handsome guy in an orange mountain jacket: the man she had sought to find. Trapped in an icicle, he bore a peaceful expression. There was a small, grim-looking black notebook in his other hand.

"He hasn't aged a single day," Alisa said softly, tearing up.

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Alisa's pained wails chilled the Sherpa more than the cold. She buried her face in the snow as it all came back to her.

"We're not gonna make it, Dawson," Alisa was crying, "I can't see anything!"

"Alisa," Dawson was trying to sound as comforting as possible, "it's just snow blindness. It is only temporary, you'll be fine okay?"

"But you can't walk!"

"The injury from the rope anchor is pretty minor, dear, I'll be fine," he lied as he held down on his badly bleeding leg. "We will definitely make it! Now, we can't both be here till morning. It's too dangerous, this blizzard could freeze us to death. I need you to use your other senses, and try make it back following your instincts, okay? You are a natural at mountaineering, you can do this!"

"And leave you behind? No way, Dawson! This is all my fault! I was the one who dragged you here, slipped, and nearly got us killed. Now we are separated from our team, and you are injured because of me!"

"I'm not telling you to leave me to die, Lis," Dawson managed a weak chuckle as he scribbled something onto a sheet of paper from his notebook. "Go first, and bring help," he was bleeding out fast.

"But…"

"I need you to go now," Dawson hugged her tightly, slipping the piece of paper into her pocket.

"I'll be back," Alisa promised, as she turned to go.

"Alisa," Dawson called back, hoping she couldn't see his tears, "know that I love you, okay? For although the night be cold, and hope seem lost,"

"…the Sun will still rise, and melt the snow to free our soul…" they finished their mountain cheer together.

"I'll see you soon," his voice faded in the winds…

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An excavation team was summoned to extract the body. "Would you like to take a look at the notebook before we take it in, miss?"

Alisa hesitated, but held out her hand for the book. Dawson would carry it around on all their trips. He used to say that he liked to document his travels. With shaking fingers, she sorted through the pages. They were filled with all kinds of adventures they'd been on, and all the ones Dawson had planned out for them. He even had an extensive list of wedding venues on mountain tops, and baby names for the future. Alisa let out a sob. A tear blotched the paper.

The last page had a faint writing.

"I pray you reach safety, my dearest. Since you can't see right now, you can follow the scent of hope... I wish I could have bought you the grandest ring possible, but the best I can do is to leave you the money I have saved over the years. Stay happy. And know that I will always lov"

He hadn't gotten to finish his sentence. The words remained frozen in time, just like the hands that had struggled to write them.

Alisa trembled as she read those lines over and over again, trying to draw the last drop of his essence from them. She etched them into her memory.

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The ice in Alisa's heart slowly melted and flowed out of her eyes as she watched Dawson's body thaw. She texted Riddhi first thing when she left the medical unit, and narrated the entire story.

"So… what now," Riddhi texted back.

Alisa had given it enough thought as she'd walked down the mountain.

"I want to donate the rest of the money Dawson left behind to the mountain communities in his remembrance," Alisa replied.

"And I'm going to go back and make amends with everyone I've neglected these last few years," she typed. Alisa had realized the cold reality of man's limited time on earth. She was going to enjoy the warmth of life with her loved ones while it lasted, and consummate Dawson's unfulfilled words. "I'll see you soon :)"

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