Someone once said "The World is black and white."
Was it a Philosopher?
A Politician?
Maybe just some random guy?
Doesn't matter.
Because the world is just black.
Not in a metaphorical way but like literal.
…
Wait am Minute!
I calmly counted the numbers until sixty and then got a bit angry at myself for doing this crap again.
I don't need to wait a Minute for real just because I say that to myself you stupid me.
…
Please don't answer, me. I am weird enough just with me and myself so I don't think I need an "I" too.
Luckily I didn't react to call myself stupid.
Okay, so there are only the two of me as always it seems. Oh yes; and the awesome me that I am anyways.
Hehe~
Hold on I missed my point.
Ugh, I got dangerously good at distracting myself it seems.
…
So… where was I?
Ah of course – in a completely black world!
Is this the so called Deja-Vu?
No.
I know this place…
Am I back?
I got excited.
Maybe I just had a bad dream that I wasn't in this black world any more. Then the othe-
NO!
Think a bit, silly me. I am not back there.
...Oh you are right, thank you, rational me.
Hmmm…
If I am not back then were am I now?
I cant see, hear or smell anything but I still have a body so I can feel things. Yet I can't really move…
Only wiggle a bit.
Can I taste?
I forcefully open my moth and stick out my tongue a bit…
Water!
I CAN taste and what I taste is water but it doesn't feel like it and more than that it's cold.
Way too cold!
This has to be a double negative number-like cold.
Not just the taste…
Now that I think about it; EVERYTHING feels cold?
Could the cold please go away?
I don't like it and it seems it won't let me move too… No? Well, I suppose its okay then.
…
The heck?! It's not okay at all!
Let me move you dumb, whatever-you-are cold.
I struggled around heavily and soon noticed, that I could move the cold.
It somewhat felt like sand but way more fragile and the more I pushed it, the harder it got.
This is some weird stuff.
…
Oh.
I got it.
This is snow, right?
I think I never experienced it, but I read about it once.
But snow should be white, right?
Then why is everything black?
…Am I completely buried in snow so that light just cant reach me?
This seems like the most logical answer.
There is just one more question open; why am I buried in snow?
I know, that I jumped off that viewing platform in the city to escape into the ocean.
In hindsight this maybe wasn't the best Idea, because I have no idea how to swim… but there weren't other options.
And because I don't need to breathe I should've been fine even without some swimming knowledge. I could have learned it via trial and error I guess.
Actually not breathing is quite useful, because even now I am not doing it. I suppose a human would long have suffocated in this place.
I have to admit; this body is quite convenient… even though it looks... weird.
I restricted myself from thinking "ugly" or "scary" because I am none of that.
"Silly me, I am loosing my line of thoughts again."
I did say that with a voice coming out of my mouth and surprised myself quite a lot with this action.
But it worked.
Back to the topic; how did that way to cold – snow – got me?
After I jumped I flew to the sky for a moment.
No, I fell…
I was flying!
...jeez…
Then the surroundings changed and I was in a world of white and grey and freezing winds tried to smash me onto the ground.
But I didn't crash… I just slipped into the ground while pushing the snow away like I did just moments ago to create a small hole to sit in.
Then the snow must have collapsed over me and trapped me here.
Seems about right.
…
…
...Uhm… But how do I get out?
I tried pushing up but the snow didn't move at all. Creating the little space I am in now seems to be limit of what I could do.
I could scrape it away little by little with my pointy, sturdy fingernails but this didn't work out that well too.
This snow is just way to cold and after a few minutes of scratching on it there was a somewhat piercing pain in my fingers.
I quickly pulled my arms back into the jacket, tried to close every hole of it by crumbling it up and then curled myself inside the heavy cloth.
It did help quite a bit and I guess that those things are made to withstand the cold outside the city a bit. But this wont help for long.
So every time my fingers stopped hurting I started to scrape away the solid snow above me again and like this I slowly moved my small space up by some centimetres per hour.
This will keep my busy for days…
Because each time I need longer to kind of warm up and the freezing pain in my fingers comes back faster each time too.
How do I know that it will take days?
That's easy.
In the real black world of nothingness I had gotten quite good at [listening] or more like [feeling] information. Being in this place triggered it again and so I was able to [see] and [hear] without using my real senses.
It is actually pretty convenient but as soon as I noticed this method of perception, the reality crushed my short wave of enthusiasm as fast as it came up.
I am buried about 4 meters deep into the snow…
But there is light on the end of my way. Not a literal yet…
I can do this!
Even if my nails freeze and break, they will just regrow after a while. Because I was impatient I lost two fingers of my right hand as they froze up and just snapped off.
Luckily they grew back too but with several hours of time this was far slower than my nails. After this unneeded experience I was a bit more careful.
Then my whole body froze up as I was nearly halfway through. But it didn't do that because of the cold.
I could [feel] something above me.
No, not something; someone.
There are people walking around on the snow above me.
Not just that. I could [feel] those ball like security things and the vehicles too. Actually it was easier to [feel] those than it was with the humans.
They aren't searching for me are they?
Well, they seem to search for something and for a moment I hoped they would find and free me but then I got scared. What if they actually find me?
I don't think I want to find out…
They only stayed for a few minutes until they left into a direction that seemed to be behind me but those minutes felt like days.
I still didn't move for an hour after I couldn't [feel] their existences anymore.
After that I started my escape again but now even slower and way more careful while I was [feeling] my surroundings as far as possible.
…
This takes too long…
…
…
…
After what felt like a month – I suppressed the urge of calculating how long it really was as it would just make me depressive – there was a change in the texture above me. It was the soft, fragile feeling again and instinctively I pushed.
My hand broke free an instantly light started to flood into my little space.
The sky was dark grey but it still was way to bright for me as I crawled onto the surface where I curled myself into the jacket again to get some rest.
I did it.
I feel half dead and can barely feel my limbs, including the tail, but I really did it.
Phew~
A few minutes into my well deserved rest I wiggled my head a bit so that the hood slipped open a tiny bit and I could see outside.
Huh?
Wait…
I waited a few seconds but didn't bother to get angry at me.
Then I closed my right eye.
…
There was still vision.
I raised my hand so fast that I slapped my face and this really hurt on the cold skin but I barely noticed.
My fingers carefully touched around on the reflexively closed left eyelid.
...There was something…
I now covered my right eye with the hand and opened the left one again.
Still vision…
"Wooooo~~!"
I jumped around joyfully for a moment, completely ignoring the cold.
My eye did regenerate too!
Haa~ I really am awesome if I'm able to do that.
I know that this shouldn't be possible and I should be careful because there must be a catch or an awful payment for this but for now I am just glad that I am this… let's say quirky because odd doesn't sound nice.
After calming down a bit I turned around for a full circle to see if there is anything around me.
There is a snowstorm that wont let me see much but I have no idea if there is more.
Or is there?
Barely visible in the masses of blown around snow, some distance behind me seems to be a massive wall. That must be the city.
Then its easy.
I just turned and walked away in the opposite direction as fast as the snowstorm and my freezing feet let me.
Like with the situation before I had to take many breaks.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
12 days.
16 hours.
3 minutes
41 seconds, now 42.
And nothing changed.
Its all just white with a bit of grey and this gets mixed up with even more white.
I hate it.
There is nothing to orientate on because even if it stops snowing the sky never clears up and always stays as a massive wall of clouds.
I'm not sure if I walk in a line or if I'm just trapped by moving in circles. Well, the rational me corrects my direction every now and then so I should be fine with it.
But as I mentioned there is no way to be sure.
Maybe I'm not even there anymore.
I could have just died in these past days and now my ghost haunts this tundra.
Actually I don't think this is the case. If I was a ghost I shouldn't feel pain.
To be honest I don't really feel much pain because every part of me is numb from the cold. But there is a feeling of my feet getting pierced with every step.
I gave myself a minimum of steps that I should do to make progress or I would just sit down and freeze.
Just 65 more steps and I can rest for half an hour.
Slowly but steady.
…
I think I just lost a toe…
Not good; my wonderful regeneration can barely keep up with the speed this environment keeps destroying me at…
Will I make it or will my body just stop working at some point?
My bets are on the latter to be honest.
I am neither made for a place like this nor am I prepared for it in the slightest and there is no telling how big this tundra is.
A few days ago I ripped of the arms of my jacket to use them as a shoe and legwear replacement so now I had to close the holes on the side with my hands from inside the clothing all the time.
It helped my overall Situation a bit… but not much.
I want to sigh but I will not do that, as I cant afford to lose the bit of air in my body that is somewhat warm.
The silly me and the rational me kept telling each other that I can do it but let's be honest; I can't wait for my next break and deep down I know, that I don't have the energy left to get up again once I sit down.
So actually I just keep walking the now 43 steps till my break because I can't deny my own obsession with numbers but after those steps are counted that would be it.
What a frustrating knowledge that is…
I wanted to cry and pressed my already closed eyelids a bit more together so that no tear had a chance of escaping.
Why are my eyes closed?
Well, I can't see more than a few meters in front of me anyway so why should I leave them open is a better question.
Instead of seeing or hearing – what was equally useless – I [felt] my surroundings. This gave me [vision] of everything around me in an about 30 meter radius.
Not that there is anything here so I can't be sure that this way of orientation works.
…
!
I nearly stumbled and stopped for a moment because I got startled by something.
It works!
On the outer rim of my perception was the [feeling] of something.
It felt different from a human, like much less and much more at the same time.
It was big and just gave the information of calm silence.
Is that… a tree?
That can't be, right?
With energy from an unknown source my body forced its way trough the freezing snowstorm. Faster than ever on this journey I approached the thing.
The moment I got close enough I opened my eyes carefully.
It IS a tree!
With needles instead of leaves it could be a pine or something similar.
No idea how it could survive in this area but it wasn't alone. The moment I reached the wood of it's trunk two more trees entered my field of perception.
A tear of happiness escaped my eyes and was frozen solid nearly instantly.
I didn't mind it.
Carefully but as fast as possible I climbed up the many, sturdy branches until I got to a point were the needles blocked most of the wind and I felt warmer instantly.
This must be more a placebo than anything else but it was a bliss.
For several hours I just sat there curled up in my jacket on a big branch and enjoyed the feeling of slowly unfreezing.
This is great.
...
Sadly I can't stay in this place forever.
Well I suppose I could because my body seems to be free from most human needs but at some point I surely will get bored and I am scared beyond everything that at this time my own hell will crawl up from the sealed part deep in my mind.
I wont let that happen.
"I am sorry, my savior-tree but I have do this." I murmured as I started to break of some branches that had many needles on them. I then put those branches inside my jacked and legwear so that they became stuffed.
Like this I should have some air bubbles around me that would prevent my body from cooling out too fast. At least that was a theory…
I climbed down the tree and took a few steps with the next tree as direction… it seemed to work.
I can go on like this.
Over the next two days the amount of trees slowly increased until I came to a point were there was still way to much snow, but the freezing wind couldn't reach me any more.
Because my regeneration could now keep up again I got more energetic and walked faster.
No idea when it happened but at some point a few more days later I snapped out of my calculations, as I realised three things;
There are many different trees now – not just those with needles but some with proper leaves too so I wanted to replace the filling of my jacket but this brought the second realization.
It was much warmer now.
Don't get me wrong, it was still chilly but I shouldn't freeze here even without the jacket now. Not that I would threw it away.
But most importantly there was no snow anymore. Where did it go?
Who cares but it should stay away or I'll get mad at it.
All around me was exposed earth with some places were grass was growing.
I had to rub my eyes.
It was real!
Ohhh~
I nearly shrieked as I hastily opened my jacket to let the branches fall out. Then I let myself fall over and started rolling around on the ground laughing.
Who could have known that the greatest bliss this world has to offer was rolling around in some dirt?