The young man woke up from his bed at the first light of the morning, put on a white t-shirt with zero sleeves and looked at Vanessa lying softly on the bed. He was taking off his shorts and putting on his pants while looking sadly at the peaceful face of the young girl. After buttoning the inside buttons of his dark green robe, he took out a few micro cubes from his bag, took them in his palm and after the cubes fell from the hole in his palm, he smoothed his hair with his hands and put on his boots.
When he opened the door, he immediately threw himself outside and closed the door behind him so that the cold air would not invade the hut.
Jerome entered the cave to see the woman he loved for the last time and stroked her face with his right hand, even though he could feel nothing. Then he kissed her forehead and smelled her.
"You're still warm..."
He stood up and, without taking his face away from the woman he loved, he stepped backwards out of the cave and turned his face down the cliff. He took a step into the void and dropped himself into the bottomless abyss. His thoughts began to blur because of the buzzing echoing in his head as he descended faster and faster, and soon the hazy, bottomless and indistinct void beneath his feet split open and the majestic sight of the waterfall descending into the river filled his eyes.
Immediately bringing his face downwards and lifting his feet in the opposite direction, he suddenly opened his arms out of his robes, and when his upper arms were opened, the parachutes rapidly inflated, causing a strong force to pull him upwards. Then he slowly glided down to the ground.
When their feet landed on the ground, the strings of their parachutes were gathered back where they had come out, and the upper arms were closed.
As he moved first his right and then his left shoulder in a circular motion, he looked towards the cliff from which he had jumped down, but he could see nothing. Again, that hazy image confined his gaze to a certain area.
Jerome did not show the slightest sign of chill, even though he had nothing but his makeshift cloak to protect him from the fury of the wind, which, after throwing the hood of his cloak forward to cover his head, grew stronger with the rising sun. The reason for this was an energy core inside his shoulders. But even these cores could not protect him from the storms swirling in his mind.
The smiling face of the woman he loved appeared in his mind. Behind her was a riot of colors, from yellow to blue. Then he remembered how her fists had shattered a man's face. Broken teeth, squealing, gagging, guns firing, feeling the heat of the fire on your face, noise, screams and... finally, eternal silence. Only the roar of the storm and the fear in the eyes of the corpses caught his eye when he was alone by the fire. But it was so real that he felt as if he was reliving the same events.
With a sigh, Jerome kept his gaze on the road ahead, hoping to see the end of it, but he could not control the storms swirling in his mind.
A short man with chest hair at neck level, thick eyebrows, bushy beard, and thick eyebrows was sitting by the fire, his posture signaling that he was about to start babbling.
"Shh, guys! Have you heard the legend that this place is actually a corner of Paradise?"
"What are you talking about?" asked a scrawny middle-aged man with prominent ears and a faint look.
"So you don't know," the man said with a chuckle. "Look, this used to be a corner of paradise with warm hot springs and sweet fairy girls. But when this Ice Queen took up residence here, she poisoned the whole land with her curse. They say that if you kill the witch, the curse will be broken and the land will be restored."
"You're so full of shit."
"Indeed," the other silent member of the team agreed with the big-eared one. "But I heard that there are a lot of families who would pay a fortune for that Ice Queen's heart. It cures every disease or something."
"Well, I've heard that the one who eats your heart is immortal."
"I heard that if you eat her heart, you get her power," the hairy guy said reproachfully. "What the fuck does this fucking witch do now?"
"There is only one way to find out," said the quiet guy.
The one with the floppy ears nodded in agreement and at that moment Jerome, who had been listening to the conversation from the beginning, had made up his mind about these strangers.
Trying to understand why he was thinking about these old memories, the young man paused for a moment, looked behind him and saw only a hazy field. It was hazy in front and to the left and right.
"Am I going in a circle?" he asked himself and punched the ground hard, pinning the broken piece of ice to the ground. Then he continued on his way. Meanwhile, other memories came back to him that took him even further back in time.
When he first entered the Icy Weather Zone, he wandered through the storm for days and when he finally reached the foot of a mountain, his only goal was to climb it. He immediately set to work and reached the top of the mountain in a few hours, but the summit was not as lonely as he thought. When he saw the stairs fifty meters ahead, stretching up hundreds of meters, and the palace at the top of those stairs, he didn't know what to say. Moreover, there was no cold weather here, no blizzard. Only clouds shining like gold and the palace in all its splendor...
When he reached the palace, he forced the door but could not open it. Soon the door opened of its own accord and he tried to enter, only to find spears pressed against his throat. "Stop," a polite yet authoritative female voice shouted, as she stared in bewilderment at the heavily armored, burly soldiers. "Don't you know it is rude to treat a guest as an enemy?"
As the soldiers quickly retreated, Jerome locked eyes with the woman who would later become the love of his life. Even the young man, struggling to find his way in the midst of this storm, began to warm up and smile again as he remembered that memory.
After she let Jerome in, they went to a hall where she thought the guests were being received and she couldn't help thinking about the lion motif armchairs and the price of the antiques.
"This way, please."
The young engineer sat on the edge of the three-seater armchair that his host gestured to. The woman immediately sat down on the single seat next to her guest and crossed her legs. He focused his gaze on her eyes to avoid looking at the white feet exposed by the slit in the skirt of her blue dress.
"Do you mind if I ask what brings you here?"
"I don't like to give information about myself, but I don't want to seem rude to you, given my current situation. Honestly, I don't have any goals. I'm just a nomad and I'm traveling from place to place."
When she took the cup from her maid and handed it to him, Jerome took it with a puzzled look. The cup smelled of fresh thyme.
"I couldn't teach them to serve the guest first. What can you do, that's what you get from stupid villagers."
In those few seconds when the storm slowed for a moment and the haze dissipated, Jerome saw the ramparts in front of him. Then the walls hid behind the haze.
"You were a vain woman, Vanessa," he said with a deep sigh. "You liked to be in power. You hated to be spoken over. You were a Tyrant, but... you couldn't protect your throne, your people, otherwise. And now? What's going to happen here, Vanessa? You've suddenly fallen into a deep sleep. Who cursed you?"
After a few more hours of walking, Jerome finally reached the ramparts. Wasting no time, he thrust his mechanical hands into the fortified steel columns, lifted his body, and, continuing in this manner, quickly climbed to the top.
She heard the birds chirping as the spring wind blew in her face and saw the grass shimmering as it reflected the sun's rays. The trees were full of peace. It was as if he had changed continents. He threw himself down from the column and landed on his feet.
If he were a normal person, his feet would have shattered long ago, but since he had strengthened his bones, it was nothing more than a slight fall. He immediately stood up and went towards the train station that was visible ahead and was not surprised to see no one. He immediately placed his hand on the rectangular, one meter long device standing in the middle of the station. When a ringing sound came from the device, it gave him a small ticket and showed him on its small blue screen when the next train would arrive.