"Urpie my dear child. Like the buds on the birch of spring you will always be a first sign of the changing of seasons."

A female voice of a stranger echoed in my mind as I woke up from my nap. I had had a strange dream as I was sleeping on the airplane that was heading for Svalbard. I couldn't really remember that much of it but that last sentences was all that was left, Urpie. If I remember from of what my best friend Lisa had told me so does Urpie mean Birch bud in Sami. Oh well doesn't really matter.

I stepped out of the small airplane and I was met with the scenery of Svalbard. The cold air hitting me in the face making me want to return to the warmth of the airplane.

Why did she have to call me hear in the winter. Couldn't she have waited a month or two until summer. I thought to myself.

Lisa my best friend and first love had called me two weeks ago. She works as an archaeologist that studies Sami culture, the indigenous people of the northen parts of the nordic countries, and how they used to live. She had called me because she found something in Svalbard of all places, how and why she went here to do her research was beyond me. But she and her research team had apparently gone here he few months ago when some miners had found tools in the glacier belonging to the Sami.

"Linus! Linus!" I heard a familiar voice I haven't heard in a long time call out to me and there she was. Dressed in a puffy winter jacket and her thick glasses that made her look a little dorky in a cute way stared at me.

Lisa, my oldest friend and one of the only reasons I was still standing here today.

"It's so good to see you again Linus." She ran up to me and gave me a big hug. Even though I had a tall frame I felt small in her tiny embrace.

I gave her a wry smile and asked her how she was doing as we walked to the car that was gonna drive us to Longviken where I would spend the night before we continue to the dig site.

She told me how excited she was to show me what it was that they had found. She hadn't told me anything of specifics, only that she needed my help to transport what it was they found back down south to Lund where she could continue her research. The plan was that we would fly from Svalbard and down to Kiruna where Lisa and I would transport whatever it was that they found in my truck back down south.

After we reached the hotel Lisa helped me unpack and went back out to a local restaurant to get some food. On our way there I noticed that Lisa seemed a little uncomfortable. She gave me a look of concern. I knew all to well why she gave me that look, it hadn't been that long since I got discharged fromed the hospital.

"Lisa, I am doing fine." She stopped in her tracks and turned and looked at me.

"I know... it's just that the first time I saw you at psychiatric ward...it was tough. I am just afraid that you will regress and go back."

She was right. I was also afraid of it. Two years ago I was working as a marksman in the Swedish military and had gone to a country in the south eastern Europe to volunteerly and help the resistance against the invading forces but something went wrong. I had started to hear voices and see something's that wasn't there.

One night I had convinced myself that some of the people in my squad was enemy spies and had almost strangled one of them to death in their sleep. If the others hadn't woken up frome the commotion I probably would have done it.

I was sent back to Sweden and checked into the psychiatric hospital and found out I had developed Schizophrenia.

Four months ago I was deemed healthy enough to get back into society and started working at my uncle's truck driving company. I haven't heard any voices or had any delusions of any kind since then but the fear always remains that someday the medicine would stop working and I would be back there again.

"I am okay, I promise." I said with a wry smile. She pouted cutely like does sometimes and started walking again towards the restaurant.

"I am afraid of losing you" She said barley audible. I didn't really catch what she said and when I asked she just laughed and started running. To the restaurant. I sighed and chased after her.

At the restaurant I asked her what it was that they found here but she still didn't want to tell me. The only thing she said was. "It is a discovery of a lifetime."

The next day we gathered at a parking lot early in the morning. We were preparing to ride on snowmobiles that was gonna take us to the dig site out at the glacier where the discovery had been made.

Max an old friend since highschool, Lisas coworker and her ex and the reason I convinced myself why I never confessed to her was standing by one of the snowmobiles. He noticed me and gave me a friendly wave. I didn't hate him for dating Lisa. But he had been the reason why I joined the military, back in the day. I just felt I had needed to get away from it all back then.

When I was in the hospital Lisa had told me that they had broken up because Max came out as gay. It had been a mutual break up.

"Hey Linus!" He walked up to me and gave me a friendly hug.

"Hey Max. It has been awhile." He nodded to my response and jokingly said.

"I feel a little hurt that you didn't contact me after you got released into this bad shit crazy place we call society." I laughed a little awkwardly at his statement and said jokingly back to him.

"The voices told me not to talk to you. They said you were a demon." Max gasped as if I had cursed his ancestors.

"How could they know I was demon!" We both became silent before we burst out laughing.

"It's good to see you again Max."

We talked for a bit while waiting for Lisa to arrive. And Max asked me something I had dreaded.

"So have you told Lisa that you love her yet? I mean I now that I am out of the picture and you are back in society. So what's stopping you? And it is quite obvious that she has feelings for you too." I looked at him and said with a wry smile.

"I don't want to burden her with my sickness. She deserves more and something better." Max stared at me with an intensive gaze and said

"Excuses excuses every single time...you know that you had a chance before me to date her right? You always give up so easily." He shock his head and was about to say something when we saw Lisa come running.

"Sorry I am late! We should hurry so we get there before lunch time!"

We got on our snowmobiles and headed out towards the dig site.

After about two hours we arrived at an open snow covered landscape with large ice cliffs and canyoons of ice spread out across the field. A spot with a few large tents could be seen and a large hole that had been dug out in the ice was located.

We unpacked our stuff in the sleeping tents and headed to the hole where a ladder was mounted so that we could claimed down.

At the bottom I saw it. Our rather I saw her. The girl that would change my life forever. A Sami girl that was perfectly preserved in the ice. She looked to be in her early twentieth. And when I got closer I heard a voice. A female voice.

"Are you him?"