Eternal Ice
PART I - KAYDEN
*1886*
Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree top. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And down will come Baby, cradle and all.
(Old Nursery rhyme)
The vast nothingness of the place was a sublime horror. Endless fields of ice and their bizarre frozen formations caused by storms silhouetted against the sky. It was a world immersed in white and blue, and its trillions of crystallized sparkles prophesied the young man a cold and lonely death.
Sounds similar to the snapping of metal ropes filled the air, their echo reverberating across the plains. It was the ice breaking apart somewhere deep below the many layers of snow. The man walked on, leaving behind the only tracks found in this abandoned land, isolated footprints that would vanish within the next few hours as another storm was approaching.
A survival instinct begged him to push forward, to keep moving at a steady pace like an old machine working at its relentless rhythm. The man had slowed down though, the sound of his fur boots only remaining in the back of his mind. His outfit for the journey had been a gift from the natives whom he had met five months ago before entering this lifeless piece of earth. Some people would have called his endeavor of crossing the frozen desert a bold adventure. Yet considering the many lost souls to this piece of earth, let alone the deadly coldness, gave this whole undertaking a touch of insane stupidity.
He removed the hood of his heavy lieutenant coat he wore under the fur and dared to take off the wooden oval snow glasses that prevented him from going snow blind. His breathing produced thick puffs of air while he searched the landscape with squinted eyes. The man took out a pocket watch, broken and with a crack across the glass. It was more of a habit to do so as he had long since lost his sense of time.
Tiny ice chips scattered by the wind, pierced his face aggressively, and he had no other choice than to welcome back the protection of his head covering.
The man walked on, panting and perspiring cold sweat.
The first time he had thought about suicide was four weeks ago when his strength had started to let him down. He did quite well in hunting seals and storing the meat on the small sledge he pulled behind him, or generating drinking water from ice and snow. However, his health seemed to diminish with each passing day nonetheless until he realized his troubles derived not from lack of food or water but missing human interaction. In other words, his mind went to rack and ruin.
The man closed his eyes and tried to remember the last time he had felt at ease. He recalled the many moments of bellowing Hellooo into the solitude of the land, yet his cries for human companionship were always left unanswered, and his hope of success irretrievably lost. There was no dry land far and wide, only endless fields of this dreadful whiteness, turning him into a loner who talked to himself, and in the end, resorted to silence once and for all, the fading memories too painful to remember.
The man looked up to the obscuring gray sky, observed the cloud movements, and uttered a silent Damn you in his thoughts. His sledge carried a small tent as well as some furs of long-dead animals that gave him extra protection while sleeping. Yet, the thought of turning in for another night, shivering and listening to the ghostly sounds the ice spat out, was nearly unbearable to him. And with an insane grin, the man put his forefinger to his head and pulled an imaginary trigger.
What would it feel like? he wondered. What would be my last thought at death’s door? He opened the loading gate of his revolver and saw the cylinder filled with two remaining bullets. They were his last ones and hopefully unimpaired. He snorted a chuckle – to hell with the mission he had never asked for. And to hell with this world. What he needed was peace from this odd silence.
He hunkered down and took out his knife. The scratching sound on the frozen surface relaxed him a little as his eyes followed the uneven lines forming his name Kayden. He looked up and into the land stretching out before him, and somehow, he felt good, knowing that he had the choice of leaving this deadly place forever behind.
Kayden looked at his revolver, the weapon a constant and faithful companion throughout his many missions. He pulled back the hammer and listened to the reassuring click. This was a hell of a ride. He put the revolver to his head, his mind and body ready for the final move.
Yet nothing happened.
You are a selfish coward, a voice in his head said as his vision zeroed in on a dark spot in the dim distance. Kayden lowered the gun. The spot was almost indiscernible but somehow standing out from its surroundings. He contemplated for a moment, got up and took two steps forward, his hands shielding his eyes.
It’s all in your imagination, don’t even bother, the voice tried to argue logically. There is nothing. Why not attend to the business you were about to see through.
Or, another voice intervened, you might want to take a closer look at this thing.
Kayden began to move his feet. He made slow progress as the wind became more powerful. The swirling ice impaired his vision, however, he never lost sight of his destination in front of him.
It appeared to be a massive rock formation, covered in ice and snow, reaching forlorn into the sky. The magnitude of the thing was beyond impressive, and its weird vertical shape reminded him of some prehistoric monster described in one of those attention-seeking novels everybody had been so crazy about before he had left civilization. The whole form displayed an odd bend to its right, and several gigantic branches shot from its trunk into the air.
Dusk fell, yet with each approaching step, Kayden became more sure about the true nature of his mysterious discovery. It was not an ice block at all. Nor a prehistoric monster, lurking for its prey in this utter solitude.
It was an abandoned ship.
