I can feel the ice crystals growing in my lungs. Each breath is a painful reminder of reality, but it keeps me from falling into the abyss. I suck in more oxygen and attempt to scream for help beneath the endless sheets of ice.


No one hears, or if they do, they aren’t doing anything. My eyelashes have melded together in a blue frozen clump. My fingers and toes have long since stopped moving, and I can feel the speeding thump of my heart beginning to slow. Gently, gently, gently, into the pit of insanity.


I look up, and all I can see is the crystal beauty of the icy cavern. Of my icy tomb, among the towering spires of blue glass. The pain of the cold has been replaced by a dull, comfortable numbing; there is nothingness. My body feels crystallized just like my hidden crypt.


The tears on my weather stained cheeks have long since frozen and fallen to the icy floor with sharp tinkles. I yell again, but I can’t even hear it. My ears have gone deaf from the bite of the cold at my eardrums.


Each breath takes more time, and every second feels like a millennium. A burning sensation has begun up and down my limbs, like demons racing through my veins. Burning, warm, and the cold enemy begins to fade into the blue abyss. The beats of my heart have slowed, slower, slower, and then they stop altogether as I let the ice take me.