Road Rovers: Himalayan Howl
A solitary figure struggled across the barren land, gasping for breath in the freezing cold. He was warmly dressed in a parka, heavy pants, boots, and gloves made of yak's hair. His eyes shielded by goggles, he stared into the blinding snow and howling wind. Where am I? he wondered. The landscape, which he normally knew like the back of his hand even from a few stray rocks sticking up, was so covered that he couldn't make anything out. It was as if he were in an endless void of purest white, tinted orange by the lenses of his ski goggles. Even by the ground beneath his feet, he could barely tell that he was traveling downhill, much less how steeply he was going. Tentatively, he took a step forward.
A cracking sound filled the air as a slab of ice came loose beneath his feet. It dropped about three feet and began to slide down the mountain with the beginnings of an avalanche in its wake. Wide-eyed, he struggled to stay on the impromptu snowboard. Mounds of snow zipped past faster and faster, sending adrenaline through the man's body at a prodigious rate.
The ride took an abrupt turn for the worse when the slab rammed into one of the mounds and shattered against a rock hidden by the snow. His screams muffled by his scarf, the man flew though the air and crashed headfirst into the snow. A moment later a wave of falling ice and rock picked him up and carried him along for several hundred yards before slowing to a dead stop.
A single gloved hand protruded from the snow. Motionless.
Shortly after, a larger hand reached out to take it.
Please let me know what you think (and if you think you know who rescued him, don't say it out loud).